Apple posted record earnings yesterday, yet the stock still dropped amid concerns over Steve Jobs' health (I'll refrain from speculating because I find it tasteless and it's none of my business) and lower projected gross margins for the September quarter (Q4). Although Apple is famous for under-promising/over-delivering, especially when it comes to projected sales and gross margin performance, during yesterday's call, CFO Peter Oppenheimer offered up a very interesting explanation for Apple's lower estimates: new products!

Although Apple historically has a lower gross margins in the September quarter because of the Back-to-School promotion, Apple also added that a "new product that [it] [couldn't] discuss" would also result in lower gross-margins. Throughout the call, Oppenheimer kept throwing out phrases like "product transition," "new additions to the product line" and a little mantra that went something like, "Apple makes state of the art new products that the competition just can't match. When we do that earlier in an introduction, costs are higher."

We had a good time speculating what new products/changes to the product line will appear in September (or in the 4th quarter, more accurately) in the liveblog and the press has joined in that speculation today. ZDNet thinks that products will be brought out at lower prices, so that Apple can drive volume and gain marketshare. Over at eWeek, they are guessing everything from a shift in microprocessors, to low-cost portables aimed at schools to revamped AppleTVs.

The general thought (or wish) in our chat last night centered around new MacBook Pros, lower priced Airs and revamped Minis or other headless Macs.

My personal speculation is that while I expect current line products to drop in price a bit (not a huge drop, but a drop), and think it is high time for a MacBook Pro redesign, I'm going to guess that new displays are part of the "transition." The Apple Cinema Display line is not only overpriced, it is long-in-the-tooth when compared to products in its pricepoint (or even lower pricepoints). OLED displays could be expensive, and it would certainly be technology that no one else is pushing.

For me, the key to Oppenheimer's words wasn't just the talk of lower gross margins -- because that doesn't necessarily mean lower prices -- it was all the talk of "state of the art products that the competition just can't match." That signifies something that the competition (presumably, HP and Dell) isn't already selling a product or technology that Apple is looking at introducing. With the number of patents Apple has, there is plenty of room for speculation.

What are your best (or most outrageous) guesses? Leave them in the comments and we'll all see how wrong (or right) we are in September.

This liveblog will be relaying and discussing Apple's Q3 financial results. Apple's third fiscal quarter encompassed sales between April 1, 2008 and June 30, 2008. Apple reported a record-breaking quarter, with revenue up 38% year over year and Mac sales at an all time high!

You can listen in live here. Please join me in the blog to discuss the results, speculate

Here's a reminder to our readers. Apple will announce the financial results of 2008's third quarter at the end of the day today, approximately 4:30pm EDT.

Shortly thereafter (approximately 5:00 PM EDT), Apple will hold a live conference call to discuss the announcement. We'll be live blogging that call right here, so be sure and check it out. Also, you can follow along with Apple's live audio stream here.

Dust off your portfolios, stockholders! It's time to see what you've bought yourselves.

According to a survey from the Gartner group, Apple is again the third largest PC vendor in the United States. The company nosed out Acer for the second-quarter bronze. (Dell is number one, followed by HP in second place.)

Apple shipped 1.4 million units last quarter, 38 percent more than the prior quarter. In the United States, PC shipments overall grew by just 4.2 percent.

IDC research manager David Daoud credited Apple's competitors with the company's success, citing consumers' disappointment with the "lack of innovation" among other PC manufacturers. Also: Windows Vista. 'Nuff said.

But that's just the U.S. Apple still lags worldwide, selling only 3.2 percent more units abroad than last quarter. Compare that to other manufacturers, who sold an average of 16 percent more units.

Macs account for nearly 8 percent of internet-connected computers worldwide.

[Via Infoworld.]

We noted yesterday that the Mac clone maker, Psystar, was sued by Apple for copyright infringement, among other things. According to a recent ZDNet post, Apple wants Psystar to recall all of the Mac clones sold since April. "Psystar's actions have been committed with intent to damage Apple and to confuse and deceive the public," Apple claims.

"As a direct and proximate result of Psystar's infringing conduct, Apple has suffered and will continue to suffer lost sales and profits in an amount not yet fully ascertained in an amount to be proven at trial," Apple notes.

I really don't see how Psystar will be able to recover all of the Mac clones sold since April. But, if you bought one, would you send it back? I certainly wouldn't. Engadget, our sister blog, is also looking deeply into this high-profile lawsuit. They take a look at what each allegation means for both Apple and Psystar.

With all the current hype surrounding the imminent release of both the upgrade to Apple's .Mac service, now to be forever known as MobileMe, and Friday's launch of the new, improved iPhone version 2.0, let's not forget that Apple also makes other types of hardware that seems to be selling pretty well these days. In fact, according to a recent article up over at AppleInsider, Apple is apparently poised to ship 2.5 Million Macs in the Spring -- thanks, in some measure, to the poor reception of Microsoft's Windows Vista.

According to BMO Capital Markets analyst Keith Bachman, Apple's potentially strong quarter, which ends in June, can be attributed to several factors. Among them, user dissatisfaction with Vista. "Thus far, user satisfaction ratings for Vista have been weak, and startup times for Vista have been known to be much slower than the Mac OS X," Bachman said in the article. "Thus, more than 50% of recent customers buying Macs in Apple retail stores are first-time buyers."

In addition, the analyst added that this problem could help Apple's bottom line well into 2009 and could potentially improve the company's current world market share, raising it to 3.9% or higher. This is good news for those of us who remember the time, not so long ago, when most in the press and analysts like Bachman predicted Apple's certain demise. Still, even with this good news, we still need to hope Apple doesn't do something to hurt itself -- like bungle the .Mac to MobileMe transition or run out of shiny new iPhones at 8:30AM on Friday. That would not be a good thing.

In another chapter in the scandal surrounding Apple's choice to back-date options granted to key executives (including Steve Jobs), two plaintiffs have filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court against two former executives and members of Apple's board of directors.

Apple was sued similarly in 2007 by the New York City Employees' Retirement System, and the case was dismissed.

The suit names Steve Jobs, former counsel Nancy Heinen, and board members William Campbell, Millard Drexler, Arthur Levinson, and Jerry York. It contends that the accused intentionally filed false documents, hiding stock option grants to the higher-ups.

Apple, in an internal investigation, cleared Jobs of any wrongdoing, leading many to speculate that the company threw Heinen and former CFO Fred Anderson under the proverbial bus to protect the company's image.

[Via Macworld.]

Once again, it's that time of year when tourists flock to the beaches, students leave their books behind and Apple executives describe how they've made much more money than the rest of us.

Earlier this week, Apple announced that their third-quarter earnings call will take place on July 21, 2008, at 2 p.m. Pacific time. It's been an up-and-down quarter for Apple's stock. It should also be noted that this will be the first report to contain information on sales of the iPhone 3G, assuming they do go on sale on July 11th without a glitch.

We'll be live blogging the call, so be sure and check back on the 21st. See you then!

Jenny Lai, an analyst at CLSA Emerging Markets wrote in a report that Apple could sell as many as 18 million new iPhones this year. Lai covers news surrounding Hon Hai Precision Industry, Apple's iPhone manufacturing partner in China.

"The higher expectation on the 3G iPhone reflects attractive prices and a broader distribution channel (availability [in about] 70 countries)," she wrote.

Considering the year will be more than half over when the new iPhones are available in stores, this is (in my opinion) a pretty aggressive six-month target. (I'm no financial analyst, though.) According to a Dow Jones interview, six million iPhones have been sold since their introduction last year.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster agrees, saying that 12 million units this year "now looks like a lay-up." For 2009, Munster projects Apple could sell 45 million handsets. Compare that to the popular Motorola RAZR, which has sold 50 million units since 2005.

[Via Macworld.]

In heavy trading volume today, Apple stock (AAPL) is down four percent after initially dropping to 176.23 halfway through the keynote at 1:55 p.m. Eastern time.

At the time of posting, AAPL was trading near 177, which is a decline of over four percent since the closing bell yesterday Friday. (It's been a long day.)

Apple stock has taken hits in the past on announcement days, usually due to traders looking to make a quick buck from the high interest surrounding coverage of the event.

An update, after the jump.

BusinessWeek has ranked Apple #2 on its list of the Infotech 100. This list is designed to rank tech companies on their fundamental economic strength, taking into account "shareholder return, return on equity, total revenues, and revenue growth."

Apple was up from 6th place last year and came in behind only Amazon.com. Microsoft is well back at #23; Google is #11, while HP is #30 and Dell did not even make the list. Apple's winning spell just keeps on going.

[via electronista]

It may be the cruelest month, but for Mac buyers apparently April was hotter than the middle of summer, AppleInsider reports. An analyst note from Lehman Brothers quotes NPD data with a 50% year-over-year boost in Mac sales last month, combined with a 15% bump in iPod unit sales for the same period versus the year-ago data.

Granted, in April of last year we didn't yet have Leopard to entice buyers, and the product line was beginning to seem a trifle long in the tooth, but what's impressive to me about this sales surge is that it smiles in the face of economic uncertainty, increased cost of living and general fiscal heebie-jeebies. Do Macs make people feel more secure and happier, or do they just seem like a more stable and dependable choice versus buying a new PC and having to roll forward to Vista?

In the "premium" computer market -- at least, for machines sold in brick and mortar stores -- Apple holds its own as number one. For the first quarter of this year, Macs accounted for 66 percent of computers that retailed for over $1,000, according to eWeek.

That's not all: 70 percent of desktops sold at the same price point (or higher) are made by Apple too.

Even though sales at physical stores represent only a fraction of the overall computer market, what's most impressive for this stat is the year-over-year growth. Apple had 18 percent of the premium market in January 2006. That grew to 57 percent in September 2007, and just six months later rose to 66 percent. In the same eWeek article, Joe Wilcox quotes NPD's Stephen Baker as saying "Windows notebooks had 'zero percent' growth year over year [and] Apple notebooks had '50 to 60 percent growth.'"

Of course, overall, Apple makes 14 percent of computers sold at retail. Compare that to Apple's nadir in the late 90s of around two percent, and you can see how the changes Apple made to its distribution and retail strategy over the last decade have really paid off.

[via Apple 2.0]

Canadian owners of first-, second- or third-generation iPods may want to keep an eye on their email boxes (provided that they purchased said iPod(s) before June 24th, 2004). The Montreal Gazette is reporting that up to 80,000 Canadians (including 11,310 Québécois) could be eligible for a $45 credit from Apple as the result of two class action lawsuits. The suit involved the iPod battery's dramatic decrease in capacity after two years of use.

Though the deal is still tentative, it is expected to be finalized by a Montreal court on May 26th.

[Via iPodNN]

There's no love lost between Steve Jobs and Dell founder Michael Dell. Back in 1997, when Michael was CEO of Dell, he famously told a group of IT big wigs, ""What would I do [if I were in charge of Apple]? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."

Oh, Michael. That's the kind of statement that waits in a corner for years, thinking, "I'm going to bite him in the backside ... hard."

The time has come. Earlier today, Apple rose $6.05 (3.48%) in NASDAQ trading, closing at $180.00. Compared to Dell's standing, Apple's market value of $158.66 billion is now four times Dell's $38.97 billion.

Only a year ago, we were excited that Apple had doubled Dell's value. Here's to the next twelve months.