Apple announced its financial results for the fiscal 2012 first quarter today. It was another record breaking quarter. Apple posted record quarterly revenues of $46.33 billion and record quarterly net profitsof $13.06 billion. A 27 percent increase in iPhones sold from the same quarter a year ago. That is just over 37 million iPhones. Apple also sold 5.2 million Macs, 15.43 million iPads and 15.4 million iPods. Way to go Apple, we salute you! Here is the official release from Apple.

Apple's senior vice president of industrial design, Jonathan Ive, have been reported by BBC to have been placed on the list of people to be knighted this year. Ive described the honour as "absolutely thrilling" and said he was "both humbled and sincerely grateful". Per Apple's leadership page Jonathan Ive is London-born and is the senior vice president of Industrial Design at Apple, reporting directly to the CEO. Since 1996, he has been responsible for leading a design team widely regarded as one of the world’s best. According to Steve Jobs' biography by Walter Isaacson, Jobs confided that he had left Ive with "more operational power" than anyone else at the company. For me just opening the box of a new iPhone, iPad or Mac is an amazing experience, the design of box and it's contents is first class. Well done Jonathan you deserve being called Sir Ive. So what do you think about Apple's leadership team?

In the latest Apple Christmas iPhone ad, Santa asks Siri for directions, the weather in different cities, email requests and even checks his appointments for the rest of day which amounts to 3.7 billion appointments. So have you been using Siri on your iPhone 4S? How are you liking it? As much as Santa is!

Apple Retail Stores are promoting Aids Free day by drawing attention to their red products which raises money to fight Aids in Africa. Apple sells red Nano's, red iPad covers, red iTunes gift cards and red Beats headphones. In addition, Apple is promoting an Aids Free Generation and is supporting the cause by supporting The Names Project Foundation and the Aids Quilt. Apple has a link to 2015quilt.com on its home page where you can build your own panel for the 2015 Aids Quilt and make a pledge.

Last night, CBS 60 Minutes interviewed Walter Isaacson, author of the Steve Jobs biography that went on sale today. 60 Minutes takes a look at Steve’s early days and interviews Isaacson to get a sense of Steve’s thinking, personality, life and competitors. Isaacson provides some of the details about Steve’s parents as well as his biological sister, mother and father. Here is the 60 Minutes episode that aired last night.

Apple announced its financial results for the fiscal 2011 fourth quarter at a live webcast at 2 p.m. PST today. It was another record breaking quarter. A 26 percent increase in Macs sold from the same quarter a year ago. That is just over 4.8 million Macs. Apple also sold 17.07 million iPhones and 11.12 million iPads. Way to go Apple, we at iCrazee salute you! Here is the official release from Apple:

CUPERTINO, California—October 18, 2011—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2011 fourth quarter ended September 24, 2011. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $28.27 billion and quarterly net profit of $6.62 billion, or $7.05 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $20.34 billion and net quarterly profit of $4.31 billion, or $4.64 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 40.3 percent compared to 36.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 63 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

The Company sold 17.07 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 21 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 11.12 million iPads during the quarter, a 166 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 4.89 million Macs during the quarter, a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 6.62 million iPods, a 27 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

“We are thrilled with the very strong finish of an outstanding fiscal 2011, growing annual revenue to $108 billion and growing earnings to $26 billion,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Customer response to iPhone 4S has been fantastic, we have strong momentum going into the holiday season, and we remain really enthusiastic about our product pipeline.”

“We are extremely pleased with our record September quarter revenue and earnings and with cash generation of $5.4 billion during the quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the first fiscal quarter of 2012, which will span 14 weeks rather than 13, we expect revenue of about $37 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $9.30.”

Last friday, October 14, the iPhone 4S became official and crowds lined up outside Apple Retail Stores and Wireless Carriers to get their hands on one. I on the other hand chose to pre-order an iPhone 4S online instead of fighting the crowds. However, I am still waiting for my iPhone 4S which according to the pre-order status page and emails I have been getting, should arrive any day now. In the meantime Apple announced they sold 4 million units over the past weekend. That's incredible! So have you pre-ordered an iPhone 4S? Here is a snippet of Apple's announcement of the record pre-orders:

CUPERTINO, California—October 17, 2011— Apple® today announced it has sold over four million of its new iPhone® 4S, just three days after its launch on October 14. In addition, more than 25 million customers are already using iOS 5, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system, in the first five days of its release, and more than 20 million customers have signed up for iCloud®, a breakthrough set of free cloud services that automatically and wirelessly store your content in iCloud and push it to all your devices. iPhone 4S is available today in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the UK, and will be available in 22 more countries on October 28 and more than 70 countries by the end of the year. “iPhone 4S is off to a great start with more than four million sold in its first weekend—the most ever for a phone and more than double the iPhone 4 launch during its first three days,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “iPhone 4S is a hit with customers around the world, and together with iOS 5 and iCloud, is the best iPhone ever.”

It's a sad day, Steve Jobs passed away today at the age of 56, after a long battle with cancer. Our hearts go out to his family.

Apple announced on it's website, "Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple."

Steve was a visionary and the computer industry and Apple are going to really miss him. It's weird that a day after the latest iPhone announcement by Tim Cook, the new CEO of Apple, Steve passes away. It's almost like Steve said, "Tim you now ready to take over".

Today, Apple announced the iPhone 4S, which did not come in a new iPhone skeleton as expected but came packed with new features.  The iPhone 4S now comes with Apple’s dual-core A5 chip used in the iPad 2 which has up to 2X faster performance and 7X faster graphics. The iPhone 4S also comes with an all new 8 megapixel camera with advanced optics and full 1080p HD resolution video recording. New to the iPhone and only available in the iPhone 4S is an intelligent personal assistant called Siri, the company they bought in May last year. Siri helps you get things done just by asking using natural language. Can't wait to play with Siri! With the announcement, Apple also announced the launch of iOS 5 which has over 200 new features. In addition, Apple also announced iCloud, a complete replacement of MobileMe which has a set of free cloud services that work with your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac and PC to automatically and wirelessly store your content in iCloud and push your content to all your devices. So what do you think of the Apple's announcement yesterday?

I recently purchased a MacBook Air 13" from the Apple Online Store and it shipped within 5 days directly from China. Yes, just 5 days plus some time zone changes! In fact it was 2 days earlier than estimated. Now I might have been lucky to have just placed my order in before a shipment was heading out. Either way the shipment by UPS from China to North America within 5 days door to door is phenomenal. Below is a copy of the shipment progress of the MacBook Air from the UPS tracking page.

Apple announced its financial results for the fiscal 2011 second quarter at a live webcast at 2 p.m. PST today. It was another record breaking quarter. A 28 percent increase in Macs sold from the same quarter a year ago. That is just under 3.8 million Macs. Apple also sold 18.65 million iPhones and 4.69 million iPads. Way to go Apple, we at iCrazee salute you! Here is the official release from Apple:

CUPERTINO, California—April 20, 2011—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2011 second quarter ended March 26, 2011. The Company posted record second quarter revenue of $24.67 billion and record second quarter net profit of $5.99 billion, or $6.40 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $13.50 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.07 billion, or $3.33 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 41.4 percent compared to 41.7 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 59 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple sold 3.76 million Macs during the quarter, a 28 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 18.65 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 113 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 9.02 million iPods during the quarter, representing a 17 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The Company also sold 4.69 million iPads during the quarter.

“With quarterly revenue growth of 83 percent and profit growth of 95 percent, we’re firing on all cylinders,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We will continue to innovate on all fronts throughout the remainder of the year.”

“We are extremely pleased with our record March quarter revenue and earnings and cash flow from operations of over $6.2 billion,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the third fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about $23 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $5.03.”

You can view the webcast using QuickTime at www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq211 and it will be available for replay for approximately two weeks.

It's hard to ignore that Apple is going to announce something big about iTunes tomorrow. The apple.com home page has the slogan "Tomorrow is just another day. That you'll never forget. Click back here for an exciting announcement about iTunes." It's also not hard to miss that this is a global announcement as Apple has count down clocks displayed for California, New York, London and Tokyo. The speculation is Apple will announce that a cloud based media service will be available through iTunes. Music and movies will be made available through streaming on a monthly rental subscription. Can't wait this is exciting times for streaming media over the Internet.

Apple announced its financial results for the fiscal 2010 fourth quarter at a live webcast at 2 p.m. PST today. It was another record breaking quarter. A 27 percent increase in Macs sold from the same quarter a year ago. That is just under 3.9 million Macs. Apple also sold 14.1 million iPhones and 4.19 million iPads. Way to go Apple, we at iCrazee salute you! Here is the official release from Apple:

CUPERTINO, California—October 18, 2010—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2010 fourth quarter ended September 25, 2010. The Company posted record revenue of $20.34 billion and net quarterly profit of $4.31 billion, or $4.64 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $12.21 billion and net quarterly profit of $2.53 billion, or $2.77 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 36.9 percent compared to 41.8 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 57 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple sold 3.89 million Macs during the quarter, a 27 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 14.1 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 91 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 9.05 million iPods during the quarter, representing an 11 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The Company also sold 4.19 million iPads during the quarter.

“We are blown away to report over $20 billion in revenue and over $4 billion in after-tax earnings—both all-time records for Apple,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPhone sales of 14.1 million were up 91 percent year-over-year, handily beating the 12.1 million phones RIM sold in their most recent quarter. We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of this calendar year.”

“We’re thrilled with the performance and strength of our business, generating almost $5.7 billion in cash flow from operations during the quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the first fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about $23 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $4.80.”

You can view the webcast using QuickTime at www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq410/ and it will be available for replay for approximately two weeks.

Apple finally added a Compare Macs option to the Apple Online Store. It's not that obvious to find or use but once you figure it out it's pretty cool. When you select a Mac the first icon to the left of the row of Macs at the top of the page has a Compare Macs icon. Once you select the icon a smaller browser window appears that allows you to select any 3 Macs from the list of MacBooks, Mac Minis, MacBook Pros, Mac Pros or iMacs. The comparison is shown in grid format by memory, hard drive, display, keyboard, software, technical specification, environmental status report and configuration summary. It's really handy if you trying to choose between Mac options or between Mac models. So are you in line to buy a new Mac?

Apple announced yesterday at the WWDC that its iAd mobile advertising network will be coming to devices running iOS4, the new name for iPhone OS 4. The new iPhone and iPod touch coming out in July will be running iOS4 with the iPad surely to follow later in the year. iAd is not just static ads but interactive high impact ads and developers of Apps will be getting 60 percent of add revenue. That is whole lot more than Google currently pays out. Apple has already signed up a number of big companies with more to follow. So what's your opinion of mobile ads and Apple's iAd platform? Below is the official Apple release.

SAN FRANCISCO—June 7, 2010—Apple® today announced it will debut its iAd mobile advertising network on July 1 on iPhone® and iPod touch® devices running its iOS 4 software platform. iAds combine the emotion of TV advertising with the interactivity of Internet advertising, giving advertisers a dynamic and powerful new way to bring motion and emotion to mobile users. iAd will kick off with mobile ad campaigns from leading global brands including AT&T, Best Buy, Campbell Soup Company, Chanel, Citi, DirecTV, GEICO, GE, JCPenney, Liberty Mutual Group, Nissan, Sears, State Farm, Target, Turner Broadcasting System, Unilever and The Walt Disney Studios. Apple has iAd commitments for 2010 totaling over $60 million, which represents almost 50 percent of the total forecasted US mobile ad spending for the second half of 2010.*

“iAd offers advertisers the emotion of TV with the interactivity of the web, and offers users a new way to explore ads without being hijacked out of their favorite apps,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iAds will reach millions of iPhone and iPod touch users—a highly desirable demographic for advertisers—and provide developers a new way to earn money so they can continue developing free and low cost applications.”

“iAd will allow Citi to reach millions of people on their iPhone and iPod touch,” said Lisa Caputo, executive vice president and CMO, Citigroup. “iAd gives us a remarkable level of creativity for creating ads to connect with our current and future customers in a more interactive style than ever before.”

“iAd is going to revolutionize mobile advertising,” said Rob Master, North American media director, Unilever. “With iAd, we’ve been able to create some of our most powerful and compelling ads ever. iAd is the perfect mobile format to reach and engage with our customers.”

iAd, which is built into iOS 4, allows users to stay within their app while engaging with the ad, even while watching a video, playing a game or using in-ad purchase to download an app or buy iTunes® content.

Developers who join the iAd Network can easily incorporate a variety of advertising formats into their apps. Apple will sell and serve the ads, and developers will receive an industry-standard 60 percent of the iAd Network revenue, which is paid via iTunes Connect.

iAds require iOS 4, which will be a free software update via iTunes 9.2 or later for iPhone and iPod touch customers. iOS 4 will work with iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and second and third generation iPod touch (late 2009 models with 32GB or 64GB).