So how'd you do when playing the Beat The Analysts home game? We made out pretty well; our guess of $190 million only missed the mark by $7 mil, so we won a Pop-Tart. (Well, actually, the vegan equivalent-- a frosted cherry Toast-N-Jammer.) That means we're happy. Guess who else is happy? Well, Apple is, for one: a massively Street-beating $183 million profit, a 45% increase in earnings for the quarter (when the industry overall only grew 17%), the biggest Mac unit sales quarter in the company's history-- yeah, they're happy. The analysts seemed pretty happy, too, judging by the tone of the questions asked during the conference call. And you know the stockholders must be happy; they'll probably be even happier if all this great news pushes AAPL even higher. (At broadcast time, AAPL was up almost eleven points, a hair short of its all-time high.) Apple's got a press release highlighting the happy news, and MacNN's got a nice summary of the whole conference call in case you missed it.

Now, considering the whole conference call thing, this was the first time we've ever heard one. Our QuickTime stream was a little choppy, which was annoying, but everything said was pretty much understandable. Or, at least, it was intelligible; it was only "understandable" if you comprehend all that stuff about deluded shares and year-over-year channel gross cash operating whoozis. Sadly, nothing particularly goofy happened to liven up the proceedings-- there was no point at which a flock of syrup-coated geese was released into Fred Anderson's office and sticky honking chaos ensued, for example. Maybe next quarter. Still, we were most amused by the analysts' repeated attempts to get Fred to talk about Apple's unannounced products like the MIA Pismo PowerBook. "Maybe if we ask him enough times, he'll tell us just so we'll shut up" seemed to be the plan. But Fred held his ground; "Apple doesn't comment on unannounced products." Good boy, Fred. Have a cookie.

All in all, it was a shiny, happy event indeed; big profits, big growth, lots of cash on hand, and a team ready to take things to the next level. Oh, sure, there was that niggling little point about Apple's decline in gross margins-- it dropped to 25.9%, down three percentage points from a year ago-- but given those RAM price increases and the shipping costs Apple incurred to keep product on the shelves over the holidays, we're not really worried. Next quarter won't be nearly as jaw-droppingly terrific, if history's any indicator, but we're confident we'll all be looking at a tenth consecutive Street-beating profit in any case. And here's hoping for some wacky barnyard noises during the next conference call.

So the conference call was a virtual love-in, what with all the great news. Happiest of all, though, is Steve Jobs. Now that Apple's iCEO-for-life is finally an officially permanent fixture down there in Cupertino, he's getting a raise. Well, okay, not really a raise, actually... he's still getting the same old $1 a year as a salary. But he scored a nice bonus: ten million shares in stock options and a plane. Sure beats the fruit basket you got from your boss last Christmas, doesn't it?

Yup, according to a press release, Apple's board voted unanimously to give Steve a Gulfstream V jet "in recognition of his service to the Company." Better yet, Steve won't even be taking a big tax hit because of the gift. You know that one-time charge of $90 million that shows up as a "special executive bonus" in Apple's end-of-quarter finances? That's $45 million for the jet itself "plus money to offset the impact on Mr. Jobs's taxes," according to the New York Times. Jerry York, a member of the Board, claims the jet "will be operated at Mr. Jobs's expense." So we suppose it didn't come fully-fueled with a year's supply of those little pretzels and a fully-trained flight crew in a box. Still, that's not a bad bonus.

If you're wondering what Steve's planning to do with his new toy, he claims it'll "help him coordinate his two jobs and his family life." Remember back when he bought a helicopter to help him zip between Apple and Pixar? Apparently now he's planning on throwing this jet into the commuter mix. We can just see him parking the thing in his driveway after a tough day of being a dual CEO... Steve in a t-shirt and cut-offs washing the jet on Saturday morning... the neighborhood kids accidentally denting the side panels while playing ball... Idyllic, isn't it? See, billionaires are just like us after all.

Meanwhile, all sorts of crazy stuff seems to be happening overseas right now. We assume you're aware of Apple's apparent ongoing campaign against the British, right? For the past several years, Apple's continually withdrawn from England's Apple Expo (think Macworld Expo but with different accents) even after promising to show up and bring Steve Jobs for a keynote. Such actions have led to plenty of ill will, lost revenue, and litigious thoughts over there across the Atlantic-- and insult-to-injury moves like canceling the British English edition of the Mac OS just made things worse. We understand it's just not a very fun time to be a Mac user in the UK these days.

But the assault doesn't stop there; last month Apple laid off the entire UK marketing staff, which may seem well in keeping with the whole "Let's Annoy The British" campaign. And now faithful viewer Kevin Lee claims that as of the end of this month, "all Apple Store / AppleCare / Apple tech support people are being laid off or relocated to Cork, Ireland." We should stress that Kevin's our only source on this story so far, but it seems pretty much in line with everything else that's been happening over there. The downsizing continues.

But is this purely an anti-English attack on Apple's part? On the contrary-- it's pro-French! Think about it: the Apple Expo in England gets the shaft, but Apple Expo in Paris not only gets Apple in full attendance, but also receives a full-fledged Steve Jobs keynote. On top of that, faithful viewer Jens Baumeister notes that Apple's German marketing department is being downsized, and that certain functions will be taken over by-- you guessed it-- Apple France. Sounds like a French coup! The more we hear about this stuff, the more we wonder if an Apple United Nations might not be a good idea...