I remember in 1997 – the year I went to college, the year I got my first macintosh, and only one year after Steve Jobs was returned to the top position at Apple – there were many columnist, journalists and tech pundits who had been ringing the death bell for Apple Computer. In 1997, Apple was not a profitable company, but changes were afoot. Most of you know the story, and if you don't I suggest you go look it up, its a great one of American business success.
Fast forward 13 years to today. In their earnings call on July 20, 2010, Apple – having remade themselves into a consumer media giant – recorded their most profitable quarter EVER. For the past three months, Apple has recorded revenues of 15.7 BILLION dollars – compare that with a year earlier, $9.73 billion.
Where is this success coming from? 8.4 million iPhones, 9.4 million iPods, 3.27 million iPads and 3.47 million Macs. What is most remarkable about those numbers is that Apple is almost selling more iPhones than iPods, and more iPads than  Macs. Also remarkable, Apple is predicted to pull in $60 billion in revenue this year, compare that to the consensus for Microsoft at 61.5 billion dollars.
So what about antennagate? According to the call, Tim Cook mentioned that they are selling every iPhone they can make. So much for that. And what about the cost of the bumpers? $175 million, hardly a drop in the bucket.
Where can Apple go from here? Well, they need to find a successor to Steve, but thats another blog post entirely.