Below are a series of notes gathered from this evenings conference call with Apple CEO, Fred Anderson.

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2004 first quarter ended December 27, 2003. For the quarter, the Company posted a net profit of $63 million, or $.17 per diluted share. These results compare to a net loss of $8 million, or $.02 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Revenue for the quarter reached a four-year high of $2.006 billion, up 36 percent from the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 26.7 percent, down from 27.6 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 44 percent of the quarter's revenue.

The music-oriented Apple keynote that took place last week in San Francisco accomplished its mission of 'wowing' a consumer-based crowd with new versions of the company's the iPod and GarageBand software, but this week's focus will shift to music professionals.

iPod mini

"HP's blockbuster deal with Apple will have one exciting side effect. The company will be working with Apple to add support for Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio (WMA) format to the iPod by mid-year," raves Connected Home magazine. While the 'superior' designation is up for debate, it appears that the only source of the tidbit is Paul Thurrott of Windows Network Magazine, a renowned anti-Apple, pro-Microsoft commentator.

The introduction of Apple's iPod mini has been met with mixed results from consumers and analysts who were expecting a greater price differential between the company's flagship iPod digital player and the miniature sidekick. With only a mere $50 separating 11 an additional gigabytes of space, it's difficult to decipher the iPod mini's intended target audience, as the computer maker may be starting to realize.

Following an announcement that the company sold 730,000 iPod digital music players between October and December, analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial estimate Apple will earn 14 cents a share on sales of $1.92 billion when it posts first-quarter results on Wednesday, according to CBS MarketWatch. "Apple gained even more attention ahead of its earnings report when it announced on Thursday a partnership with Hewlett-Packard to build iPods that will carry the H-P brand name."

GarageBand

Apple engineers are very satisfied with the latest results of quality assurance tests performed on a pre-production series of XServes, sources said earlier this week. A batch of about two dozen new PowerPC 970 G5-based servers rolled off a production line in one of Quanta's manufacturing facilities about two weeks ago. Each of the units, which consist of both single and dual processor models, reportedly passed Apple's quality assurance tests.

According to an article published in yesterday's edition of AudioRevolution, "rumors of the new budget priced iPod are completely true. The article goes on to state that the budget priced iPods are expected be Flash Memory based and will not carry the hefty storage capacity of their bigger brothers.

Industry contacts have recently reported on sightings of a new pre-production Apple 1U rack-mount server residing in Apple's Cupertino-based hardware labs. The tips arrives amongst wide-spread rumors that the company will finally bear the fruits of a G5-based XServe project during the month of January.

According to a number of circulating reports, Apple may soon unveil a new piece of software targeted at sound engineers specializing in professional audio recording and sound mixing. The Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), as sources describe it, is rumored to consist of a user interface developed by Apple Computer and sound technology acquired from Emagic.

Apple Computer, Inc. recently extended its AppleCare support service to cover the iPod family of digital music players, and rumors of a new plan that would insure accidental laptop damages have also turned heads in recent weeks. But for a company that was once renowned for its top-notch customer support, these strives mark only the beginning of what sources say will become a renewed commitment to reliability and support by the computer maker.

An article published in today's edition of Forbes appears to confirm a slew of rumors first published by AppleInsider over the last several weeks.

According to one AppleInsider reader, Apple appears to have placed an End-of-Life (EOL) indicator on the current 17-inch Cinema Display:

According to an article published in today's edition of The Register, "PortalPlayer, the company behind the hardware, software and processor technology that powers Apple's iPod, will soon launch a upgraded version of its chip/firmware combo that paves the way for a Photo iPod."

Sales of Apple's new PowerMac G5 product-line have topped over the half million mark, sources told AppleInsider this week. The dual 2GHz model remains the most popular among holiday shoppers, but is closely followed by the dual 1.8 GHz configuration. Sales of the company's single processor 1.6GHz model are said to be trailing far behind its multiprocessor counterparts.

Rather than acknowledging a major hardware glitch that has been known to cause repeated logic-board failures with its dual USB line of iBook consumer portables, Apple seems to be taking an unethical standpoint on the matter.

About 10 months ago, IBM began to layout the foundation for a major architectural revamp to the PowerPC line that will allow chips to run much cooler for mobile and embedded applications, sources recently told AppleInsider.

According to an InfoWorld rumor of the month, "Apple is hiring away Oracle sales people to help them target enterprise accounts, says a deep throat at Apple." Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison, has apparently vouched his support for the move, which is aimed at population Apple's newly initiated Apple enterprise sales team.