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It’s hard to believe, but for the first time ever Apple cracked the Fortune 500 list’s top 10. Even though it has been a rough year for Apple, they finally cracked the list by jumping from No. 17 to No. 6, reports The Los Angeles Times.

Each year, the Fortune 500 ranks the largest corporations in the U.S. based on annual revenues. This year’s list Apple placed right behind Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and ahead of General Motors. Wal-Mart is still the largest corporation in the U.S.

It is surprising Apple took so long to make the list and that it jumped so high this year, considering the turbulence  over at the tech giant. The company’s stock saw a dramatic drop of more than $700 per share in September to $461 per share currently. “The drop in stock price comes as investors worry about Apple’s grip on the smartphone and tablet market as Samsung and others begin to gain traction against the once seemingly unbeatable Cupertino, Calif., tech giant,” reports the newspaper.  Despite this, Apple is the only tech company to reach the list’s top 10. AT&T came in at No. 11, Hewlett-Packard at No. 15 and Verizon Communications at No. 16.

Another first for the list was Facebook. It finally placed on the Fortune 500 after going public last May. The social network, which also had stock trouble this year, came in at No. 482.  And co-founder Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest CEO of a company on the list at just 28 years old. He’s also one of just two CEOs under 40, the other being Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer, who is 37, notes the newspaper.

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Because the global economy is still somersaulting its way out of the recession, somewhat good news is enough to make people breath a sigh of relief.

Then again, we’re talking about Apple here. The tech giant announced yesterday that net profit for the company was down 18 percent year-over-year in Q2 to $9.55 billion. But sales were up 11 percent to $43.60 billion; 37.4 million iPhones were shipped out, up 6.6 percent; and 19.5 million iPads were shipped out, up 65 percent from the prior year. Even crazier, the company has $145 billion in cash at its disposal. Like, just lying around. I would like some of those dollars.

With its stock price off dramatically, the company has decided to buy back shares and announced an increased dividend for shareholders. That sent the stock price up and up, meaning it’s hovering around the $405 per share mark. That’s down (check out the graph in the next link), but still, wow. Experts and onlookers are saying that these results are a clear indication that the company needs a big, shiny new thing to jump start the excitement again. CEO Tim Cook said we’ll have to wait until the fall for that.

Today, however, that’s exactly what everyone says Apple really needs. New products would give the company a shot in the arm. Fortune notes that Apple has talked about entering new categories. “This (hopefully) suggests something more than a iPhone5S – same form factor with some new tricks,” the article says. ZDNet also takes a closer look at the prospect of new products, software, and services, saying it all sounds “promising.”

In the meantime, Apple will host a Worldwide Developers Conference June 10 through 14. “At this year’s WWDC, there will be more than 1,000 Apple engineers on hand presenting over 100 technical sessions for developers,” writes Mashable. Cost: $1,599 with tickets on sale tomorrow morning.

What new product or service would you like to see Apple come up with?

BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins. AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Chris Young

Okay. We know BlackBerry and Apple are rivals when it comes to smartphones. But now Thorsten Heins, CEO of BlackBerry, is taking things to another level. According to Forbes, Heins is taking  “potshots” at Apple in an interview with The Australian Financial Review.

“[H]is comments that Apple has lost [its] edge and isn’t innovating in the smartphone market come at a particularly worrisome time for the iPhone,” Forbes writes. Heins is right about one thing: people aren’t too excited about the upcoming iPhone 5. In fact, experts say shipments might fall below street expectations this quarter.

“History repeats itself again I guess… the rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you don’t innovate at that speed you can be replaced pretty quickly. The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for what this invention was all about is now five years old,” he said. “The point is that you can never stand still. It is true for us as well.”

But Heins isn’t the only one talking bad about competition Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller criticized Google’s Android mobile operating system the day before Samsung’s Galaxy S4 was unveiled, reports Forbes.

Trash talking the competition isn’t a good thing to do, says business consultant Mary-Frances Winters, CEO of The Winters Group,  a 28-year-old organization development and diversity consulting firm. “Never bad mouth the competition. It is not good business practice. Most of us learned if you can’t say anything nice about somebody, don’t say anything at all,” she advises.

Business and life coach Dr. Anita Davis-DeFoe agrees. “A business owner should always remain focused on maintaining the stellar quality of his or her product or services, the provision of memorable customer service, and demonstrating value added benefits,” she says.

Talking bad about your competition will actually make you look bad. “Bad mouthing the competition puts your business ethics into question, and in the end taints your appeal to a prospective customer. In most cases, the potential customer already has some knowledge of businesses in the industry that provide both good and bad service, and if you are in the room discussing a possible deal, concentrate on outlining what your business can deliver and refrain from focusing on what the competition can not.”

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There’s a mobile frenzy going on in America. According to a new study, due to the increasing popularity of tablets and smartphones, the number of Internet-connected devices in U.S. homes has surpassed half a billion.

In fact, the number of connected devices per U.S. household with Internet access has grown to 5.7, up from 5.3 devices three months ago, according to a report released by market research firm NPD Group. During that period, the “installed base” of tablets grew by nearly 18 million units, and smartphone users increased by nearly nine million, reports The Los Angeles Times.

“Even with this extraordinary growth in the smartphone and tablet market, PCs are still the most prevalent connected device in U.S. Internet households, and this is a fact that won’t be changing anytime soon,” John Buffone, director of devices for NPD Connected Intelligence, explained to the newspaper.

Looking at the numbers, while PC penetration among U.S. Internet-connected households is 93 percent, virtually unchanged over the three-month period, smartphones and tablets increased their presence. Smartphone penetration jumped to 57 percent from 52 percent of cellphone users, and tablet penetration rose to 53 percent from 35 percent of Internet households.

In the smartphone market, Apple and Samsung remained the top two brands. Apple also rules the tablet market with its iPad.

JK Shin, President and Head of IT and Mobile Communications for Samsung, presenting the S4. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)

Last night at 7 p.m. ET, Samsung unveiled the latest Galaxy mobile devices at Radio City Music Hall in New York Cit. Wired breaks down the five things you need to know: it’s a little bigger (though thinner), has a better camera, more security, an expanded voice system (which was terrible in the previous phone, according to Wired), tracks your eye movement in order to pause a video when you’e not looking at it, and just, overall, has more features and benefits. Mashable also has head-to-head comparisons between this new device and the Phone 5, Lumia 920, and HTC One.

AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Cricket, U.S. Cellular, and Verizon will all be selling the latest Galaxy, according to CNET. But, there could be a delay until May. CNET is guessing a $199.99 price tag since that’s what the S3 sold for. The site also lays it out for us via video (below). The site is already declaring it a “roaring success.”

From a business standpoint, the media is framing this as a challenge from Samsung to mobile phone leader, Apple. Reuters says Samsung is bringing it to Apple “on its home turf” and that we have to wait and see if the latest bells and whistles are more than just “gimmicks.” Already, the outlet says, there are some who are clearly “dazzled” by what they saw last night. For more on the discussion happening in the media, click through to Forbes.

Based on what we’re seeing in the media, most people are pretty impressed by the new phone. The latest features might be a little much for many smartphone users, who don’t necessarily need, for instance, a mobile device that can track their eye movements.

But for the geeks and early adopters, this may be a look into, not just the future of mobile devices, as their evolution continues at a rapid clip, but a look at the future leader in the smartphone wars.

Do you think Samsung will overtake Apple?

Sweet Brown became famous for her harrowing tale of escape from a house fire. And if anyone’s going to profit from that, it’s going to be her!

The Internet celeb aka Kimberly Wilkins is suing Apple and others in federal court for selling a song on iTunes that sampled an interview she conducted with a Seattle radio program, the Bob Rivers Show, without her permission. The result was a song called “I Got Bronchitis,” which went up hours after the interview. NewsOK quotes the lawsuit: “At no time did Sweet Brown consent or agree to have her name, likeness, voice, statements, photograph used in connection with any products, songs, video productions, merchandise, goods, advertisements or solicitations for merchandise, goods or service.” The radio program and the company that owns it, Citicasters, is also named in the lawsuit.

NewsOK says the song was on sale from April 16 to June 29 of last year. The lawsuit was originally filed in June 2012 and has since moved to the federal courts. The lawsuit started at $15 million but has since been amended to an unknown amount.

Sweet Brown’s short clip yielded a bunch of catchphrases that have since made her famous enough to become a spokesperson for an Internet start up company.

Business Insider says the lawsuit against Apple may not hold up as The Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects companies from litigation if they take swift action to remove content that becomes part of a copyright dispute.

We don’t blame Sweet Brown one bit for taking action to protect her meal ticket. If you want to use her celebrity, you have to sign an agreement like WePay did. What’s WePay? Check out the ad after the jump.

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Start counting your pennies Apple fans! Rumor has it that the new iPad 5 is coming in April. And not only will your pockets be lighter. The new version is said to be thinner and weigh less. The iPad Mini 2 could also make its debut in April. But a retina screen doesn’t appear to be in the immediate future, so we’ll see on that one.

And the iPhone 5S could be on its way in August.

“Sources familiar with the plans have told iMore that the iPhone 5S does indeed have the same basic design as the iPhone 5, with a more advanced processor and an improved camera,” reports iMore (h/t Business Insider). TechCrunch says the iPad needs a kid mode. Parents care to chime in on that one?

Just a couple of weeks ago, news broke that Apple was being sued in Brazil for having one too many launches in one year, rendering the devices purchased first “not-quite-the-newest.” It feels like some time has passed since we’ve had a good, old fashioned Apple launch, so maybe we’re due for one. But then there’s the question of demand.

VentureBeat explores the question of why iPad display shipments dropped by half in January. It’s either because something new is coming or people are buying the iPad Mini instead of the big’un.

One thing’s for sure: We pay a lot of attention to Apple.

AP Photo/M. Spencer Green

Apple is facing a lawsuit in Brazil for launching a new version of the iPad just seven months after a previous version had been launched.

The Brazilian Institute of Politics and Law Software “believes that Apple could have implemented the technological updates of the iPad 4 into the iPad 3. By not doing so, they believe that Apple took part in unfair business practices. Were Apple to lose in court, iPad 3 users in Brazil could receive some compensation,” reports Mashable. Basically, the organization is accusing Apple of selling merchandise that they new would soon be “obsolete.”

The article notes that consumers who purchased their iPad 3 within 30 days of the iPad 4 release, Apple gave notice that it could be returned. But the fact remains that there were consumers both here and abroad who began complaining that keeping up with Apple started to require a lot of time and expense. Right now with Apple losing its luster a bit among investors and others, things seem to have slowed a bit.

As we noted earlier today, the new Samsung Galaxy will be unveiled on March 14, about a year after the previous version was launched in London. And then you have BlackBerry that unveiled their new devices (finally) but didn’t put the devices in stores until March.

In business — whether it’s a tech business or any other kind of company — timing is important. Bringing things to market when people are ready to purchase is an important consideration when mapping out your strategy.

AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File

If you’ve tried to buy an iPad Mini in the past few months, you know the wait can be long. Well, actually only a few days. But you know. When you want your new gadget, you want it now!

According to Mashable, the Apple site is now showing that iPad Minis in all colors, with WiFi and with cellular, are now ready to ship for anyone interested.

The tablet starts at $329 and can go up to $659 before you add your cover and other extras.

There’s been lots of talk lately about Apple losing its luster after a 34 percent drop in its stock price and the announcement today that the company has been replaced by the once-reviled insurance company AIG as the top choice for hedge funds. There’s also been a surge in sales of Samsung smartphones, putting the dominant Apple devices on the defensive. London’s The Daily Mail notes that there’s been a spike in sales of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 5, with both phones outselling the Samsung in the fourth quarter of last year.

“With the Galaxy due for an update, it perhaps does not seem surprising that the latest Apple device outsold it, but what did surprise observers was that the older 4S model also outsold the more highly specced Samsung phone,” the newspaper reports.

With more iPad Minis available, we could also see an increase in sales of these tablets, which have been facing stiff competition from the more modestly priced Amazon Kindle.

Are you in the market for a new device? Which one are you thinking of getting?

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Apple said today that a small number of its employees’ systems were hacked, but no data was stolen. Hackers have been busy in recent days, with Facebook saying it was a hacking victim on Friday (also targeting employee computers, also without any stolen information), Burger King falling victim to LulzSec on its Twitter account, and computer hackings at The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and at Twitter.

Reuters reports that Apple is working with the authorities to find the perpetrators. A software tool will be made available to users to sniff out any malware.

“Security holes in Oracle’s Java have been responsible for a number of the recent attacks. The Department of Homeland Security released a warning about the software in January,” reports CNN.

Mandiant, a security company, also puts the focus squarely on digital activity in China. The Virginia-based company says four networks near Shanghai, including a site near a “secret division of the Chinese military” shows signs of illicit digital activity.

“Making baseless accusations based on premature analysis is irresponsible and unprofessional. China resolutely opposes any form of hacking activities,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei said.