Apple slips below $500

Early Monday morning, the stock price of the almighty tech titan Apple dipped as low as $496.69, marking its first trip below $500 since February.

You know, it's funny. Human beings are amazingly fond of round numbers. Apple crossing $500 is infinitely more newsworthy than $501 or $517 or $539.

Why?

Studies indicate that people find round numbers to be intrinsically satisfying, and that we'll always work harder to achieve them. Roger Bannister made headlines worldwide when he ran the first four-minute mile. His time was 3:59.4. Surely, if he came in at 4:00.1, it would have been an equally stunning achievement, and of course, still a world record.

So does Apple breaking this attention-grabbing $500 level actually mean anything?

Odds are the answer is no. Consumers are still sucking up iPads and iPhones like nobody's business, and the company's even managing to innovate in the moribund PC space with its gorgeous new iMacs.

Plus, through the history of the tech industry, a company's transition from revolutionary to also-ran is usually pretty well-telegraphed.

Sony's Playstation empire was smashed by increased competition from Microsoft and Nintendo.

Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard were beaten up by Apple's mobile devices.

Kodak and Polaroid were wrecked by the rise of digital cameras.

It didn't take rocket science to predict any of these switches, and when it's time for Apple to fall, we'll have plenty of signs. They're just not on the horizon today.