Apple has posted a note on their investor relations page stating that CEO Tim Cook will be holding a presentation during a Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference tomorrow. Apple is also planning to live stream audio of Cook's speech, scheduled to begin at 3:30 PM Eastern.

Welcome to the audio webcast of Tim Cook’s presentation at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference. The presentation will begin at approximately 12:30pm PT/3:30pm ET on Tuesday, February 14, 2012. Please note that comments made during the presentation may include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from those forward-looking statements.

Although Tim Cook has presented a number of times as Chief Operating Officer at previous Goldman Sachs events, this will be the first time as CEO of Apple. During the 2010 event, Cook discussed retail store progression as well as the iPad shortly before it's official release. We'll be covering the presentation in case anything of importance is discussed, such as iPad 3, so make sure you tune into iMore for the full breakdown!

Source: Apple Investor Relations via MacRumors, @settBIT

AT&T released some pretty impressive numbers today with 5.2 million iPhone activations in Q3 2010. The iPhone obviously contributes a significant portion of AT&T's smartphone sales, or what they are referring to as "integrated devices". AT&T also claims that over 80% of postpaid activations (contract lines) were integrated devices. Around 8 million integrated devices were sold in total. Since the iPhone can only be sold with a contract, it's safe to assume those 5.2 million iPhones were a portion of that 8 million. That means that around 65% of AT&T's smartphone activations were iPhones. That's tremendous. It also tops AT&T's previous record for iPhones activated in a quarter, which was 3.2 million.

AT&T relies heavily on iPhone sales to boost their margins and bottom line when it comes to smartphone sales and data plan sales. If another carrier in the US should start carrying the iPhone, that could hit AT&T where it hurts. A lot of people that are tied into family plans and business accounts (which is a good majority), are probably less likely to migrate due to the cost of ETFs and migrating. Users that are out of contract or on single line plans may be more prone to jump ship. I'm personally one who thinks not as many people will leave when they realize how much it'll cost them. AT&T's got them for a year or two. What do you guys think?

[via AT&T]

If you hadn't heard, Apple was the lone bright point in a sea of bad financial news yesterday¹. Their last quarter was stupendous. revenue grew 35% year over year, total profit grew about the same amount. Apple's profit margin even grew by a couple of ticks. They're earning more revenue than ever and they're making more profit off of that revenue than ever:

The Company posted revenue of $9.6 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.58 billion, or $1.76 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $7.1 billion and net quarterly profit of $1 billion, or $1.14 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 34.7 percent, up from 31.2 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 45 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

What spurred this growth? Why, selling more gadetry, of course. Macs were way up, but check out these iPhone sales numbers:

Apple shipped 2,319,000 Macintosh® computers, representing 44 percent unit growth and 47 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 22,121,000 iPods during the quarter, representing five percent unit growth and 17 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone™ sales were 2,315,000. -

...For those of you keeping score, that means Apple sold only 4,000 more Macs than they did iPhones. That will change this quarter, I'm sure.

When I think about it, the most surprising thing about Apple's turnaround since the return of Steve Jobs is how long it took them to get into making things like the iPod and the iPhone. Apple's strength has always been making hardware and software seamless work together in a way that creates just a little joy for the user. Limiting that skill to just computers (well, and the Newton) as Apple basically used to do seems just plain crazy now.

Seems like every time I wrestle with a gadget lately - from a Cable Box to a Camcorder, somewhere in the back of my mind I'm thinking "Apple could so this better." Not "I could do this better," mind you. Apple could. I'm willing to bet that there are millions like me right now.

...And that's as good an explanation as any for why they just had their best quarter ever.

¹ - No, I'm not a financial analyst, but even that rate cut seems to have been taken as a sign that things are bad -- a desperate measure.