"Life is like a box of chocolates"

(c) Paramount Pictures

"You never know what you're gonna get."
In the 1994 Tom Hanks movie Forrest Gump, the ex soldier was bought shares in a 'fruit business' by his former commanding officer and became financially independent from the dividends. At that time the shares in AAPL were trading at $39, having an IPO price of $25 ten years earlier. At time of writing in 2012 they are at $666, and Apple Inc. is the world's highest valued company. Will it stay there? Even with the iPhone 5 and (heavily rumoured) iPad 'mini' to be announced in the next month, and an Apple TV to follow that?
Well looking at the price of Facebook shares on the same day as Apple's achievement, they had lost half of their (admittedly bonkers) initial IPO price of $38 in just three months. So it is not going to be toppled quickly by the 'next big thing' in social software.
Competition in the smartphone market from Samsung and HTC,  may take the gloss away for some iPhone sales in the consumer market, and the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is my current 'wish list' tablet, but I am not expecting them, or a new range of Blackberry's to stop the inexorable penetration of the iPhone and iPad into enterprises as the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) revolution continues.
So as we head into autumn ('fall' for my US colleagues) it looks like the Apple will continue to ripen, and if it can deliver both in terms of product and availability/delivery, there should be lots of (again for US colleagues) 'holiday season' revenues to boost the price further.
So next time you buy a box of chocolates, and find an Apple in it, you may want to hesitate before taking it back to the store.