I do a weekly radio show titled Good Day Wealth with Doug Stephan and Georges Yared every Saturday morning coast-to-coast. It's a fun and hopefully informative show about the economy, stock market, etc. We take listeners calls both in email and live on the air. I got an email from one listener, William, who is thinking about putting 60% or so of his portfolio into Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) because "if Steve Jobs can do it with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Michael Dell can do it with Dell."

My response to William is no way -- don't even think about it. Dell is NOT Apple.

Apple is a growth story with multiple legs to it. From the iPod to the iPhone, the new Mac and its attendant software, to, of course, the incredible retail store system that numbers more than 200 strong, globally, Apple is a true growth story for the next several years. Apple has another thing going for it: terrific and expanding margins.

Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE)'s Flash player is used for most videos available on the internet. Almost all PCs use it for content play-back. Now, Adobe will use Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)'s software development kit to develop the product for the iPhone.

According to The Wall Street Journal, "In comments widely reported last month, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said the company's iPhone hadn't adopted Adobe's mobile version of its Flash program because of technical and performance concerns."

Adobe obviously think Jobs is full of beans. It means to prove that by getting its Flash player on Apple hardware so that customers can watch video from tens of thousand of websites. The Flash player is on about 700 million PCs worldwide, which is why content companies use it.

What is curious is that Jobs would resist allowing iPhone customers the ability to watch a wide variety of content. It would seem that would make the iPhone an even more popular item.

Maybe Apple wanted some cash from Adobe for the privilege of being on the hot handset product, and the media player company said "no."

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

At Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) annual meeting, the company had an opportunity to calm upset investors. With its stock down from $202 to $124 in just a little over two months, throwing shareholders a bone might have been a good idea.

Apple currently has $20 billion in cash and short-term investments. The company almost never buys other companies. It does not need the money for capital expenditures. Each quarter, the cash balance gets larger.

Apple's faithful are concerned, with good reason, that iPod sales may be slowing. There has been doubt voiced about whether the company can hit its ambitious iPhone sales targets. The economy could also catch up with Apple. PCs and consumer electronics are not essentials when money gets tight.

Apple could have announced a share buy-back or created a dividend. Some critics would say that a "growth stock" is not an investment for yield investors. But for the time being Apple is not a growth stock. Giving loyal investors a little cash back would not have been such a bad idea.

Steve Jobs probably thinks he knows what is right for people who own stock in his company. Some investors are probably losing patience with that. Not everyone is a billionaire.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Fortune (which shares parent Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) with BloggingStocks) provides at least two examples which raise questions about whether Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs pushed the Apple board into violating the law.

Two revelations in the article -- that Apple's board decided not to disclose Jobs's pancreatic cancer, for which he delayed surgery because he wanted to try a diet cure, and that Jobs set a backdated options date of January 16, 2001 which the board rubber-stamped, giving recipients a profit of either $1.6 million or $3.9 million -- make me wonder whether Jobs convinced Apple's board to break the law.

As I posted in 2006, Lazard, Ltd.'s (NYSE: LAZ) board may have failed to disclose the illness of its CEO, Bruce Wasserstein, when reports surfaced that he was out of the office with a heart ailment. A lawyer I spoke with said that if a CEO is unable to do his or her job due to illness, the board must disclose it. If Jobs's pancreatic cancer surgery kept him away from doing the CEO's job, how did Apple's lawyers defend the failure to disclose? It surely couldn't have been the lack of materiality -- some estimated that if his illness had been disclosed, Apple stock would have lost 20% of its value.

Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) continues to have some of the most sought-after products in the tech world between the iPhone, its iPods and its Mac computers. Although AAPL shares have swooned down 37% in 2008 after hitting $200 earlier in the year, the good news continues for the company at a time when market volatility has hit it hard.

CEO and company co-founder Steve Jobs is sticking to his guns, saying that Apple still has no plans for releasing a dividend to shareholders nor buy back shares to pump up the stock price. In other words, there's no knee-jerk reaction from Jobs based on silly market antics that have depressed the share price of his company. Apple's annual shareholder's meeting happened yesterday at its Cupertino, Ca. headquarters, and Jobs reiterated that the company will indeed sell 10 million iPhones in 2008.

Still, the market has punished Apple's share price in the last 60 days in severe fashion. The company missed its second-quarter financial expectations, creating a market frenzy around a possible slowdown of consumer cash aimed at Apple's products. Then again, Jobs said that the iPhone would be introduced into Asia in 2008 and Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer reiterated that Apple's investments have "not had any material losses to date on (sic) our investment portfolio."

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and American Idol -- it's got a ring to it, doesn't it? According to The Hollywood Reporter, Apple's iTunes has passed the audition and become the official online supplier of content from the show. Fans will now be able to purchase music performances and videos for 99 cents and $1.99, respectively.

Such a pairing seems eminently logical. Combining the phenomenon of American Idol, currently making waves yet again on News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) Fox network, with the musical juggernaut of iTunes will be mutually beneficial for both parties. Idol is, without a doubt, a show that attracts the iPod generation -- the youthful demographic that walks around with earbuds blocking out the world with music popularized by MTV, as well as the program itself. As for iTunes, the partnership validates once again the incredible dominance of the brand and its effect on the distribution of music. The potential for marketing synergy here is obvious.

Tech investors have taken it on the chin this year.

Since the start of January, the Nasdaq Composite Index is down about 11% amid some ugly double-digit declines in big-cap tech stocks. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has dropped 18%, eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) 16%, Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) 5%, Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) 8%, Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) 15%, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) 12% and IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ: IACI) 10%. Even IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM), which surprised Wall Street when it announced better than-expected fourth quarter results, is down for the year as is Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) despite optimistic pronouncements from its CEO.

How did Wall Street's darlings become dogs? People are scared about everything from subprime mortgages to the horrible real estate market, so they may be selling their tech stocks and burying the money in shoe boxes in their back yard. Maybe there was some profit taking. I'll entertain all theories, but the issue for investors today is whether Wall Street has thrown the baby out with the bath water. In some cases, the answer is yes. Below is a run-down of the major tech companies set to report over the next two weeks.

Apple -- January 22

• Analysts' Estimates: Earnings $1.46; Revenue $9.46 billion
• Good News: People continue to love their iPhones and iPods. iTunes leads the way in digital media. Even the Mac is gaining sales thanks in part to the clever ad campaign. Overseas sales should be strong.
  
• Bad News: Steve Jobs & Co. may be vulnerable to a slowdown in the economy. Gadget freaks may not be able to afford the latest gizmos if they are worried about paying their mortgages. Like Google investors, Apple shareholders will bolt at the first sign of trouble.

Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) fans are what I generally call "fanatics" in every sense of the word. Apple consumers are a breed apart -- they have a love of their PCs and gadgets and defend them with the fervor I would expect from a mother for an infant. What other tech company inspires that kind of following? None in the main spotlight that I can think of.

Apple products have the world's best design and user friendliness from many respects, a result of the company's obsession on the art of the user's experience. Compare that to the attitude of selling a product and you'll see the light. But, there are some things that even Apple fans get miffed about on occasion. The love many Apple fans have about its co-founder and CEO, Steve Jobs, comes from Jobs' obsession on perfection within every Apple product. Jobs can't possibly shake the hand of every Apple fan, can he? That's an unrealistic expectation, but those who have a cult attitude about the CEO, sometimes can't help themselves.

Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is set to release Q1 earnings next Tuesday for the quarter ended in December. Average analyst estimates peg the tech company's earnings at $1.61 per share, which would be a 41% improvement on last year's quarterly earnings. Although some believe Apple is overvalued on the fundamentals and is overpriced, momentum can sometimes outweigh standard market measures.

Apple shares have hunkered down in recent days amid what the market must be considering a mediocre array of announcements this past Tuesday at Macworld. Although a cutting-edge laptop and what I consider to be a paradigm-shifting update to the Apple TV were both announced, there was no iPod or iPhone fever. Unfortunately, panicky market makers started sending Apple's shares down immediately.

But then again, Apple did say that it has sold 4 million iPhones since launch. Next week, we'll get to find out how many of those were sold for the holiday season this year, which could send Apple shares back on an upward trend again. What could be Apple's most anticipated quarterly results in the last four quarters is set for next Tuesday. Stay with BloggingStocks, as we'll delve into the results once they are released.

Although Apple, Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL)'s Macworld keynote address by CEO Steve Jobs was followed by millions of eyeballs yesterday, the biggest "wow" product was the announcement of the MacBook Air, the world's thinnest and perhaps most advanced miniature laptop computer. While the MacBook Air stole the show, an announced enhancement to an existing Apple product should have been highlighted more.

Yes, I'm talking about the Apple TV. That product, which has aged nicely but has seen disappointing sales results, will now be able to download movies, music, television shows and other podcasts directly over the Internet -- no PC required. This is a paradigm shift from the Apple TV's recent presence, which limited the capability of such a promising product sharply. The good news: existing Apple TV products will be upgraded soon to allow for the new functionality for free. Also, the product's price has dropped from $300 to $230.

The Apple TV product, as it will be in a few weeks when the software update becomes available, will become arguably the best equipped product to pull entertainment content from the internet directly to a small box that's connected to the living room TV. All products thus far just haven't had the user interaction finesse or the entertainment catalog Apple harbors on its iTunes store, and the steps to get that content from the internet to the television involved too many steps.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock is falling this morning as speculators and even some investors were disappointed with CEO Steve Jobs' keynote address yesterday at the MacWorld conference. Jobs introduced the iTunes movie rental service as well as the MacBook Air laptop. He could not live up to the expectations he built after the introduction of the iPhone at last year's conference, as well as many of the iterations of the iPod which also debuted at MacWorld. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on AAPL.

After hitting a one-year low of $82.86 in February, the stock hit a one-year high of $202.96 in December. This morning, AAPL opened at $165.11. So far today the stock has hit a low of $160.68 and a high of $169.01. As of 10:35, AAPL is trading at $161.89, down $7.15 (-4.2%). The chart for AAPL looks bearish and steady, while S&P gives the stock a positive 4 STARS (out of 5) buy rating.

Oooh, ahh, oh. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) announced its newest luscious piece of hardware, the MacBook Air, today at the MacWorld conference. Every one of my geeky friends on Twitter wants the newest, thinnest, most desirable piece of hardware since the iPhone (one of my friends has already purchased one, in fact) -- but most of us can't afford it.

Could it be because we're just not Jobsian enough?

I was ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the MacBook Air on Engadget's hands-on photo gallery when I saw this photo, above. Notice something? Each and every MacWorld attendee allowed to touch the super-light laptop is wearing a variation on Steve Jobs' trademark black mock turtleneck. Sure, there are a few button-up shirts, a sport coat, a crewneck or two, but all is a sea of black. Note to self: If I go to MacWorld next year, wear orange! And see what happens. All that conformity could be key to Apple's stock price (seriously!): Apple followers, both spiritual and financial, tend to behave a bit like lemmings.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is trading at $173.15 at 10 am, up a bit more than 1%.

Steve Jobs is expected to introduce the Apple 3G iPhone with pricing in early 2008, and AAPL is expected to report EPS in mid-January. Macworld will be held January 14-18 in San Francisco.

AAPL January and February option implied volatility of 68 is above its 26-week average of 48 according to Track Data, suggesting larger risk.

Options Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com

Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has wooed Avon Products, Inc. (NYSE: AVP) CEO Andrea Jung to its board of directors, giving the Apple board a count of eight members as of January 2008. At this point in time, this really does make sense for Apple and the decision is a great one. Here's why.

Jung, who has been with Avon for over 11 years, is deeply entrenched into how direct sales and marketing strategies apply to women. Although Apple's iPod has been geek-lust for many teenage boys and 20-somethings (among other demographics), the marketing of the iPod has almost always involved women in some form.

With the announcement that Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) chairman and founder Howard Schultz is re-assuming the role of chief executive officer, it gets real interesting. Why?

Founders know the vision and the dream better than anyone; after all, it was their idea. The landscape is littered with founders returning to the CEO role. Larry Ellison has done so with Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), Michael Dell has come back to Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), and perhaps the most successful, Steve Jobs of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL). The founder of an enterprise typically has the passion and the vision to where the enterprise should be. The problem with founders is that they normally are not great managers.

Steve Jobs of Apple had to actually get fired from Apple, found Pixar, develop it and eventually sell it to Disney (NYSE: DIS) before he learned the necessary lessons to bring Apple back. His record of accomplishment will be the subject of MBA course studies, and maybe even psychology books!

With Dell, the jury is out, both on him and the company. I don't like Dell, the company, and could not understand Wall Street's enthusiasm in 2007. Dell's business is characterized by depressing margins -- never a good sign -- and Hewlett Packard (NYSE: HPQ) controlling both margins and the market share. Dell may never come back, at least not the way it is structured now.

Ellison at Oracle has acquired growth through depressed, but smart acquisitions, to build the applications business around its core database business.

And Howard Schultz at Starbucks?