That’s the gist of an argument put forth this week by Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett, who believes that with the iPhone and App Store, Apple (AAPL) has upended the wireless market in much the same way it upended the music industry with the iPod and iTunes.

“It wasn’t that long ago that AT&T’s exclusive agreement with Apple’s iconic iPhone looked like a customer relations masterstroke for the carrier,” Moffett wrote in a note to clients. “AT&T Mobility, a brand that had once been cingular-ly stodgy and tired, was suddenly, well, relevant again. Apple’s iPhone meant that AT&T was the place for cool handsets. Better, it was the place for wireless data….Somewhere along the way, however, Apple has stolen the march, and in the process has recast AT&T from hero to villain.”

AT&T, says Moffett, was roundly jeered at every mention at Apple’s last Worldwide Developer Conference. And, as someone who attended that event, I can attest that this was indeed the case. Certainly the revelation that AT&T (T) wasn’t yet supporting iPhone features like MMS and tethering did not go over well with the WWDC audience, which was already abuzz with criticisms of the carrier’s slow data connections.

With the iPhone, Apple made AT&T Mobility relevant again. It brought the company millions of new subscribers. But in the process, Apple also realigned the strategic playing field in its favor. Radically. Writes Moffett: “Remarkably, Apple has so thoroughly stolen the customer relationship–who would argue that Apple iPhone customers’ first affinity is to the device rather than to the network–that the network is not only irrelevant, it is rather a source of derision.”

As NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker said back in 2007, “Apple has destroyed the music business and if we don’t take control, they’ll do the same thing on the video side.”

Or, perhaps, to the wireless business.

Wall Street seems convinced that the Pre is not a postscript for Palm (PALM), but the beginnings of its rebirth. A historic turning point worthy of a trading bacchanal. Indeed, expressing a “renewed confidence in Palm’s prospects, Standard & Poor’s raised its target price on the company to $4.50 from $2.50. “Pre uses a new operating system that allows for the merging of multiple data sources,” Standard & Poor’s analyst Todd Rosenbluth said in a research note. “While the new system has been in long-term development, we believe it could help to bring consumer and carrier interest back to PALM’s devices, which have been losing market share.”

Matt Hoffman of Cowen & Co. agreed. “We believe WebOS will immediately be competitive with the industry’s most advanced mobile platforms, including Apple’s OS X and Google’s Android,” he wrote in a research note to investors.

Other analysts, while similarly optimistic, tempered their enthusiasm with hardcore market realities.

“Palm’s challenge will be to steal at least some of the thunder from the heavyweight contenders in the smartphone market,” said Charlie Wolf of Needham & Co. “In our opinion, the Pre clearly outshines Windows Mobile and Google’s Android platform in their current iterations. But whether it can gain breathing room in an increasingly crowded market remains an open question, especially in view of the prospect that stunning new operating systems and smartphones will also debut during the year.”

“Palm came out with guns blazing,” he told RCR Wireless. “They met or exceeded expectations. This gives the company a sense of momentum and a return to confidence. Of course, the bigger question is how the device is marketed. Will it launch on time? Will AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless get on board? Sprint alone isn’t enough to save the day. The profitability impact at this point is unknown.”