Steve Jobs was, of course, an inspiration, a leader, perhaps a hero, even if I didn't necessarily want to be *completely* like him -- sure, it would be nice to lay into an employee every once in a while, but it probably won't ever be my style. And what he "invented" vs. what he "innovated" may be in dispute.

But the dude had taste, and he could sell. As in ice to Eskimos.

And he had a ton of money and still died young, and that's food for thought for any among us who isn't busy doing the stuff we've put on our bucket lists.

RIP, Mr. Jobs. Thanks for bringing back Apple from those dark days and making it possible for me to still be working on a platform I love, the Mac. Thanks also for re-innovating the phone, the music industry and putting your touch on the world of movies, TV, content creation and so much more.

Here's to the crazy ones.

Citing two people with knowledge of the matter, the global news agency said its heard that Apple's Asian supplies have begun building "a lower-priced version of its hot-selling iPhone 4 with a smaller 8 gigabyte flash drive" that's "expected to launch within weeks."

Not only do I hope this is true, but I hope (on a wing and a prayer) that this could possibly mean Apple is ready to open up to regional carriers like Cellular South, which offers great coverage down here in MS, no roaming charges in the U.S. and happens to have a nice, cheap data plan for it's Android phones*.

It seems to me that regional carriers and specialty carriers (Credo, Virgin, Boost) are an area dominated by Blackberry and Android and certainly one place where Apple could win huge converts -- often young folks -- if they have the CDMA chipset ready and they're willing to flood the market with lower-end versions of their already widely successful (if slightly dated) previous model.

(* Full disclosure: CS has advertised with the JFP in the past and I'd love them to do so again the future, but I'm not specifically sucking up here. They're also my current mobile carrier and I'm ready to trade up my Hero and/or throw it out the window of a moving vehicle.)

Update: Business Insider has this chart showing what a mere *report* of the iPhone 5 for Sprint is doing to their stock; just think what reports of iPhones for regional carriers would do for their bottom lines (and for Apple in the War Against Robots):

Wow. That's what you like to see when you're in the business of selling stuff...

Apple said Tuesday that third-quarter profits rose nearly 125% percent to $7.31 billion, or $7.79 per diluted share, on record quarterly sales of $28.57 billion for the three-month period ended June 25, 2011.

Apple is reporting a *quarterly profit* that's higher than their annual revenues were in 1997-8, the year the Steve Jobs took over as CEO.

Just sayin'.

We believe the likelihood of the iPhone 5 launch in September including LTE [Long-Term Evolution] is now remote,” Misek said in a note to clients. “According to our industry checks, the device should be called iPhone 4S and will include minor cosmetic changes, better cameras, A5 dual-core processor, and HSPA+ support.

Interesting that the iPhone 5 might be the iPhone 4s (which would be cool for me since I'm *still* seriously contemplating an iPhone 4 from Verizon and I'd hate to not be the cool kid). The iPhone 4 still looks great, still has the bestest or second-bestest screen out there and has tons of tech life left in it.

In other news... Sprint? Could Sprint feed the iPhone to Credo and other affiliates? How fab would that be?

Here's what I'm curious about -- how much marketshare could Apple get against Android by putting an iPhone on *all* the major carriers... and even open things up to regional carriers like CellularSouth, where I have the majority of my office phones. They're reliable, high-speed and local-ish (also an occasional JFP advertiser, full disclosure) but stuck with Android phones that I find less than overwhelming. (Sure, the phones are nice, but they run Android and are like PeeCees! Ew!)

Maybe having multiple handsets is less important than having as many carriers (and even some variety in the voice/data plans) as possible?

Something like this occurred to me the other day when I was walking around the JFP offices -- our interns have a lot of (cool) Apple stuff. Haven't seen any iPads, but 13-inch aluminum Macbooks seem to required swag for heading off to college, and the iPhone is an obvious complement for that MacBook. (Just the idea of getting my Android phone to connect to iTunes makes my head ache a bit.)

Contrary to earlier press reports, "A senior Apple executive ... recently said during a private meeting ... it would not make multiple iPhone models, instead it would continue to drop the price of its existing models," The Next Web notes. While a boon for marketers, however, Apple's real motivation for making iPhones more accessible is slowing the rise of Google's Android, which has emerged as a top mobile operating system thanks to its wide availability on a range of cheaper devices.

OK, let me get this on the record just in case I'm right and therefore end up looking brilliant. Apple has been doing this for a while -- selling the old phone while they also have the new phone on the market. My guess -- iPhone 4 will drop to $99 when the iPhone 5 comes out.

C'mon now... whose the man? Huh? You know it!

I saw the chart above showing the progression of HTML over the years and, at the same moment, saw my adult life flash before my eyes. Back there in 1992-93 was when I got the gig at the Institute for Scientific Computation as I was finishing my degree at Texas A&M -- my job was to help document a 3D modeling tool (used for oil exploration, I believe) using a new-fangled markup language called HTML. Supposedly the stuff I was working on was one of the first 50 or so websites to go live... who knows.

It must have been 1994 or so when David Filbey and I got in trouble for going behind our bosses backs in the Advertising Department at CompUSA and building a mock-up of a website for the company. In my pitch when we revealed the plan, I made the bold claim that "one day, this website would do as much in sales as any single store in the CompUSA chain." Wow. What a visionary.

But it's a trip down memory lane that also tells me something about myself -- particularly since a former me is the author of HTML By Example and HTML 6-in-1 -- I need to get back on the horse and figure something out about HTML 5! Looks like that train is pulling out of the station.

Apple just put up a monster quarter, and investors should send the stock upwards Wednesday, erasing today's doubts about Steve Jobs' health.

Apple's Q1 EPS was $6.43, beating by a mile, and representing $6 billion in profit. Revenue was massive too, at $26.7 billion, beating consensus by more than $2 billion.

I remember back in 1997-98 when Apple was going to retrench and be willing to shrink a bit -- I think the number was $6 billion in annual revenue for that fiscal year -- so that Steve could start to recognize his vision of a simply company with fewer product lines.

The company just did $6 billion in profit in one quarter on nearly $27 billion in revenue.

If they could annualize those numbers (which would be tough -- they're guiding lower for the March quarter) they'd be pretty darned close to the most profitable company in the world... which might explain their market cap. (By way of comparison, Wal-Mart made $14.3 billion in profits and Exxon-Mobile a bit over $19 billion last year. Apple's $6 billion x 4 would be $24 billion.)

As for revenue, it's huge. A big number. Wal-Mart brings in more revenue, but at much lower margins. But $26.7 billion is a big number. Indeed, if Apple ends the fiscal year over $100 billion in revenue, it would be about the 50th largest country in the world based on GDP.

Cash on hand, meanwhile, has grown to nearly $60 billion (roughly the GDP of Syria) which is about three times the market cap of Yahoo! and nearly twice the market cap of... Sony. Is it time the start the acquisition rumors again for no particularly good reason? (Just kidding!)

From AppleInsider: What does $999 buy you today vs. five years ago? Just in case you think Apple is always keeping it's prices too high (OK, maybe that's a little true) it's still fun to look back and see what has changed. Moore's Law, still hard at work!

Even more fun -- for me at least -- is surfing recent price changes and realizing what I deal I can get on last year's Macbooks via eBay when this year's sexy new MacBooks come out. I love me some hand-me-down Mac action!