Piqqem Sentiment on AAPL trended higher during April, according to a new report the company released Wednesday. Investor sentiment, expressed through the 0-4 scale of the Piqqem Sentiment, increased 6.5% since the company's last report on Apple on March 24th of this year. Apple's PC competitors declined during the same period, while Apple's mobile phone competitors saw an increase in their respective Piqqem Sentiment ratings.

As we said in our first report on Apple's Piqqem Sentiment, Piqqem's raison d'être is to use the "wisdom of crowds" to "accurately predict the movement of stocks." The theory behind the Piqqem Sentiment, which is still in Beta, is that if you ask enough people to predict a stock's price, you'll get an accurate predictor of the direction that stock will take in the future, if not necessarily the specific price any given stock will hit. It's that movement-oriented data the company is offering to investors looking to better understand the markets.

(Read more about how Piqqem works in our coverage from March.)

PC Brethren

Apple's overall Piqqem Sentiment increased from 2.66 to 2.79, a 6.5% increase, though still below the 2.96 rating AAPL saw in February. According to the firm's guidelines, a rating of 1.5 to 2.5 is considered Neutral, and Apple sentiment hasn't dipped into Neutral territory since the project launched in 2008.

Apple's PC competitors have seldom straight out of Neutral territory, however. The April report noted that the Piqqem Sentiment for Microsoft and Dell fell during the same period that Apple's improved 6.5%, while HP was flat. In the three months since the beginning of February, The Piqqem Sentiment for Microsoft fell by 19.5%, while Dell declined 20.5% and HP fell by 10%. Apple's Sentiment declined 9%, rebounding with rumors of new iPhones and the release of Apple's March quarter financial results.

Smartphone Manufacturers

Apple's Piqqem Sentiment vis á vis competing smartphone makers is a little more complex: Apple's Sentiment remains substantially higher than either Nokia, Palm, or Research in Motion (RIM) since February, but Nokia's (up 15%) and Palm's (up 32%) have improved at a faster rate than Apple's, while RIM's has actually declined by 16.5%. Apple's declined 9% during the same period, but improved in April as noted above.

Context is king, though, and while Palm's Sentiment has been on a sharp increase, the firm has managed to go from Negative territory (1.07) to barely Neutral, at 1.71. Nokia improved from 2.2 to 2.53, just north of Neutral. RIM sank from a 2.55 to 2.2.

Factoids

Also interesting from the March report is the fact that in the current report female Piqqem users like Apple (3.75), while they are less keen...substantially less keen, on Microsoft (2.0).

The firm also said that Piqqem users that show positive sentiment on Apple also show positive sentiment for Goldman Sachs (3.4), Cisco Systems (3.13), and Costco (3.0). Piqqem users that show negative or neutral sentiment on Apple tend to show positive sentiment for Textron (3), McDonalds (2.77), and CocaCola (2.71).

*In the interest of full disclosure, the author holds a small share in AAPL stock that was not an influence in the creation of this article.