Looks like Research in Motion (RIMM) is benefiting from Apple’s (AAPL) failure to wow anyone with the release of its iPhone for third-generation wireless networks. Shares of RIM rose 2% in late trading Monday, as investors yawned at the latest iPhone plans. Confirming plans first reported by Fortune.com’s Scott Moritz, Apple said Monday that the new 8-gigabyte iPhone will cost $199 and a 16-gigabyte version will cost $299. CEO Steve Jobs says the new iPhone will be available worldwide starting July 11.

Much had been made of Apple’s designs on the lucrative market for business users that’s currently dominated by RIM’s Blackberry smartphone. But nothing Jobs said Monday seemed to excite investors in Apple, which saw its shares drop in afternoon trading following a months-long runup. One measure of the costs tied to the new, cheaper iPhone was an earnings warning Apple partner AT&T (T) issued Monday afternoon. The San Antonio telco said it expects the “subsidized device pricing” to cut 10 to 12 cents a share from earnings this year and next. One is tempted to wonder, however, whether AT&T is simply using the iPhone rollout as a scapegoat rather than saying the slowing economy is weighing on its business.

The options backdating scandal at Apple (AAPL) lives on. CEO Steve Jobs and the rest of the company’s directors face another private lawsuit over the tech titan’s handling of employee stock options.

The Boston Retirement Board claims Apple wasted $105 million by giving Jobs backdated stock options - options that were issued at a below-market price to make the grants more profitable for the recipient. The suit, filed last week in state court in California (case no. 108CV110403), was reported first by FindLaw.com. The pension fund contends the directors who granted the backdated options should be held liable for the damage they caused the company.

Of course, backdating claims are nothing new at Apple. Around this time last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged two former Apple executives, including former finance chief Fred Anderson, with participating in an illegal backdating scheme tied to the same Jobs options that allowed the company to underreport its compensation expenses by $40 million. Anderson paid $3.5 million to settle the charges, at which point his lawyer issued a statement accusing Jobs of having misrepresented the board’s role in the scheme. Apple admitted that Jobs was aware of the decision to backdate the options but said its own internal probe cleared him of any wrongdoing. A shareholder suit claiming the backdating mess hurt the company was thrown out last year when a judge ruled the plaintiffs hadn’t shown that the company was damaged by the practice.

Shareholders aren’t giving up, though. The Boston Retirement Board suit claims to have new specifics that it gathered from a records inspection earlier in Santa Clara County Superior Court, FindLaw reports. “The documents Apple has produced provide critical details about Apple’s backdating practices and confirm that all of Apple’s directors were aware of and participated in the backdating scheme,” the complaint says, according to FindLaw. Investors, who have mostly ignored the backdating scandal over the past two years even as it led to the departures of top executives at companies such as UnitedHealth (UNH), continued to shrug off the news. Apple shares rose 2% Thursday afternoon to $167.

Google (GOOG) shares sold off again Tuesday as last year’s favorite stocks continue to get hammered. Google dropped $36 in midday trading to $450, putting the stock just 3% above its 52-week low. Another 2007 favorite, Apple (AAPL), sold off again as well, dropping below $116 in early trading before recovering to $119. The stock has lost 40% of its value this year after more than doubling in 2007. Bespoke Investment Group notes that another leader of last year, Goldman Sachs (GS), is languishing as well, and muses about where new leadership in might come from. “Ambac (ABK) and MBIA (MBI) have been moving markets lately,” a post on the firm’s Web site says, referring to the bond insurers whose good news has fueled late-day marketwide rallies in each of the past two trading sessions. But “they probably are not the type of names we should be pinning our hopes on.”

One group doing well for a change Tuesday: the holdings of hedge fund manager Ed Lampert. Lampert has been selling his shares in Citi (C) after long accumulating the stock, and in recent quarters his other portfolio holdings have been sagging as well. But on Tuesday, a strong earnings report from big holding AutoZone (AZO) sent that stock up 5%, and other Lampert names followed: AutoNation (AN) and Sears (SHLD) each rose 3%, while Citi added 2% and Home Depot (HD) was up fractionally despite a weak earnings report. Only tiny Acxiom (ACXM), Lampert’s smallest position at Dec. 31, was down. It’s early yet, but perhaps the go-to guy is returning to form.

Investors will be keeping an eye on Apple (AAPL) as the market opens, in the wake of Tuesday’s weaker-than-expected second-quarter forecast. Shares dropped 11 percent in after-hours trading following the release of the numbers and held that level, around $140 a share, in early action overseas Wednesday.

The selloff puts Apple shares a full 30 percent below their recent peak - a level that could appeal to some investors, given that Apple’s been known in the past to underpromise and overdeliver on its quarterly guidance. Still, venture capitalist Paul Kedrosky notes that the real concern, aside from one quarter’s subpar earnings projection, is that the year-over-year growth of Christmas season iPod sales is quickly approaching zero. There’s no disputing that declining iPod growth supports a lower stock price - at least until Steve Jobs pulls another rabbit out of his hat.

Apple (AAPL) sold off after the tech titan offered a weaker-than-expected second-quarter forecast. Apple beat Wall Street’s expectations for its just completed fiscal first quarter, with earnings rising to $1.58 billion, or $1.76 a share, from the year-ago $1 billion, or $1.14 a share. Analysts were looking for a first-quarter profit of $1.62 a share. “We’re thrilled to report our best quarter ever, with the highest revenue and earnings in Apple’s history,” said CEO Steve Jobs. “We have an incredibly strong new product pipeline for 2008, starting with MacBook Air, Mac Pro and iTunes Movie Rentals in the first two weeks.”

But the story was less clear cut for the rest of the year. Apple expects to make 94 cents a share for the second quarter on revenue of $6.8 billion. Wall Street was looking for a profit of $1.09 a share on revenue of around $7 billion. The stock tumbled nearly 10 percent in after-hours trading. Even so, given Apple’s recent pullback - at postclose levels, shares are down 30 percent from their recent peak - and the company’s history of posting huge profit growth, it seems like the stock might be due for a bounce when it opens Wednesday.