Shares of Apple Inc. earlier this week rose briefly to $188.00 to set a new all-time intraday high and take the market value of Apple past that of both IBM and Intel. At $188 Apple's market cap would be $163.8BN compared to Intel's $156.3BN and IBM's $154.6BN. Apple would come in at third place after Microsoft ($290.3BN) and Google ($206.1BN).

Of the nearly 1.4 million iPhones sold since it was introduced in June, an estimated 250,000 of them were purchased by people trying to unlock them so that they can use the iPhone on a cell phone carrier other than Apple's dedicated partner, AT&T.

This admission came on Monday from Apple executives who were announcing record results for the three months that ended Sept. 29.

Apple's chief operating officer Tim Cook told analysts in a conference call that  Apple sold 1.12 million iPhones in the first full quarter of iPhjone sales, bringing the cumulative total to 1.39 million sold since it was introduced on June 29.

"It took us over two years to achieve a comparable number for the iPod," Cook old analysts, "So we're thrilled here."

According to Cook, the September decision to slash $200 off the price of the 8-gigabyte model, bringing it down to $399, helped boost sales.