It seems like every quarter or so there is a rumor or discussion about Apple coming out with their own phone. I’ll go along and call it the iPhone. I am of the belief that eventually the phone is going to win when it comes to portable devices. In many aspects it already has. There should be little doubt that it is already the platform of the future.

For now I feel the iPod is pretty much the perfect portable music device. The integration with the iTunes music store is fantastic and that’s the only way I have purchased music since the day it opened. You can now do much of this on cell phones but I think that, for now, the cellular carriers are charging too much for that the offer and the storage is too limited.

What I wonder is if the iPhone is enough to keep Apple in the lead, since they would be using the carriers network to reach a music store. For me that store has to be iTunes. What incentive do the carriers have to give Apple any kind of break for using their network to get to the iTunes store? Not much. Maybe volume. So Apple may want to become a MVNO and control the entire process from end to end like they do today with the iPod and iTunes. They would still need to negotiate a great deal with the carriers but at least they would be able to leverage the network’s usage for cell calls as well as purchasing music.

Oh yeah, and it better hold as many songs as existing iPods. You can start with Nano levels but eventually I want to stream video to my iPhone as well. I need a flat cost for unlimited high speed bandwidth, unlimited local and long distance calls, and songs from iTunes at the same price point we see today.

Let’s see what happens here. I don’t expect this to happen right away but Apple sold a little over 8 million iPods last quarter and I believe more than 600 million phones were sold last year. As a shareholder I would love to see Apple own a percentage of that bigger pie. Most people tend to replace their phones every 2 years or so to get all the slick new features. Wouldn’t it be great to see them select that new iPhone for their new cell phone?

But then again, what do I know? It would be cool to have a Nano that could make phone calls, but it might almost be too small for me. Remember the iPod Mini? That would be an awesome size for an iPhone.

When a little company called Burst beat up giant Microsoft over its patents we purchased stock in the company. Not because I thought Burst would become a huge company but because I really expected someone like Apple to come along and buy them for their streaming technology.

Instead, Apple goes to court and tried to invalidate their patents. Bad move in my opinion. Microsoft got out of it for 60 million bucks. Apple could have probably come up with a similar settlement, but now Burst is forced to counter sue Apple to protect itself. Although I can only guess how this will turn out, there are really only 3 ways this can go:

1 – Apple loses and has to pay Burst a ton of money
2 – They settle and Apple has to pay Burst a ton of money
3 – Someone buys Burst and Apple has to pay a ton of money

See a pattern? I believe Apple will need to break out the checkbook here because I think they’ll end up the bad guy in this one. Burst is the underdog here. I usually cheer for the underdog, which ironically is usually Apple. Apple is an interesting company and they seem to be lead by ego. We tend to think of Microsoft as the “evil empire” in the IT field, but I have to wonder just how bad Apple would be if they had anywhere near the market share that Microsoft has. Could be brutal.