While yesterday Apple only briefly passed Exxon to become the most valuable company in the world for a few minutes, today they managed to close that way. Whether they close that way tomorrow or not doesn’t matter. Whether they continue to rack up these type of accomplishments or go on to yet again eclipse them, whether they continue to lay, an image of the splendor of Silicon Valley in glory undimmed before the introduction of the microprocessor, doesn’t matter.

Today, Apple closed as the most valuable company in the world, by market cap.

And iPhone 5 hasn’t even been announced yet.

What on earth is next?

Apple’s market cap briefly rose higher than Exxon today, temporarily making Apple the most valuable company in the world.

Whether or not Apple again rises above Exxon, and whether or not they manage to stay that way for a while, it’s still a huge milestone for a once-struggling tech company unsure if it could remain in business, let alone surpass the glories of their past.

Congrats, Apple.

I should have bought at Scully…

Digital Daily brings BOOM!ing word that Apple’s market cap has just exceeded Google’s, at $159.37 vs. $157.56.

Good on Steve Jobs and Apple. And kudos to Valleywag for saying, way back in 2007 that this would happen because “Apple knows how to design not just gadgets, but the businesses that go around them.”

We here at TiPb have been marveling at Apple’s unique 360 degree spherical integration for a while now as well.

We, like pretty much everyone else in the blogosphere, probably can’t help but wonder how Michael “I’d shut down Apple and give the money back to its shareholders” Dell is doing lately? But is all this market cap stuff really anything more than a seriously juicy headline? Any savvy investors reading, please enlighten me on how much more or faster this news, never mind the ever fickle and capricious dice-game that is the current market, will restore our childlike sense of wonder?

CEO Steve Jobs (with a veritable chorus of board members and execs answering backup), took his annual grilling yesterday courtesy of Apple’s shareholders meeting.

Among the iPhone related news:

• When asked why Apple doesn’t take games seriously enough to acquire their own Halo-class developer (ironic, as Halo was originally intended for the Mac), Jobs highlighted Thurday’s iPhone SDK event as opening a new door for Apple gaming.
• With regards to the still languishing .Mac online service — specifically the possibility of blogging tools — Jobs responded that we’d see more from .Mac before the end of the year, and with the iPhone SDK, if Apple didn’t provide a mobile blogging tool, a 3rd party would be able to. (Then El Jobso kindly suggested the questioner learn Cocao and write the app himself!)
• On the subject of iTunes movie rentals, and why Apple does not yet have the 1000 movies Jobs said would be available by now, the mustache-twirling serial villains at Big Media were handed the blame, specifically the longer-than-anticipated delays in securing download rights for older films before such rights were ever foreseen, much less clarified. (Perhaps next time someone could ask Le Steve about international downloads for those of us outside the USA?)
• Tim Cook, as previously reported, fielded the question on the iPhone in China, and in Asia in general.
• In what some are interpreting as a rare slip in the long tradition of Jobs not commenting on potential future releases (his ship don’t leak from the top!), longer than normal pauses apparently prefaced Jobs’ no-comments on questions about an X-Serve Mini style embedded home server and an Apple TV supported by advertising rather than download purchase fees. Not iPhone specific, but either bit of tech could substantially impact the iPhone’s capabilities or content models.
• Lastly, when asked why the iPhone always has half the memory of the iPod Touch, Jobs pointed out that things like the cell radio take up more space in the iPhone, leaving less for memory, and that the iPod would likely always take the lead in storage size.

Be sure to check out AppleInsider’s complete coverage on the shareholders meeting in general, including the Mac, Apple Retail, and more.