Bittersweet; that's the only way we can describe it. If you didn't catch Apple CFO Fred Anderson's farewell quarterly earnings conference call, you should really make sure you catch the rebroadcast, because we're all really going to miss that guy. When he started going on about his imminent June 1st departure and how his eight years of service were a "real privilege," we got a little choked up; we could barely hold our lighters steady as we swayed in unison. Our only regret is that he didn't play "Freebird." Any chance of a comeback tour in ten years?

Still, soon-to-be-CFO Peter Oppenheimer handled himself well, we thought; of course, it didn't hurt that his material was so solid. As reported in Apple's official press release, Q2 was a happy one for Apple, with a profit of $46 million for the quarter ($53 million, if you ignore a one-time restructuring charge) which topped analysts' expectations by $16 million or so. The good news just came right on coming, too: it was Apple's best March quarter in four years, revenue was up 29% from the year-ago quarter, iPod sales somehow increased from last year's holiday blowout, iBook sales were off the hook, etc. Moreover, the bad news was all relatively minor league stuff: yes, there are sound problems with some miniPods (an "extremely small" number); sure, Xserve G5s were late because IBM couldn't cough up enough chips; okay, sales aren't great in Japan. But none of that seems to be dampening the mood about Apple's success.

Want proof? Then consider this weirdness: while Apple once again beat the analyst consensus and dished out a heaping helping of good news, its stock actually took a hop up instead of its typical post-earnings downward dip. The stock rose $2.65 (that's almost a 10% spike) in after-hours trading, which is practically unheard of following an Apple conference call. If we had to guess, we'd figure that investors are going ga-ga over the iPod sales figures: 807,000 sold for the quarter, beating the holiday frenzy of 733,000 and up a staggering 909% from sales in the year-ago quarter. Personally, we're a little wigged out by Apple selling more iPods than Macs, but hey, even Mac sales were up a little from a year ago, so we'll live. And Apple claims that next quarter ought to be the company's fourth consecutive one showing double-digit year-over-year revenue growth... and there isn't a single word in that sentence that investors wouldn't like. (Well, except maybe "digit." Sounds a little tinny.)

But, of course, most AtAT viewers already know all this stuff, and are only still waiting for the day's big news: the winner of our quarterly Beat The Analysts contest. So without further ado, join us in congratulating (or cursing the luck of, depending on your temperament) Jason Bowman, the only entrant to guess Apple's actual reported recurring profit of $53 million on the nose. For his remarkable financial perspicacity-- which is high-falutin' talk for "really lucky guess"-- Jason will soon receive the AtAT garment of his choice, or, if he's got some sort of freakish geek museum he's working on cobbling together, an ancient-but-shrinkwrapped software title from our Baffling Vault of Antiquity™. So mucho congrats to Jason-- and to the other 500-odd entrant who walk away with squat, it's never too early to start crunching numbers for next quarter...

Okay, enough with the numbers, already; while we enjoy hearing once per quarter that Apple's doing well, the sheer volume of figures gives us a Bonus-Size Family Pack o' Migraines. Gross margins, unit sales growth, cash balance, profit from recurring items, servings per container-- having to wade through all that stuff even four times a year strikes us as way too often. But until Apple takes us up on our suggestion that the quarterly earnings statements be reduced to phrases such as "two thumbs up-- way up" (hello, fifteen-second conference calls!), we're just going to have to trudge through as best we can... and then leave it all behind and get back to the real dirt, such as new rumors of upcoming product announcements. Good thing there's another one of those, now, too, hmmmm? So long, financial aftertaste.

And so: Portables, anyone? If the buzz from those new eMacs just isn't cutting it for you as you sweat out your jones for faster Power Macs, maybe a swig or two of 'Book-centric newness can steady your shakes. Faithful viewer frozen tundra informs us that AppleInsider now seems darn certain that Apple plans to intro speed-bumped PowerBooks and iBooks in a matter of days. Citing "sources with an unblemished track record," AI claims that, come Monday, Apple will disgorge no fewer than eight "new laptop configurations," and even gives the model numbers of the soon-to-ship bad boys. Assuming those sources keep batting a thousand, by Monday we'll have two new 12-inch PowerBooks, two 15-inchers, a new 17-incher, two new 14-inch iBooks, and a single 12-inch model to kick around.

Unfortunately, AI has nothing new in the way of details other than screen sizes and part numbers (but hey, it's all about the part numbers, right?), and states only that "all models are said to feature faster G4 processors and improved graphics capabilities." Given that, it's a pretty safe bet that you shouldn't expect startling new enclosures or exciting additional features; we're looking at a minor "Hey, remember these? They're slightly better and/or cheaper, now, so you should buy them" sort of refresher update, just like the eMac speed bump from earlier in the week. And while you can never get enough price/performance, we don't mind admitting that we're really starting to yearn for a more drastic change-- preferably of the visual variety. After all, the last one we had was the Power Mac G5, and that was introduced almost ten months ago. How does Apple expect those of us with shallow values and woefully short attention spans to stay interested?

Oh, right-- miniPods. Oooh, look at the pretty colors!

So hang in there, sports fans: the odds seem decent that in a few days you'll have a new batch of portables to poke at, and that'll get you another week closer to WWDC and its associated Stevenote, which is where the really good stuff will probably show up. T-minus ten weeks and counting...

When it comes to the business of legitimate digital music downloads, we think it's pretty fair to say that, right now, the landscape consists of Apple vs. Everyone Else. And the battle line is a pretty well-defined one; there's the market leader, Apple, with the iTunes Music Store and the iPod, each of which, from a legal downloads perspective, basically only works with the other. Then there's Everyone Else, including the hardware guys who generally build music players that work with Windows Media Audio, and the download services that sell WMA songs. WMA doesn't work on the iPod; the iTMS's FairPlay-protected AAC songs don't work on any portable players but the iPod. For now, at least, that works in Apple's favor, but once Microsoft really starts throwing its weight around and pushing WMA into the planet's every open pore, can the iPod really hope to cling to the top spot on the sales charts?

This, as you're no doubt all too aware, is a debate that's been raging for months, and so far Apple hasn't shown the slightest bit of interest in either making the iPod work with non-iTMS services or making the iTMS work with non-iPod players. But still the offers and entreaties continue to pour in; AtAT's resident fact-checker and Goddess of Minutiae Katie spotted a New York Times article which reports that Rob Glaser, the biggest of bigwigs over at RealNetworks, "made a direct appeal last week" to Steve Jobs, proposing that Apple and Real "form a common front against Microsoft in the digital music business." The upshot? He wants Apple to license FairPlay to Real so that Real's download service can sell songs that will play on the iPod; in return, Real would make the iPod "its primary device for the RealNetworks store and for the RealPlayer software."

Now, at one point we believe we had a fairly cogent line of reasoning why licensing FairPlay would be potentially harmful to Apple's music business, but for the life of us we can't remember what it could possibly have been. Since the iTMS exists to sell iPods and licensing FairPlay to other download services would also sell iPods, we're having trouble seeing a down side-- provided, of course, Apple only licenses FairPlay to services and not to manufacturers, because if every other player on the market can suddenly work with iTMS tracks, iPod sales would probably take a nice hefty kick in the Clickwheel. But Apple barely makes any money on iTMS sales, so letting Real sell songs that work with the iPod sounds like nothing but sunshine and lollipops to us. (Well, aside from those poor souls who get suckered into using their iPods with RealPlayer instead of iTunes. For the love of all that's holy, why?!)

So will Steve sign on? We have our doubts. Glaser's email went out on the 9th and he says that Steve still hasn't replied-- and we figure it might have something to do with how Glaser framed his proposal. Reportedly the guy "strongly hinted" that "if an alliance with Apple could not be struck," he might "be forced to form a partnership with Microsoft instead." It seems that Glaser is toying with the idea of switching Real's downloadable music format from AAC to WMA, "which would make the RealNetworks services work seamlessly with Microsoft's technology"-- which, for some reason, people still seem to think is a good thing.

Now, we're by no means experts on the subject of what makes Steve Jobs tick, but we just have a gut feeling that he probably doesn't respond very well to thinly-veiled threats. It's sort of a bummer that Glaser apparently broached the subject in such a ham-fisted fashion, because aside from the slight extortion angle, why not have RealPlayer users buy iPods? Especially since their love of the iPods themselves might well eventually get a bunch of them to trade up to iTunes-- and maybe even, eventually, Macs-- for a more seamless Apple experience.

Then again, Rob Glaser used to work for Microsoft, so he probably couldn't help it. It's standard Redmond practice to phrase all business correspondence in the form of a threat, and old habits apparently die hard. Pity, that.