As with any time Apple announces its quarterly financial performance, Tuesday's discussion of the company's sales and profits for its fiscal third quarter will boil down to two questions--How did you do? and What are you planning on doing next time?

The former question deals with Apple's performance in the just-completed quarter--in this case, the three-month period that ended on June 30, 2009. As for the latter question, it hinges entirely on what chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer tells Wall Street analysts when he presents Apple's forecast for the upcoming quarter during the company's quarterly conference call.n--

Apple announces its earnings Tuesday afternoon, with the conference call slated to begin at 2 p.m. PT. (Macworld will have live coverage of the call.) Look for the discussion to center on these four issues.

More: http://pcworld.com/article/168782/

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