Ouch-- Apple posted its Q4 '02 earnings yesterday, and apparently CFO Fred Anderson had to reach for his red pen for a change. It seems the company managed to lose some $45 million over the course of the past three months, and since it's not under the cushions of the sofa in the lounge (they checked), apparently that cash is gone, gone, gone. If you want details, there are some available in Apple's official press release, and a lot more in MacNN's coverage of the afternoon conference call. In the words of the Immortal Ms. Feiss, it was kind of... a bummer.

Now, some of you might contend that Apple's loss of $45 million should prompt the use of terms slightly more dramatic than "ouch" and "bummer," but there are actually plenty of reasons why Apple's first quarterly loss in two years really isn't all that bad. First of all, we've done the math, and considering that Apple has $4.33 billion sitting in its savings account, relatively speaking, losing $45 mil is roughly equivalent to one of the AtAT staff accidentally dropping a couple of subway tokens behind the fridge while microwaving a burrito.

Secondly, money's money, sure, but every single penny of that $45 million (and then some) was due to "the write-down of certain equity investments"-- meaning that, like everyone else on the planet with a stock portfolio, Apple has been taking it in the shorts lately, and that's got nothing whatsoever to do with how the company runs its day-to-day business. In fact, strip out $49 million in investment losses and a net $3 million in various other one-time charges, and you'll find that Apple earned a honest-to-goshness recurring operating profit of $7 million, right in line with analysts' expectations.

And really, there is some good news to be found hiding behind the declining gross margins, sliding unit sales, and Uncle Steve's proclamation that "we do not expect our industry to pick up anytime soon." We got improved channel inventory management (down to four weeks from last quarter's six and a half); 54,000 Windows iPods planting the Switch seed in inpressionable young minds; and "outstanding" performance by the retail initiative-- coupled with the fact that, by the end of the year, 31% of the U.S. population will be living within 15 miles of at least one of Apple's fifty stores. The invasion continues.

So anyway, that's the "that." And this is the part where we'd normally announce the winner of our quarterly Beat The Analysts contest, but, well, we're kind of still running it. So if you haven't yet entered, be sure to register your best guess as to what Apple's quarterly results will be were, and you may just luck out and win an archival-quality AtAT t-shirt or the dusty software title of your choice exhumed from our infamous Baffling Vault of Antiquity™. (Try not to sprain a frontal lobe coming up with an answer.)

Hey, it's a day of the week that ends in "Y," and you all know what that means: Apple has gone and revised its iMac pricing again! Okay, so it's not exactly news; Steve Jobs changes the sticker price of various iMac models more often than he changes his socks (when he wears them). When they debuted in January, the LCD iMacs cost $1299, $1499, or $1799 depending on which model you wanted. Then in March, Apple cited "rising component costs" as its rationale for abruptly tacking an extra hundred bucks onto the price of each system. Fast-forward to July, when Apple introduced a fourth iMac configuration (with a nifty 17-inch screen) and dropped the high-end 15-incher from $1899 back down to its original $1799. Then in August, the company quietly took the extra Benny off the two lower-end iMacs as well, thus restoring the 15-inch line to its January pricing.

With us so far? Well, just a week and a half ago, Apple then submarined into new territory: it cut the price of the high-end 15-inch iMac by another hundred bucks, to bring it down to the nifty new level of $1699. And yesterday, as noted by MacMinute, the lowest-end model followed suit, shedding $100 of ugly price tag fat to come to rest at a far more consumer-friendly $1199. Which means that if you've long been toying with the idea of picking up an entry-level LCD iMac to spice up that empty spot on your desk, if you buy now, you'll now have to steal less of your kids' college funds than ever before. (C'mon, they're young, they won't care. Tell 'em Enron did it.)

However, we should mention that unconfirmed sources report that Apple plans to cut the price of the mid-range 15-inch model by $50 at noon on Friday, before increasing prices by $200 across the board at 4 PM EDT. Then, we're told, Apple will alternately increase and reduce the 17-inch iMac's price by $100 every fifteen minutes from 3 AM until 5 AM on Sunday morning, while at 6:41 PM on Monday night the entry-level model will be reduced by a dollar amount to be determined by either the roll of two twenty-sided dice or where Bessie does her business on a giant numbered grid painted on a football field-- whichever method wins the coin toss.

Right now this is all just rumor, mind you, but given Apple's previous iMac pricing shenanigans, we figure we're looking at maybe a 70% likelihood here. So keep your eyes peeled and maybe you can save a few extra bucks if your timing is good. It's kinda like day-trading, isn't it?

Ahhh, unfounded rumor-- what would we ever do without it? Case in point: if we mention anything real and verifiable about Motorola these days, the viewing audience usually just wanders off all depressed, because it's either going to be about layoffs or plant closures, or possibly how the fastest G4 runs at less than 50% of Intel's clock speed ceiling. But if we dip into the wacky world of apocryphal hearsay, we can actually dig up a little pep without having to wade through another 48,000 pink slips or listen to Jon Rubinstein regale us with his sparkling explanation of the Megahertz Myth. Hallelujah!

So here's the latest dirt sticking to the walls about Motorola: as faithful viewer Michael Brendler pointed out, the Financial Times is reporting that European chipmaker ST Microelectronics is "in talks" to buy Motorola's entire semiconductor business. You may recall that when Motorola's chipmaking division lost $381 million in one quarter last year, analysts were pressuring the company to sell off the unit; Motorola originally said it wouldn't, but eventually admitted the possibility of a selloff unless the semiconductor folks could find a way to turn a profit within an undisclosed time period. So this rumored ST-Motorola deal isn't completely out of left field.

However, it's worth noting that, according to a Reuters article, ST Micro was quick to deny that it has any interest whatsoever in shelling out ten billion dollars for Motorola's semiconductor unit-- and wisely, too, since when investors got a whiff of just the possibility that ST was talking with Motorola about a potential deal, ST's stock dropped like a sock full of BBs. Imagine that: evidently the merest hint that a company might wind up working with Motorola's chipmaking unit is grounds for an immediate 8% stock price plunge. Here's hoping the Motorolans don't take it personally.