So obviously by now you've heard the news: according to an official Apple press release and the dulcet tones of the masterful Money Czar Fred Anderson, the company raked in a solid $40 million in pure black-ink profit last quarter, thus edging out the industry analyst consensus estimates, and, as usual, sending Apple's stock price lower. (We no longer ask why it happens; we just accept that it does and then go cry a little). Both Apple's revenues ($1.5 billion) and its gross margins (27.4%) were up from the year ago quarter, as were unit shipments-- Apple sent a whopping 813,000 Macs winging their way out into the world in Q2, which represents an 8% increase from Q2 of last year. And Apple pulled all of this off while still managing to keep $4.3 billion squirreled away in a mattress somewhere. Not too shabby.

Better still, Apple only expects things to get better. This quarter the company is looking to boost revenues still higher to $1.6 billion, and profits are expected to be roughly the same or slightly better. Okay, so double-digit growth and a cure for cancer it ain't, but in this economy, we'll take any improvement we can get. Ol' Fred was chock full of other interesting factoids and nuggets o' fun, too; for example, did you know that iMac sales have remained steady and strong despite the recent price increase? Or that Apple expects to fill all remaining iMac backorders by early next month? Or that the company plans to open twenty more retail stores by the end of this year? Or that Steve Jobs recently underwent pectoral implant surgery so he'll look good without a shirt on in his upcoming scene on "Passions"? See, this is the sort of stuff that you miss when you don't tune in to the quarterly results conference calls because you think they're going to be "too dry." (Note: one of the aforementioned factoids may in fact be false.) All told, there's plenty to feel good about in the Mac world right now, with the bottom line being that Apple remains solvent, profitable, and growing.

On a completely related note, many congrats to faithful viewer Matt Freels, the winner of our quarterly Beat The Analysts contest. Whereas a roomful of fancy-shmancy high-price Wall Street analysts were off by about $5 million when predicting Apple's profit, Matt nailed it perfectly, and we're guessing he didn't even need to wear an Armani suit to do it. We've contacted Matt, and he's currently debating whether he'll be opting for a spiffy new AtAT t-shirt that'll have all the ladies swooning or some dusty-but-shrinkwrapped ancient software from AtAT's infamous Baffling Vault of Antiquity™. Be sure to scope out the contest results for more interesting metrics about how AtAT's viewers know more about Apple's financial situation than the analysts do. F'r'instance: the average of BTA entries that were less than $1 billion apiece actually came out to only about a hundred grand higher than Apple's actual profit. Perspicacious? You betcha!