A Fool Looks Back

Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL  ) finally introduced the iPhone 5 on Wednesday.

There wasn't a lot of suspense. The media invitations clearly had a shadowy "5" on an iPhone screen.

There also weren't too many surprises about the gadget itself. Either tech bloggers are getting better at smoking out prototypes or Apple's just slacking off on the "one more thing" magic that would typically throw consumers for a refreshing loop.

Apple's going to sell a ton of these smartphones when they hit the market on Friday. It won't be enough to catch up to Android. The iPhone 5 is just too expensive for countries that don't subsidize smartphones. The unlocked prices start at a stiff $650.

However, Apple is positioned to sell far more iPhone 5 handsets than it has before. It's more of a smartphone thing than an Apple thing. Android is also growing in popularity, as folks trade up from old school feature phones.

It's still easy to see why Apple -- the company making the lion's share of the profits in the smartphone space -- hit all-time highs this past week.

It's good to be the king.

Briefly in the news
And now let's take a quick look at some of the other stories that shaped our week.

• Liberty Media (Nasdaq: LMCA  ) is almost there. The media conglomerate now has an effective 49.7% stake in Sirius XM Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI  ) . It's now just a matter of time before it acquires majority control of the satellite radio provider. 
• Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN  ) merely narrowed the range of its profit and revenue guidance, and the stock rallied. You know the market's been burned when simply reassuring a company's outlook is an excuse for a bullish run.
• Google (Nasdaq: GOOG  ) accounted for 66.4% of the country's search market last month according to traffic tracker comScore. Commanding nearly two- thirds of the lucrative search engine market is great, though Google's slide in July was a heartier 66.8%.

Moving on
A new premium report on Appledetails the opportunities and challenges in store for its shareholders. It's also been updated to include new iPhone 5 details! Check it out now.