Kai Ryssdal: From the Garden of Eden all the way to Sir Isaac Newton, the apple has long been associated with falling.

Not so, though, Apple stock. Three years it ago, it went for something near $100 a share. Two months ago, $500. Today, $629 and change. It’s the kind of rise that’s fun to watch, but that tends to make actual Apple investors nervous.

Get this, though. There are two Wall Street analysts predicting Apple shares will hit $1,000. Each. That would make the company worth a cool trillion dollars on the stock market, and does oblige one to ask this question: Where the heck do they come up with these numbers?

Our New York bureau chief Heidi Moore reports on Apple Fever.

Heidi Moore: An iPhone not just a phone. It’s a music player, a book reader, a calendar, a notebook, a camera, a GPS device, a voice recorder and a video-game machine. And it syncs with a Mac, and an iPad.

Oliver Pursche, a shareholder, says Apple has given birth to an entire ecosystem.

Oliver Pursche: They sold more iPads in 2011 than babies were born in the United States.

It has even more going for it this year: the iPhone 5, Apple TV, and the potential to grow explosively in China. That’s why Brian White, an analyst with Topeka Capital Markets, predicts the stock will hit $1,001 a share within a year.

Brian White: They’re creating a digital grid: The Apple digital grid. Do you want to be on Apple’s digital grid that’s a Ferrari, or someone else’s digital grid that’s a scooter?

That Apple’s labor issues in China won’t trim the company’s profits. Customers continue to crave Apple products and for investors too, it’s also about emotion. It’s called Apple Fever.

White: It’s a company with a soul. You can’t really emulate that anywhere else, right?

For instance, Bank of America ‘s stock has risen more than Apple’s this year. But as Oliver Pursche notes:

Pursche: You don’t see people in love with Morgan Stanley or Bank of America the way they are with Apple.

Moore: It’s an emotional attachment, almost.

Pursche: Yeah.

Pursche’s firm bought Apple shares at around $100. He calls $1,000:

Pursche: Probably a little bit of wishful thinking.

But he’s not planning on selling.

In New York, I’m Heidi Moore for Marketplace.