Not So Fast on Apple's Decline and Still Cautious About Facebook

We have gone through the long anticipated Apple iPhone 5 release, and clearly the stock market has lived up to the advice, “Buy on the hype, sell on the news.”  If you sold once the iPhone 5 press conference was announced (or bought some shorts) you would be ahead this week.

However, as you know, if you read my articles on a regular basis, I have been suggesting that the real cool product is still yet to come- and that will be the iPad Mini.  

So, why do I think it’s cool? Most of my reasoning is anecdotal. For example, Rich Tehrani sat in on a meeting with me and played with my Samsung Galaxy Note, like it was the first TV he ever saw.  And nine times out of 10 when I am stuck at the genius bar (I seem to be the only in the world with a standing monthly appointment), the Apple employees all want to play with it as well.

I think the seven inch form factor is a winner.  

Personally, I don’t like the feel of the new iPhone. It feels like the first time Virginia Slim cigarettes came out on the market.   IMHO (in my honest opinion), Apple is going to have to deliver multiple form factors eventually.  They do it with the iPod product line, which might get a boost since the product line still uses the same interface.

So look for some new hype to buy into and accept that the missteps with the iPhone5 are going to keep the stock suppressed.

On the other hand, the Facebook stock has the largest amount of restricted stock still out there until mid-November. According to Alexa, Facebook is now more visited than Google, and yet, I still haven't quite figured out how to manage it effectively.

My personal identity and my professional identity bleed into one, and it wants me to tell the world when I am wasting time. A friend works at a company that blocks Facebook from the desktop which is a joke and a half since the employees all have smartphones.

If Alan Greenspan were still talking about productivity, I am sure he would tell us that productivity numbers have to be adjusted. But just because people are on the site, does not make it a business model.   At the end of the day the device in the hand (Apple) still has a better understood future than the software (Facebook).