Welcome to TMO's live coverage of Apple's Q4 conference call. Coverage begins at 4:30 PM CDT (2:30 PM PDT). Note that Apple's financial conference calls tend to go at a blistering pace, at least for those of us typing this stuff out live. We will be performing spell checking and editing when the event is over.

[5:13 PM] That's it, folks. We're going to clean up this article, and post Apple's official press release for results.

[5:11 PM] Final question. Asking about mix in higher education. Fred says that portables represented 47% of all education sales. PowerBook was strong in higher education, as well as the Power Mac G5. Fred says student purchases were strong in higher education, but that institution sales were also strong. That's good news.

[5:09 PM] New analyst asking about gross margins. Fred doesn't offer much of a response, but he says that he hopes that air-freighting won't be necessary sometime this quarter.

[5:03 PM] John Horvak (??) of Lehman Brothers is asking about Power Mac G4 and G5 unit shipments going forward. Fred says that Apple shipped 221,000 Power Mac units last quarter, up from 126,000 from the June quarter. That's very impressive. He won't offer guidance for the future other than to say that Apple thinks it can sustain 200,000 units per quarter. Earlier, Mr. Anderson did offer guidance of US$1.9 billion for the December quarter.

[5:04 PM] New analyst asking about G5 gross margins, and more international Apple Stores. Fred reiterates that Apple won't give gross margins per product line, but says that the Power Mac line is historically high. He also says that gross margins in the September quarter were hurt by having to air-freight G5s in due to backlogs. He won't say anything about international stores other than the new Tokyo store. Then he said Apple would be taking the international market very slowly.

[5:03 PM] New analyst asking if iMovie leads to conversions to Final Cut Pro. FCP sales were up 15% sequentially over the prior quarter.

[4:59 PM] Charles Wolf of Needham & Co. asks which iPod is most popular. Also asks for same store growth in Apple Stores year over year. Lastly, he asks whether or not Virginia Tech's G5 supercomputer is part of why higher education sales were higher, and whether or not it was completed in time to be included in this year's Top500 rating. Fred didn't offer much on the VT project. Same store sales: Fred says there was a sequential increase in stores, but only offered the fleet's average of US$3.1 million over last year's US$2.6 million. iPod sales: Apple will only said that the average price for iPods is US$360. That number includes wholesale pricing, as well as Apple's direct sales.

[4:58 PM] New analyst asking about iPod sales going forward in the December quarter. Fred says that last year, Apple saw an increase of 50% in the December quarter. The unsaid implication being that the company could well have a big increase this year, too.

[4:53 PM] New analyst asks more about LCD pricing, as well as more on education. Also asked about more iTMS numbers, and Fred reminded him those numbers will come tomorrow from Steve Jobs. Fred says LCD pricing shouldn't affect Apple's margins too much. Fred also says that though education sales were down, he thinks that they will be down for other vendors, too. In other words, he expects the reluctance to spend to be across the board.

[4:51 PM] Peter Oppenheimer notes that sales of the 12" PowerBook were strong. Flat panel pricing: Apple sees demand exceeding supply, which means that pricing should be higher on the supply side.

[4:48 PM] New analyst asking about LCD pricing, education, channel inventories. Fred says that Apple is holding its own in education. Saw reluctance from many schools to spend this early in their school year. Closed 6 deals of more than 1,000 units during the September quarter. Says that higher education had highest performance in seven years.

[4:44 PM] Analyst asking about iTunes sales going forward. Fred says that iPod sales were great in the September quarter. Says it should continue with tomorrow's announcements. Says he won't give updates on iTMS numbers, as Steve will be addressing it tomorrow. She also asked about supplies. Fred says that supplies should be tighter, as is usual in the December quarter. There is still a back order of the high-end on the G5.

[4:42 PM] Says that the December quarter should be strong. Expects gross margins to be 27%, based on Panther sales. Opening the call to questions from analysts.

[4:41 PM] Cash was up another US$25 million, making a total cash on hand increase of US$229 million.

[4:40 PM] Gross margins were up to 26.6%.

[4:38 PM] Education shipments down over last year! That is somewhat unexpected. Fred Anderson says that he expects one-on-one sales to continue to be strong.

[4:35 PM] Off to a rocky start. Average store revenue up to US$3.1 million. Traffic to stores continues to be strong. 4.3 million people through stores in September quarter. Expects 73 stores open by Thanksgiving, up from 50 last Thanksgiving. Tokyo should open before the end of the calendar year.

[4:30 PM] Sales of US$1.71 billion. Profit of US$44 million, or 12 cents a share. Apple shipped 787,000 Macs, up 7% from last year. The company also shipped 336,000 iPods, up 140%.

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