What more could the most passionately loyalist Applephiles crave more than their own personal Steve Jobs sitting next to them as they ponder the use of their new iPad or Macbook Air, looking over to see Steve watching with approval; what could be better?

Although most people think of an Apple Store as being part of an upscale mall or some other a high-end retail location, Grand Central Station really is the perfect location, and it shows that the Apple real estate group really “gets it” about retail. It’s about nurturing the ecology that brings together consumers, location and buying opportunity.

You can have a GroupOn activity that happens an hour from now and done by the end of the day targeting a self-selected group of customers who are actually interested in your offers. This is the maximum use of incentives to the right motivated customers. It’s just another way to create opportunity in the marketplace– a reason for customers to buy now.

Yahoo seems to have no idea what it’s trying to do with it’s site. They don’t even power their own own search now that it has been “outsourced” to Microsoft.

What Palm did wrong - just about everything, but most of all was to launch a campaign with a creepy Alice in Wonderland type ad Go with the Flow

Yahoo’s parent affiliation with Flickr prompted many loyal Flickr users to respond with negative comments about this “brought to you by” connection.

Netbooks –they are basic with no frills make buying a computer a simple decision. So why can’t Apple jump into this market? It makes sense that they create something that appeals to their loyalists, like me, in this category, right? Yes, but it’s definitely not going to be a netbook.

With Palm announcing the new Pre, Apple announcing a new lower price iPhone 3G S, Google’s latest Android phone launch, the MyTouch 3G and the Blackberry Storm, where’s the Smart phone world going?