Is this it? Will this finally be the quarter that Apple's posted financial results will actually be lower than analysts' expectations? Apple's consistently "beat the Street" for so many quarters in a row now we've honestly lost count-- it's thirteen or fourteen or some other ridiculously impressive number, and after guessing low so many times in a row, you'd think the analysts would start edging their bets a bit higher. But maybe they did, and they went too high, because MacNN tipped us off to a quick blurb over at CBS MarketWatch which reports that analyst Kurtis King of Banc of America now expects Apple to "come up a bit light" when it posts its Q3 numbers this coming Tuesday. Oh Mighty Fred Anderson, say it ain't so!

We're not quite sure where we stand on this opinion. On the one hand, there are plenty of hints that Apple will meet or beat expectations yet again. For one thing, the last time Apple saw that it wouldn't meet its numbers, it issued a press release saying so, blaming G4 shortages for the shortfall. That was, of course, a masterstroke, since all the analysts immediately lowered their predictions, and when Apple reported its profit, it once again topped the estimates-- the new estimates, not the old ones... but it still counts! Since no such press release has been issued for Q3, we take that as a sign that Apple's pleased with its finances for the quarter. There's also the fact that the announcement of the results was moved back a day from Wednesday the 19th, so as not to conflict with the day of the Stevenote; given how much great, stock-boosting news is likely to come out of that little lovefest, we assume Apple would try to bury any less-than-terrific Q3 results by announcing them on the same day after the markets closed.

On the other hand, it's also possible that Apple chose to schedule its financial disclosure the day before the keynote precisely because it's got lower-than-expected numbers to reveal. If the bad news comes out after 5PM on Tuesday, and all the good news comes rolling in the very next morning, well, maybe the bad news would get lost in the keynote momentum when the markets open. It's a tough call. Given how unreliable those analysts have proven themselves to be time and time again, we don't want to put too much stock in King's report, but seeing as we're smack in the middle of our quarterly Beat The Analysts contest, we figured we had to tell you about it in the interest of full disclosure. If you haven't registered your guess yet, do your research (or just pluck a nine-or-so-digit number out of thin air) and go enter!