Uh huh.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/02/01/Flash-price-drop-spurring-innovation_1.html

The price of mainstream 4Gb SLC (single-level cell) NAND flash memory chips has fallen 73 percent since mid-August to $4.96 late Thursday, according to DRAMeXchange Technology, which runs an online clearinghouse for the chips. The chips hit a high of $18.50 on Aug. 14. The price of 4Gb MLC (multi-level cell) NAND flash chips have taken a slightly worse dive, 75 percent down to $2.23 on Thursday, compared to its summer high of $8.85 per chip.

So, if the price of NAND FLASH is down 73-75% since last summer, then for Apple's spending to be up at all implies a huge rise in quantities being ordered.

If, for example, Apple's purchase of 1.2 billion last year was for 4Gb MLC NAND FLASH, that would be 1.2 billion/8.85, or 135,593,220 parts.

The equivalent this year would be 1.4 billion/2.23, or 627,802,690 parts.

That represents an increase of 363% in units purchased, or 4.63 times last year's quantity, for only a small rise in spending. And this is supposed to be bad for Apple?

http://daringfireball.net/

However, to be fair, at least two other major blogs posted the same misleading info, as Gruber points out.

ex ped: Gruber doesn't mention this post at all, never mind put a nail in it. And to be fair, this blog was equally skeptical of iSuppli's February report.

"Apple can’t make iPhone’s fast enough"

ex ped: done. thanks for the catch.

Apple has not put any order in for NAND flash which goes into iPods, iPhones, MacBooks, etc.

Sounds like Apple is closing shop and you'll be out of this job posting about Apple.

Add one to the unemployment figure.

ex ped: It's iSuppli's report, Jim, not mine. And their claim is that Apple has yet to make "large-scale purchase orders," based presumably on the NAND flash memory suppliers they survey regularly.

ex ped: No, Zinny. This question has been asked and answered. It's 10 million in 2008 alone. See, for example:

But as Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster points out in a report to clients Wednesday, Apple did clear up one nagging ambiguity: does the company’s oft-stated goal of selling 10 million iPhones in 2008 mean that it hopes to sell 10 million phones within this calender year, or 10 million phones between June 29, 2007 and Dec. 31, 2008? It’s a question often argued in heated words in the comment threads of Apple blogs (including this one). “We confirmed with Apple,” writes Munster, “that the goal is to sell 10m iPhones ‘in CY08′ alone.” (link)

I agree. AAPL could go down a bit, or it may go into a sideways trend or even go up. I am fairly certain one of those three things will happen.

Tommo -

The afternoon selloff was a product of 2 things.

1- Pull back in the broader markets, but more importantly:

2- Technical – AAPL reached a very major resistance level from 22 Jan. )look at a 3 month chart – pref candlestick) Note that the highs and close are almost identical (J: 159.98/155.64 and today: 159.69/155.89)

(I actually predicted this as the price neared 160, but not with enough confidence to sell some of my calls! lol)

My guess is that – in the absence of particularly exciting news – the stock will take a few days breather. Might sit the week out at 142 – 152. Might even wait there (again if no news) until just before announcements (Wed 23 Apr)

But my money is that next week it will continue rise as people factor in reported 60% rise in Mac sales as reported last week. That is really huge!

IMHO

But it is almost always dead wrong.

You always seem to forget how details are an integral part of any story and a less that complete set of facts changes everything.

The amount of times you've been right is so few that a lesser man would have given up and gone back to the shoe store or wherever you used to work before you started at Fortune.

Bravo to your "stick to it ness"

ex ped: If I were dead wrong as often as you say I'm not sure even a shoe store would have me. Who needs a lot of pinched feet?