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Apple’s second quarter 2008 earnings proved to be a huge blowout, though Wall Street reacted negatively to company’s conservative outlook. Well, they are almost always wrong on Apple - which is clearly a sentiment driven company.

Nevertheless, the highlight of the quarterly earnings was the supercharged Mac sales. The numbers match-up with recent reports that Apple was leaping up the US PC-sales charts. Revenues for the quarter were up 38%, highest since 2005 despite slowing iPod sales and scant iPhone sales.

Peter Oppenheimer, Apple CFO was conservative in his outlook for the September 2008 quarter giving many reasons, including “a future product transition.” Analysts from Technology Business Research think that “Product transition” is Apple-speak for cool new stuff. I concur. So what could be on menu?

TBR believes Apple will refresh its notebooks with the latest Intel Centrino 2 processors, which will improve performance and increase battery life. We think the company will do more than update internals, however. In addition to a redesign, TBR believes Apple will add TV tuners and may introduce a larger screen MacBook. To maintain the necessary product differentiation, Apple will probably use quad-core processors for the new MacBook Pros. iMac desktop PCs are not likely to get a dramatic overhaul, but Apple will probably beef them up.

What that means: Apple is going to do more than fine this coming quarter. Not only iPhone sales will goose up their revenues, the new products could add ore oomph to the company bottom line. The big cloud on Apple: Steve Jobs health.

For once, the FedEx guy showed up right on time. Here it is — the unboxed pics of the new iPhone 3G. More thoughts to follow later. I guess I am lucky in a way because I didn’t have to deal with lines or deal with the activation process. The activation servers are down, thanks to an incredible rush to buy this phone. Apparently it is getting sold out across the world. If you are at an Apple store and want to send us photos or stream a Qik video, let me know and we can plug you in. My thoughts on the phone will appear over the weekend after I have actually had some time to play around with it. In the meantime, NewTeeVee has a look at the video-related iPhone apps and Earth2Tech has a round-up of apps that can help to save gas.

 

Apple just reported its fiscal second-quarter 2008 earnings, and well, the declines from the fiscal first quarter (ended Dec. 29, 2007) are remarkably obvious. From a revenue perspective, the year-over-year comparisons are pretty solid, but in other categories the slowdown is rather stark.

These results compare to quarterly net earnings of $770 million, or 87 cents a diluted share, on revenue of $5.26 billion in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 32.9 percent, down from 35.1 percent in the year-ago quarter.

Apple shipped 2,289,000 Macs during the quarter, representing unit growth of 51 percent and 54 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. But it sold 10,644,000 iPods during the quarter — in other words, unit growth of a scant 1 percent and revenue growth of just 8 percent over the comparable three-month period last year. Our friend, Cynthia Brumfield breaks down the iPhone magic, only as she can.

Some interesting observations from Ezra Gottheil, analyst with Technology Business Research (TBR):   * Apple appears unphased by the U.S. economy. * TBR believes Apple has established itself as a real and often better choice for consumer purchasers of higher-end PCs. * In the first four quarters of its availability, Apple sold 5.4 million iPhones, versus 1.2 million iPods in that product’s first four quarters. * The iPod market has matured, and unit sales have flattened. iPod unit sales were up only 1% year-to-year, but iPod revenue increased 8%, thanks to higher priced iTouch. * TBR believes Apple is looking to develop a variety of “appliances,” self-contained devices with simple interfaces that, in Apple’s favorite phrase, “delight” users. The company’s drive to develop more products is shown in the 49.2% growth of its R&D expense, and in its acquisition of microprocessor design company PA Semi.

“First come, first served” took a whole new meaning at the San Francisco Apple store today, where Macbook Airs were out of stock within minutes of hitting the shelves. There were only a lucky few who got their hands on the ultra-light laptop that has received mixed reviews thus far. Throngs of curious onlookers, however, didn’t pay any attention to what experts had to say. Their question: When can I get one? Yeah, I asked the same question and then walked back home. Here are a couple of photos of the MacBook Air station at the SF store.

Apple (AAPL) will release its new operating system upgrade, code named Leopard on October 26. The $129 upgrade is packed with 300 features, including some new ones. My personal favorite, and the only real reason to upgrade is the new Apple Mail client. What is that one good reason to upgrade (if you upgrade) to Leopard? Take our poll below the fold.