It's that time again-- time for Apple's quarterly 10-Q filing with the SEC, and thanks to the magic of the Internet (long may its light illuminate our path to new and creative forms of work avoidance!), you lucky fans get to read the whole thing online if you're so inclined. Personally, our attention spans are freakishly short, so trying to forge through 5000 words peppered liberally with terms like "interest rate hedge positions" and "income and expense associated with derivative instruments" is likely to throw us into a coma. Instead, we skim, and try to find the juicy bits before we get distracted by a dust mote or one of those baffling "Urge To Herbal" commercials showing up on TV. (Somebody please conjugate that adjective!)

Wait, what were we talking about again? Oh yeah, the 10-Q. Well, as veterans of this game are all too aware, the real joy in any 10-Q is the "Factors That May Affect Future Results And Financial Condition" section, since it's always a real downer. For reasons beyond the grasp of our teeny little financial minds, 10-Q filings are always notoriously negative, as the company in question tries its hardest to list every conceivable future scenario that might cause worse-than-expected results; it's probably some kind of cover-your-butt thing so the CFO can say "don't say we didn't warn you" if the unthinkable happens, the stock tanks, and the SEC starts poking around looking for evidence of insider trading or what have you.

So, without further ado, here are just a few of the factors and "uncertainties" that Apple considers risks to its still-expected return to profitability:

• "industry wide pricing pressures and downward pressures on gross margins"
• "Internet devices that are smaller and simpler than traditional personal computers may compete for market share"
• "competitors have introduced or announced plans to introduce products that mimic many of the unique design, technical features, and solutions of [Apple's] products"
• "competitors have greater financial, marketing, manufacturing, and technological resources, as well as broader product lines and larger installed customer bases"
• "continued or worsening worldwide and regional economic conditions"
• "risks associated with product introductions and transitions, including the planned introduction of Mac OS X"
• "risk that [Apple] will forecast incorrectly and produce or order from third parties excess or insufficient inventories of particular products" (yeah, like that ever happens!)
• "the availability of certain components... including PowerPC RISC microprocessors developed by and obtained from IBM and Motorola"
• "risks associated with international operations, including economic and labor conditions, regional economic problems, political instability, tax laws, and currency fluctuations"

And that's nowhere near all of 'em. Talk about a closet full of nightmares! We bet money dude Fred Anderson occasionally wakes up screaming in a cold sweat, plagued by night terrors in which he's pursued relentlessly by currency fluctuations and new titanium laptops from Dell. Heck, we don't even work for the company, and after scoping the 10-Q, we figure we might not be sleeping all that soundly tonight...