Apple is set to announce its Q4 financial results today at 5pm ET, 2pm PT. The conference call usually provides a wealth of information about iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad sales, so we’ll be listening intently, posting highlights, and giving you our very best color and commentary to go along with it.

If you want to listen along with us, the call will be broadcast on Apple.com.

Commentary starts after the break!

• Results are in and they are insane: $20.34 billion, 14.1 million iPhones, 4.19 million iPads, 9.05 million iPods in Q4 2010
• Peter Oppenheimer (PO): Opening remarks, outstanding results. Best ever. All time records. Again. (Did I say insane?)
• PO: Mac growth. People love iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro… but not as much as iPad.
• PO: iPod share remains over 70%, iPod top selling, gaining share in most countries.
• PO: iTunes store over $1 billion in revenue. Ping in 23 countries.
• PO: iPhone 14.1 million sold, 91% year over year growth.
• PO: 8.6 billion in iPhone revenue. 8.82 billion including accessories.
• PO: 156 carriers, 89 countries. Asia, europe, Japan doubled year over year.
• PO: 80% of fortune 500 piloting iPhone. P&G, GE, Pfiezer, All State, others have made iPhone available to employees.
• PO: Could have sold more iPhones if we could have supplied them.
• PO: 4.2 million iPads. 26 countries.
• PO: 65% of Fortune 100 deploying or piloting iPad. P&G, Lowes, Hyatt, NBC, Novartis are examples.
• PO: $2.7 billion in iPad revenue. $2.8 billion including accessories.
• PO: Walmart, Target, Verizon, AT&T new distribution.
• PO: 125 million iOS devices as of last month.
• PO: iOS 4.2 coming November.
• PO: App Store has 200,000 registered developers. 65,000 games/entertainment. 30,000 iPad apps.
• PO: iAds results so far makes them “happy”.
• PO: Apple retail time.
• PO: $51 billion in cash.
• PO: 40 million iPhones sold full-year. 7.5 million iPads in 2 quarters.
• PO: Apple generated 5x revenue, 10x earnings as 2005.
• Steve Jobs! (SJ): 14.1 million iPhones represents 91% growth. Handily beat RIM’s 12.1 million BlackBerry’s sold in most recent quarter. Past RIM, doesn’t see them catching up. They must become a software platform company. A challenge for them. A high mountain to climb.
• SJ: Google activating 200,000 Android devices a day, 90,000 apps. Apple activating 275,000 iOS devices on average, 300,000 peek. Apple has 300,000 apps in its app store.
• SJ: No sold data on how many Android handsets sold. Manufacturers don’t report it. Hopes they will. Waits to see who was the winner in most recent quarter.
• SJ: Google likes to say Android is open, iOS is closed. Jobs finds that disingenuous. Unlike Windows, Android is very fragmented. Many Android OEMS including Motorola and HTC install proprietary UI, user is left to figure it all out. Every iPhone walks the same. TweetDeck recently launched Twitter Client, had to contend with 100 different versions on 244 different handsets. Many apps only work on some handsets on some versions, on devices shipped less than 12 months ago.
• SJ: Amazon, Verizon, Voda all creating their own app stores. Customers much search, devs much figure out. Going to be a mess. iOS App Store is one stop shopping.
• SJ: Even if Google was right, open systems don’t always win. PlaysForSure used separated model, even Microsoft abandoned that, turned to Zune, left OEM empty handed.
• SJ: Open vs. closed is smokescreen. What’s better for customer, fragmented or integrated? Android is getting more fragmented every day. Users shouldn’t be system integrators. Huge difference in approach. Apple thinks just works will trump Google’s approach every time. Better for developers.
• SJ: Apple confident integrated will triumph over Google no matter how much Google calls it open.
• SJ: Other tables appear to be just a handful of credible entrants. Almost all use 7″ screens compared to iPad 10″. Would offer 70% of benefits. But only 45% as large because of diagonal measure. 7″ screens a bit smaller than bottom half of iPad screen. Not big enough to make great tablet apps.
• SJ: Apple has done extensive testing, really understand this stuff. Limits to how close you can place elements for usability. Why 10″ is minimum size for great tablet apps.
• SJ: Every tablet user is also smartphone user. No tablet can fit in your pocket. Giving up precious diplay area to fit tablets in pockets isn’t the way to go. Tweeners.
• SJ: Many use Android software, even Google, tells manufacturers not to use Froyo. What does it mean when your software supplier says not to use the software and you ignore it?
• SJ: iPad now has more than 35,000 apps. New tablets will have 0.
• SJ: Competitors have a tough time coming close to iPad pricing even with smaller screen. Apple creates own chip, battery chemistry, enclosure, everything. Incredible product, incredible price. Competitors will likely offer less for more.
• SJ: New crop of tablets will likely be DOA. Too small. Will increase size next year, abandon customers and developers who went 7-inch.
• Tim Cook (TC): iPad supply constraints a balance with new launches.
• SJ: iPad proves not a question of if, a question of when it will effect PC. Lots of interest in education. Not pushing hard in business but being grabbed out of their hands. Being shipped instead of board books, doctors, hospitals. The more time that passes, the more Jobs is convinced they have a tiger by the tail. New model of computing. 10s of millions already trained on with iPhone. Lends itself to lots of aspects of life, personal, educational, business.
• SJ: Any updates on Flash? They love Flash memory! [Haha!]
• TC: Demand for iPhone 4 took it to an entirely different level, even higher than anticipated.
• SJ: Most web video is now HTML5, App Store, iTunes, dwarfs everything else. Very good product, hard to match, Apple’s not done. Doesn’t know what strategies competitors could take. Apple out to win.
• SJ: Largest phone market not smartphones, many will convert to smartphones, pie will continue to grow. Room for some number of companies will be successful. Later will turn into zero sum game or close to it. Right now it’s a battle for developers, customers. Right now iPhone and Android winning.
• SJ: Apple TV has gone streaming. Complete streaming. Soon to be streamed from iPhone or iPad with AirPlay. Already sold 250,000. When AirPlay is in place it will be another big reason to buy it. Apple really happy.
• PO: $100 million deferred for bumper program.
• SJ: Apple’s goal is to make best devices, not biggest. That’s Nokia. Apple admires how many they ship but don’t aspire to be like them. Android is biggest competitor, out shipped Apple in June during iPhone transition. Waiting to find out what happened in this quarter. Doesn’t know how they’ll find out, Gartner maybe? Will be competing with them for quite some time. Apple believes in their approach very strongly — providing users with a product that just works. Might be lots of users who want Google’s approach as well.
• SJ: Nokia makes $50 handsets. Apple isn’t smart enough to figure out how to make a good phone for that price. Apple’s goal is to make best, breakthrough products, drive costs down, make products better. That’s what they did with iPod. Update every year with better functionality at same or lower price. It was relentless improvement, in some cases at lower price, that beat competition, yielded market share. Apple has single digit phone market share, high marketshare in tablet because they’re first mover. Reason they wouldn’t make 7-inch tablet isn’t because of price point, it’s because they think it’s too small to express the right software. Apple is a software-first company. Developers aren’t going to deal really well with different screen sizes, when they can’t put enough elements on screen to build the apps they want to build. 7-inches isn’t about cost, it’s about value when you factor in software.
• SJ: Can’t assume software will take care of itself. Can’t just put in less memory, slower processor, assume software will come alive. It won’t. App developers have taken advantage of products that came before. It puts you back into chicken-and-egg. Won’t follow you. Won’t write watered down version of app because you can sell a phone for $50 less.
• SJ: Buy backs and dividends have been suggested but we think opportunities could come along that they could take advantage of. Don’t make stupid acquisitions but want to keep powder dry for 1 or 2 strategic acquisitions in the future.
• TC: Never seen enterprise adoption as fast as iPad. K-12 also adopting faster than historically. Adding capacity internally to call on businesses, huge amount also calling on education. AT&T direct result of customers wanting to buy iPad on post-pad.
• That’s it folks! Thanks!

Follow along with TiPb as we listen to and comment on Apple’s Q3 2010 financial results conference call. We’re not live-blogging this, just posting highlights so you’ll need to refresh from time to time to see new notes.

If you want to listen while you read, head on over to Apple.com for the audio stream.

Now on with the highlights:

• Waiting on additional participants to show up
• Starting now, IR person reading safe harbor provision
• Tim Cook (henceforth TC), Peter Oppenheimer (OP) on tap, no Steve Jobs announced
• OP: introducing results, began shipping iPad in 10 countries, launched iPhone 4, shipped iOS 4, new record for Mac sales
• OP: Highest revenue ever 15.7 million, 4.23 margin, 3.25 net income, EPS 3.51
• OP: Mac sales. Short version — they did very well.
• OP: 9.4 million iPods. Declining. iPod touch 48% growth. Mix-shift to iPod touch 12% up, revenue growth 4% up. Share over 70%. Top selling MP3 sale, gaining share.
• OP: iTunes exceeded 1 billion dollars. App Store 225,000 apps, 11,000 just for iPad. 5 billion apps downloaded.
• OP: iPhone 8.4 million, 1.7 million iPhone 4 in 5 countries. 61% year-over-year growth. Customers loving new features, FaceTime, Retina Display, glass and stainless steel
• OP: 5.53 billion for ancillary sales, up over 70%.
• OP: 154 carriers in over 80 countries, Asia, Europe, Japan increasing
• OP: Over 100,000,000 iOS devices sold. iOS 4 very favorable, people loving new features.
• OP: iPad off to good start. 3.27 million iPads sold in 10 countries. 9 additional countries on July 23.
• OP: Apple retail still growing.
• OP: [Talking financial details about why their usual conservative numbers were exceeded. Again. Seriously]
• OP: 48 billion on hand, up 4 billion. Still preserving capital, short dated, high quality investments
• OP: Outlook to Q4. Offering free cases to all customers who purchased iPhone 4 until Sept. 30. Deferring revenue on those cases. Should cost 175 million.
• OP: Expect 18 billion, 35% gross margin in Q4. Sequential decline due to higher mix of iPhone 4 and iPad which have higher cost structures, also free cases. Back to school promotions as well.
• OP: In closing, they’re thrilled!
• Now starting Q&A
• Q: What are you hearing from corporations, adoption?
• TC: iPhone now in 80% of Fortune 100 piloting or deploying, 60% of Fortune 500. 400 higher ed institutions as well. iOS 4 was a help.
• TC: iPad in first 90 days. 50% of Fortune 100 testing or deploying. Incredible.
• OP: Higher iPhone and accessory sales than they anticipated.
• Q: Supply/demand breakdown, constraints?
• TC: iPod, none. iPad and iPhone are different, both iPad and iPhone 4 had backlog couldn’t fill, still selling as fast as they can make them. High demand is never a problem. Planning 1 million a month capacity was a bold move, analysts predicted 1 million in sales for years. Did that in 1 month, still doing that. Apple is increasing capacity as fast as they can. Confident they will be able to do it.
• TC: Just started ramping iPhone 4 in June. Limited days, only 4 days in Q.
• TC: greatly reduced iPhone 3GS sales around June 7. Didn’t launch iPhone 4, new 3GS on June 24. Result was significantly lower sales after June 7 until June 24.
• TC: 250,000 more units if they’d held inventory flat.
• Q: Why are there supply problems? Rumors Apple does that on purpose.
• TC: Would rather market move quickly to new products. How they want to manage it. Don’t purposefully create shortages for buzz. Not their objective. Would like to fill every order as quickly as they can. Demand for iPhone 4 absolutely stunning.
• TC: Returns for antenna issue are very small.
• TC: Pleasantly surprised how fast iPad has gotten going. Much faster to 1 million than iPod. Not following typical new product curve where it takes a long time to go mainstream after early adoption.
• OP: Won’t reveal iPod Wi-Fi vs. 3G split, but demand for all of them have been amazing. Average $640.
• Q: Will iPad cannibalize other product lines? Any thoughts?
• TC: Discuss it internally, only selling 3 months. To early to tell. Thrilled they recorded best Mac quarter ever even with iPad sales. Jaw dropper.
• Q: iAds business?
• OP: Just launched in July. Will learn a lot this calendar year. No further specifics.
• Q: Datacenter coming along?
• OP: On schedule. Everything going fine. Expect to complete by end of calendar year.
• Q: Cannibalization of iPad on iPod touch?
• OP: iPod ASPs down $7, driven by start of back to school promotion, stronger US dollar. Mix up on iPod touch.
• Q: Impact of bumper give-away?
• OP: Will need to defer revenue for iPhone 4 they sell where they’ve not delivered bumpers, not heard from customers wanting to place order. Revenue accrual with no cost, will expense cost when shipped to customers.
• Q: Android shipments increasing, competition to iPhone family?
• TC: Haven’t seen Android results, sum of several companies. iPhone up 61% despite drawdowns and transition, growing faster than market.
• Q: Competing tablets, 3G subsidies coming fall, impact?
• TC: Selling every unit they can make, looks good in every country they’ve launched it in. Anecdotally growing faster than early adopter, faster than any product he knows of. Doesn’t know what competition will do. Everyone working on something. Apple extremely happy with position and business model. Affordable rate structure, starts at $15, no commitment, aggressive device pricing. Yes, someone could jack up rate plans, subsidize. Not sure people will want another contract. If someone tries it, both learn.
• Q: iPhone software developers have complained not about App Store rules but about arbitrary nature. Apple done anything?
• OP: Always looking to make developers happy, 225K apps, 5 billion downloads, 1 billion in payments to devs, iAds a second stream. Care deeply. Want to have great apps. Success is unparalleled.
• TC: Vast majority of apps approved within 7 days. Many that aren’t have bugs, re-submitted, approved. Want to ensure pornography, graphic scenes don’t come on platform. Not everyone agrees, but that’s how they’re doing it.
• Q: Dev concern misplaced?
• TC: Value their concerns, modify when appropriate. Won’t say every concern misplaced. Value their feedback.
• Q: Move to mobility?
• TC: Long run, will see portables grow.
• Q: FaceTime, industry standard, how will it role out? Windows, Mac?
• TC: Sticking to financials for today.
• Q: iPhone strong in Asia, Europe, Japan. Why not North America?
• TC: Not law of large numbers. Phone market will increasingly become smartphone market. Steve said that long ago. Lots of domestic, Americas opportunities. Mac, iPhone, or iPad growing faster internationally. See that in revenues as well. Perspective, Americas growing 40% so this is huge number, just international numbers are killer.
• Q: iPhone growth has come from broader carrier distribution. Broaden within countries, emerging markets like China, India, pre-paid?
• TC: Extraordinary opportunity. Mac as example, AsiaPC Mac grew 73%, phenomenal. In China, grew 144%. Korea, 184%. HK almost 200%. Even in difficult economy like Spain, grew 59%.
• TC: iPhone space doing well in all key markets, expanding that, learning what they learned with exclusive deals, looking market by market, opening Spain up. Will go from exclusive in Spain to 3. More countries remaining. Increased distribution, market, move to smartphone. All in iPhone favor. Sees enormous opportunity. Biggest challenge is determining which to deploy resources.
• Q: Will there be iPad halo?
• TC: Agrees, most people external to Apple focus on cannibalization, internally focus on synergy between. iPod historically people at Apple felt iPod created halo for Mac. Will see about iPad, doesn’t want to predict it. Mac share still low. Still enormous opportunity to grow. Might be some synergy. iDevices -> Mac, iPad < -> iPhone. This is where it’s great to have lower share. If iPad cannibalizes PCs, fantastic for Apple. Big market.
• Q: Impact of wage hikes from sub-contractors?
• TC: Don’t want to get into terms of commercial agreements, competitive info.
• Q: Expand carriers to tap domestic demand, or enough with AT&T?
• TC: Very happy to be partner with AT&T. Been first class partner, pioneered smartphone growth from network POV in US. That’s all.
• OP: Best iPhone they’ve ever shipped, higher cost structure.
• Q: Gap iPhone, iPad supply and demand? How many units?
• TC: Don’t know. Only know if you have enough supply. Don’t have it.
• That’s all folks!

Today Apple previewed over 100 new features for iPhone 3.0 — coming sometime this summer — along with over 1000 new API’s for developers, and enough new features to answer the fevered dreams of 17,000,000,000 fanboys.

We’ll be back with more feature-by-feature coverage in a bit, but here are the highlights.

New iPhone 3.0 Features

• System-wide Copy and Paste (text and photos)
• MMS for photos, vcards, audio
• SMS forwarding
• Landscape keyboard in major apps
• System-wide Spotlight Search
• App Store subscriptions (i.e. subscribe to magazine apps)
• In App purchases (i.e. buy a weapon in a FPS)
• Turn-by-Turn GPS Navigation in App Store (bring your own maps!)
• Push Notification Service for badges, alerts messages, sounds
• Peer-2-peer service using Bonjour and Bluetooth for interaction and data exchange
• Access to Dock port for Apps to work with accessories
• Voice memos
• Audio/Video tags
• Live streaming
• CalDAV Calendars
• Calendar subscriptions
• Improved Stocks widget, landscape mode for details
• Stereo Bluetooth (A2DP)
• YouTube Account login
• YouTube Subscriptions
• YouTube Ratings
• iTunes login
• iTunes account creation
• Encrypted profiles
• WiFi Auto Login
• Call log
• LDAP (directory services)
• Shake to shuffle music (like iPod nano)
• VPN on-demand
• EAP SIM
• Proxy Support
• OTA Profiles
• Revoke Certificates
• Exchange ActiveSync Policies
• Notes sync
• Media Scruber
• Parental controls for TV, Movies, Apps
• Languages: More languages, better keyboards
• Anti-Phishing in Safari

What Didn’t We Get? (Yet!)

• Push Gmail
• Mobile iChat
• Tasks and task sync
• Contact convergence (like Pre)
• Improved notification system (like Android and Pre)
• Background multitasking (like every other smartphone)
• Unified messengering app (like Pre)
• Unified inbox (like BlackBerry)
• Video recording
• Theming