Could this be the long-awaited breakout of Apple? Is this why Steve Jobs OWNS you – and, you need to own Apple?

This stock has been, with the possible exception of Google, the most profound disappointment of 2007.

Never mind the options issue. That will pass. Jobs is too smart to have walked into that. The froth of the iPhone coupled with a belief that the new device must be a failure because of its price point — even as EVERYONE who buys stuff says otherwise — has kept a huge lid on the story.

I think that lid could be sliding off.

Here’s why: We are able, now, to see the power of Steve Jobs. He owns a whole industry with this iTunes, a whole industry. Who can imagine what will happen when we get to iTV?!?

Jobs is the most important man in media; therefore, Apple is the most important company in media — again, with the possible exception of Google.

To me that’s worth more of a premium than Apple currently sells for. Indeed, the great mystery of Apple is how darned cheap it is vs. its growth rate. Apple sells at 26 times next year’s earnings estimate, with a 20%-plus growth rate. That makes no sense and reflects a belief that iPhone’s a joke like Microsoft’s Zune (which actually is funny).

It isn’t.

What people are missing is what was in that great article in The New York Times over the weekend about Motorola and how the Razr wasn’t fashionable. Jobs, and Apple, have a sense of style. Jobs has an eye. The iPhone will sell at a premium and get it, the same way Tiffany sells its goods at a premium and gets it. Or, if you want to use an analogy for the younger generation, how Abercrombie & Fitch gets you to pay much more for its jeans than you should.

The fashion price-to-earnings ratio is lacking for Apple. The shorts have been laying all over it — and Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard and Google — for weeks now.

I think the rude awakening is coming.

Brian Patrick Cork