Research firm Piper Jaffray maintains its buy status on Apple despite the company being battered in the stock market recently. The analyst firm foresees strong iPhone sales having completed a national teen survey of buying habits and preferences which revealed the iPhone was a common choice.

22 percent of the teens surveyed by Piper Jaffray said they were planning to buy Apple's handset in the next six months, a huge leap from the nine percent revealed in a similar survey carried out in spring. Of all the interviewed subjects, some eight percent declared they already owned Apple's smart-phone, up from six percent in the spring report, while 33 percent of those planning to upgrade to a new device said iPhone was their pick.

This, in part, is helped by the dominance of iTunes amongst teens that legally download music, the Piper report notes. 93 percent are now using Apple's iTunes Store, a 14 percent increase from last year's reports. As noted above, Piper Jaffray remains confident in Apple's success with the iPhone, despite most analyst firms downgrading their rating on Apple's stock.

A citizen report published on CNN's iReport last week said Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack and was immediately hospitalized. The news impacted Apple's stock price which was already on the low, reaching its lowest point in 17 months ($94.65). Reuters soon confirmed it was all a big fat lie, citing Apple spokesman Steve Dowling as saying "It is not true". CNN is defending itself by saying its iReport site is a venue where ordinary citizen journalists can share their "passion about the news". Following these events, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it would be investigating the false report that Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack to determine whether or not it was aimed at hurting Apple's image.

Other sources are now suggesting that Apple's iPhone sales have already cruised past the company's self-imposed 10 million landmark. The results from Piper's survey make these claims seem more consistent with the facts.