Some felt that Apple CEO Tim Cook was being conciliatory when he suggested the company would be willing to work out settlements for those ongoing intellectual property lawsuits involving Samsung, Motorola and other companies. At the same time he didn't hesitate to assert that he wanted them to invent their own stuff, so it's not as if he's willing to let them off the hook for perceived patent infringement.

Now this week it's reported that both Apple and Samsung have reduced the number of claims of patent infringement they've filed against each other in a California lawsuit. This action was taken at the request of Judge Lucy Koh, who remarked, "I think that's cruel and unusual punishment to a jury, so I'm not willing to do it." In response, Apple cut their claims roughly in half, and Samsung is dumping five out of their 12 claims.

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Do you remember back in 1985 when some lame brained executives at Coca Cola decided that the soft drink's famous recipe had to change? As you know, the unfortunate case of the "New Coke" is regarded as one of the greatest marketing failures of the 20th century. It didn't take long before we had a "Classic" Coke that was basically the recipe we all knew and loved -- well at least those who didn't prefer Pepsi all along.

Now before I go on, it's fair to say that major product changes aren't always failures. Dominos, the pizza chain, redid the recipes and succeeded, largely because the original pies were never very good. People bought Dominos pizzas for convenience, not because they tasted so great. The result? The chain's revenues went way up.

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In the days following Apple's announcement of the second best quarterly earnings in the company's history, the stock price predictably soared after taking a huge dive. This came in the wake of fears that wireless carriers may be revolting against the high subsidies they have to pay for an iPhone compared to the competition. Certainly the fact that smartphone activations were much lower at AT&T during the last quarter stoked some of those fears, except that 78% of those activations were iPhones. You'd think the other handset makers would be really frightened.

Certainly, the sales figures looked encouraging, since they mostly met or exceeded industry analyst expectations. Take the 35.1 million new iPhones sold in the March quarter. Yes, maybe sales slowed in the U.S., but they were going gangbusters elsewhere, particularly in developing nations such as China. Gone are the days when Apple would depend on the good old U.S.A. for the lion's share of sales of Macs and mobile gear.

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If you follow such things carefully, you'll notice that Apple's stock has taken a huge beating in recent days, not because of expectations of poor sales in March financial quarter, but as the result of fears and, perhaps, profit taking. What fears? Well, consider AT&T's report of a big drop in smartphone activations for the March quarter. On the other hand, 78% of those activations were iPhones, and it's normal for sales to dip after the holidays. Besides, it's not that AT&T is the only carrier to carry the iPhone. Worry instead about companies that make that other 22%.

The Wall Street freakout ended when Apple announced financial results for the March quarter that were second only to the December quarter in 2011 right after the trading day ended, predictably causing a big rise in the stock price in after-hours trading.

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