W/the stock doing as well as it is, it just hit $240, up from $220 only 30 days ago…I wouldn’t want to burn any good will with the Apple community just to show off a dot release, unless it was pretty major…the running of multiple apps simultaneously would be the most sought after feature…

That said, maybe this is more of the dis-information strategy from the team out in Cupertino and knowing 4.0 will be a disappointment to end users and the street…Better to take the hit now while you’re running hot, giving APPL time to recoup from the potential damage…or turn shite into shineola…

I’m sure you’re all following this more closely than I, but depending on which cloak and dagger analyst you’re listening to, target is now $270-$300 for APPL – I’m calling this a HOLD medium term (hee hee, just fun to talk like an analyst) until they ship new a Verizon phone – at which point they very well may hit $300…seems fantastical as I recall the 1996 Wired Magazine cover w/the word “Pray” and a thorny crown around the rainbow Apple logo…moreover I wish I still had the email I sent to friends in 1998 telling them to buy APPL @ $9…*crying* if only I had taken my own advice! My $1,000 sell off from my vested shares of M100 would have been worth like $250K! *Sobbing*…

If for some reason, Verizon doesn’t happen…I would sell @ anything above or equaling $250 short term, …as all bets are off, but APPL will have passed it by then I’m reasonably certain…and if they do the dutch w/Verizon…and continue to drive the surface computing, web standards and mobile markets…who knows where APPL may land…and what is all this talk about APPL challenging GOOG/MSFT on search? I don’t see it…if GOOG were smart, they would stick to their core business…I don’t get a warm feeling when I think of Android OS devices…but truth be told I haven’t used one yet either…

Hum…maybe they’ll announce Verizon today? Would certainly keep the momentum going! Enjoy the show.

Efficient parsing of the top tips for typing more effectively on the Apple iPhone virtual keyboard…thanks Howcast. Nice NYT article on these guys today…

So I’m using this new service, that MC Caples turned me onto called LaLa…which to my mind, upon initial inspection…is deeply flawed…meaning…while elegant, I don’t see the business model as usurping the iTunes Music Store (ITMS) anytime soon. Here’s why.

I can stream any of their 7 million songs once. Then I can choose to pay .10¢to “add” this song to my permanent online collection…but I can’t download it…so it’s a “cloud” collection of songs…” and then there’s the MP3 download option…compatible w/the iPod or Zunes of the world…for more or less the same pricing as the ITMS. So apart from my ability to listen wherever I am should I have forgotten my iPhone or MacBook Pro (not likely)…I’m still going to need to download the tracks and manually add them to my ITMS library. Strike one.

No iPhone app as best as I can tell…now if they had one…I’d be a lot more inclined to use this regularly…but still, am I going to eat up battery life to stream a collection I would prefer to own? Maybe to check out new music…oh but wait…I’m already using Pandora…which to date, is a far superior intelligent agent when it comes to suggesting music. And yes, you guessed it…they have an iPhone app for streaming. Strike two.

Ok, the silver bullet I’m sure for some people (Hellweg I’m talking to you…) is the price. Here’s the thing here…If I’m willing to pay .10¢ to “add” this song to my permanent online collection, I’m probably willing to ante up the remaining .69¢…and I’m sure that’s the idea…however by confusing the pricing structure w/this option…they loose momentum…I know Arrington and co over at TechCrunch are excited by the technology…and again as elegant at as the LaLa player is…beating the iTunes store purchase integration, preview functionality, music management, encoding and playback will be LaLa’s biggest difficulty…and one I think many others have tried w/similar models only to find themselves wandering in the digital music forest. Strike three.

Anyway, the coolest thing about the tool, and don’t get me wrong…it is cool…may be the ability to embed a preview of an album into your blog or Facebook profile. Will certainly help drive interest in new music…and I’m sure membership for LaLa, whether it results in increased revenue for LaLa remains to be seen…hopefull it will benefit artists…

UPDATE: Ok, I stand corrected…LaLa does have an iPhone App…but it’s not out yet…once it ships…I’ll try it and get back to you.

Palm sent the folks who signed up to win a Pre an email letting them know they could buy it.

UPDATE: Here is a link to a NY Times story talking about demand…

Ok, I’ve been reading every damn note, article, tweet, and blog post re: PALMs new Pre smartphone. And have come to the conclusion that the Pre will not be an iPhone killer out of the gate. Here are my reasons:

1. The poor battery life will be the deal breaker.
2. People are_not_going to leave Verizon or AT&T for this device.
3. Apple will address the majority of the Pre’s competitive advantages in the iPhone 3.0 release, likely to hit on 6/8/09.
4. The gambit by Palm to sync the Pre with iTunes will only serve to highlight the Pre’s shortcomings.
5. By the time Verizion might offer the phone, sometime in 2010, another manufacturer will deliver a more intersting product…likely APPL.

Sprint’s decision to allow buyers to avoid paying full retail and take advantage of the instant rebate only at Best Buy stores speaks to another major issue for Sprint/Palm; namely the size and ability of their channel to sell this item through.

I’ll bet the sales of this device will peak in the next 72 hours never to see the same spike in demand over time…they’re simply not enough people who will seek the phone out…or trust the slickster hawkers at mall kiosks to drop their existing plans to sign up w/Sprint for a smartphone they need to come some $300+ out of pocket for…and then only to find 20 apps and less than a days useful life in the battery…it’s going to take interest over the long tail for this device to catch on…if it catches on at all.

Anyway, as a former Palm loyalist and gadget hound, I’m interested to see this device…if I find myself at the mall and Palm has done its job supplying the aformentioned channel, then maybe I will see it. I’ll be sure to post an update w/my thoughts on the device itself if I do.

"Oh we'll be doing applications, don't you remember? We had lots of them..."

Ok, so believe it or not…there were smartphones before the iPhone…in fact, PALM had made quite a few of them…prior to my owning an iPhone, I owned no less than 4 Palm devices…2 of which were smartphones…the Treo 600 and the 650…both of which were handy devices…in fact, for note taking, IMHO, they were better devices than my iPhone…which I still can’t import those notes into w/out a mod…that said…the iPhone blows the Treo away on almost all other counts…as soon as APPL made their phone available…and I managed to get my hands on one…I sold both the iPod and the Treo…because I was sick of having to carry around mulitple devices…

Fast forward to ah…yesterday. As soon as Palm announced their Pre product…I signed up for the mailing list…wanting to make sure I could understand what the product might bring to the table…so far it seems to be mostly marketing promises…Palm has a talented team…I believe they do get mobile and touchscreen usability…and IMHO competition for the iPhone is healthy…will provide for better products all around…but these situational videos that Palm has created just hit me the wrong way…They’re attempting to be aspirational…but they strike me as stiff…the feature set, apart from the true multitasking isn’t that sexy…and if I had to put a wager down today…I’d say that Apple won’t be waiting by the sidelines to see what Palm’s next play will be…I suspect on June 8 @ WWDC, in a hail of a possible Jobsian glory, SJ may rise from the dead and reclaim his seat on the throne as King Geek, delivering a thunderclap revision to the iPhone product that leaves the Pre stillborn. Or maybe they’ll just ship iPhone OS 3.0…either way…Pre is going to have a hill to climb…

MobileCrunch has a very good post re: today’s iPhone 3.0 software update, including a citation of definite cut and paste from Mr. Kevin Rose himself on a recent SXSW Diggnation episode:

Certainly cut and paste will be the big news…there is also some talk about a possible tablet.

Props to MobileCrunch for the printable scorecard! I can only hope that the software is available immediately. I must have been really busy to miss this announcement on the wires…