-The West Coast

I wud hang neither to the Titanic nor the Life Preserver (whatever that is) cos the vortex of the sinking hull pulls everything together with it.

All my money is in inflation linked bonds, and when all the iMoonies will wait for AAPL to show them its powers on the way down with the Dow and the Nazz, I will sit tight and see inflation going to 10% and being compensated for it.

You may have asked ur question in a different manner: what wud you rather invest in – something that goes down by 30% (in real terms – the Dow, watch this space in 12 months), or something which will go down by 10% (AAPL).

The answer is – I wud invest in cash, and protect it by inflation linkage.

Dont say i did not tell you.

If the Dow is the Titanic, then Apple is a life preserver on the Titanic. As it sinks, the Titanic is going to pull a lot of things down with it, including life preservers.

Which would you rather be hanging on to – a life preserver or the Titanic?

It is not so much that the iPhone makes one look cool, it doesn't. No one cares what phone you have or what it does beside you. I just know now that my commute to and from work is filled with stuff I want to do for me. Not to mention I can surf at work without fear of offending any company policies regarding the internet or email, without having to carry a laptop around with me. I can take a game break or read the news. I no longer carry photographs of my children in my wallet because they look immensely better on the phone, which also takes pretty decent pictures as well. I can keep shopping lists on the phone (that is soooo handy) Not to mention various alarms, calendars, movies, music, restaurant reviews and suggestions (again, pretty neat) as well as some other location based services.

Now you do not 'need' those things, I mean we do not really 'need' cellphones, remember the 70's? But the bottom line is that once you have features that you use, you do not want to lose them and the 3 hours I spent inline is a very small price to pay over all.

The apps store is what really makes this device special, and profitable. New cool programs will be coming out all the time. Some will be "no-name" programs but a lot will be from big companies looking to cash in on the Iphone. You will soon be considered an uncool company if you don't have your own widget in Apple's App store.

I, like many others on this board have the foresight to see, that this company is going to change the cellphone industry. Imagine 18 months from now with 60 million Iphones activated, and each one of those customers buying an extra $50 dollars a month worth of Itunes, games, and App store purchases.

All that's without even mentioning that the Iphone's popularity will expose even more new customers to Apple's PC.

I have bought this stock at $125, and more at $165, and would buy it anywhere under $225. As long as Jobs doesn't drop dead (and maybe even if he does), this is an easy double over the next 18 months.

pls understand that for the bloggers who talk below about "addiction", "hurray" and rubbish competition, Apple is more than a commercial corporation producing gadgets. It is more of cult, a kind of religion or perhaps even better – a football team support (in a European way) – which in Europe is almost a tribal thing – you support your team forgettign that it is a commerctial entity – your teams success is YOUR success, your team's domination is YOUR domination and your team's blunders are lovingly forgiven.

this is why people here not only cheer AAPL as an investment – they YEARN for Apple to success.

Almost none of these "fanboys" is a true veteran Mackie, these guys like the product and not necessarily the Company. No, the Fanboys are relatively new to the bandwagon, some of them hate Microsoft (these are the Lefties), some of them just are into the "cool" hype that poseours all over the world want to be ("Apple makes me cool and special, like everybody else who has the white earbuds!") and some indeed jumped on the bandwagon andwant to shout "I told you that Apple iscool so from er, 2006!"

Bottom line, people that que for iPhone are mostly Apple groupies, they want to prove that Apple rules.

I personally find it highly amusing whenever someone at my office or otherwise takes out their iPhone in an obvious 'hey, look at me, I'm cool – I have an iPhone' moment. In some ways, it makes me question whether or not the person has an inferiority complex, and needs to accessorize his or her personality in order to compensate.

I bought a 3G phone about 2 and a half years ago, for less than $100 and with about a 2 minute wait. Yes, I know, my phone doesn't make me as cool as the iPhone makes its owners, but at least mine sends picture messages, and I spent the other $400 on something other than Jobs' Gulf Stream V.