I for one believe the rumors that Apple will forbid the carriers from subsidizing the cost of the Apple phones. The more I think about it, the more I think it just might work. Once again Apple would be doing exactly the opposite of what you would expect and somehow managing to get away with it. I think this will just be the beginning of how Apple could change the cell phone industry.

I personally rate AAPL a buy regardless of whether you are looking for a short term or longer term investment.

What Biff said… except that there is one dark cloud looming short-term for AAPL about the options backdating issue. AAPL is a good long-term buy, but more risky short-term, IMO.

Fair enough. My logic for the short term is primarily based two things:

1. MacWorld
2. Apple announcing their financials for this holiday quarter. (I feel like they are going to exceed everyone's expectations.)

My December podcast includes some iPhone speculation. If you don't want to listen to the whole thing, the iPhone part starts near 9:58.

i agree that they wouldn't want to subsidize... though i don't think they will be the only ones to do that. i am fairly confident that nokia, motorola and sony would quickly follow suit, seeing as how for years they have been trying to bring the value of cell phones above that of a commodity. they never did it out of fear that the competition would get the better of them. Cell phone manufacturers have been very vocal about the fact that they need to make exclusive models for the different carriers; it cannibalizes sales of some models (motorola pebl or slvr anyone?) that could easily take the market by storm if they were sold a'la carte.

this would probably lead to either or both of 2 things:

1. better plans from carriers (without cell phones to lock you in, they need to find other incentives to bring you in)

2.much more comprehensive cell phone insurance plans.

both are things i would gladly pay a couple bucks more for...