What keeps AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson awake at night? Is it war? Poverty? Hunger?  Nope, it’s Apple’s iMessage. Bryan Chaffin explains why AT&T is right to fear iMessage, but argues that fearing that kind of change is the wrong mindset for telcos.

Research In Motion confirmed on Tuesday that it, not Samsung, was behind the “Wake Up!” stunt staged outside an Australian Apple Store in April. Bryan Chaffin scratches his head and looks for meaning in the stunt.

Apple = Sony. So spaketh George Colony, and so landeth Mr. Colony in the Apple Death Knell Counter as entry #58. Writing for Forrester Research, Mr. Colony said that without a new charismatic leader to take over Apple, the company will go the way of other once-great companies like Sony, Polaroid, and Disney. Bryan Chaffin argues that Forrester is missing the boat.

To all outside appearances, Apple and five of the six major U.S. publishers colluded to raise prices on ebooks when Apple launched the iPad. Bryan Chaffin argues that this is one instance where collusion benefits consumers by preventing Amazon from gaining too much power in the book industry.

Why does it seem that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos understands at least some aspects of technology better than the technology world, especially when it comes to tablets? Bryan Chaffin argues that PC and device makers are stuck in an open licensing mindset, while a retail mogul was able to grasp the value proposition of Apple’s whole widget model.

We were expecting Tim Cook to talk about Apple’s financials and operations, but we weren’t expecting him to show us how much he cares about making great products. In this installment of The Back Page, Bryan Chaffin tells us why he thinks this is so important.

Throughout last week’s Macworld|iWorld event in San Francisco, there was something that tickling the back of my mind. I wrote a little bit about it on Thursday with an editorial titled, “Day One of Macworld|iWorld: It’s Not CES,” but it didn’t really crystallize for me until the final moments of the show on Saturday.

Bryan Chaffin saw a lot of things at CES, but one of the coolest was Gaze, a technology from Tobii that allows you to control your computer with your eyes. In this column, he talks about why he thinks it will be an important part of the future of technology.

If you were wondering, 2012 is it for Apple. It’s been a fun ride, but a tech journalist tells us during the next year Apple is going to lose its cool and get eaten by “the collective Android gang.” Bryan Chaffin explains why he added it as the 57th entry to our Apple Death Knell Counter.

Apple is testing smaller iPads, according to reports coming out of Taiwan.Taiwan-based AU Optronics and a subsidiary of Korean electronics giant LG called LG Display have been sending samples of a 7.85” display for Apple to test, screens with the same 1024 x 768 resolution of today’s iPad and iPad 2. Bryan Chaffin breaks this rumor down to see if smaller iPads could be in our future.