Apple's Q3 2012 results call scheduled for Tuesday

Apple's quarterly conference calls include a prepared statement typically presented by the company's chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer, which details the company's performance across its Mac, iPhone, iPod, and iPad product lines, as well as outlining details regarding its retail store operations, iTunes media sales and related activity.

Prepared comments also provide updates on specific business segments including education, enterprise and important regional performance metrics. In recent quarters, this regional detail has often focused on the company's red-hot market in China.

After presenting prepared remarks, the company opens up a question and answer session with analysts, who often ask for clarification of the details presented in order to get a better grasp of how Apple can be expected to perform in the future.

Apple's last quarterly conference call, held in April, set new records for iPads and Macs and noted 35.2 million iPhone sales, second only to the pervious holiday season quarter.

The company noted three months ago that supply constraints were continuing to affect the new iPad, but the company's chief executive Tim Cook said he believed Apple would be able to supply "a significant number of iPads" throughout the June quarter that just ended.

Apple also stated that it had sold a total of 67 million iPads through March (less than two full years of sales), contrasting that with the 24 years it took to sell the same number of Macs after its release in 1984.

The company also noted that it has sold more than 365 million iOS devices to date, and that the iOS App Store had reached milestones of 600,000 apps, 200,000 of which were optimized for iPad.