Off the back of Apple's earnings, JPMorgan has distributed its latest analyst report on the company's outlook.
In the three months to 1 April - All Fools Day - Apple sold 50.76mln iPhones, down from 51.19mln in the same period of past year. Mac sales rose from 4 million a year ago to 4.2 million.
Despite shipments and revenues being virtually flat on the year, CEO Tim Cook talked up the success of what he called "continued robust demand" for the iPhone.
All that said, I think most prospective iPhone 8 buyers will begrudgingly be fine with a small delay so long as the final design doesn't feature a Touch ID sensor on the back, as some leaked schematics have indicated.
"We generated strong operating cash flow of $12.5 billion and returned over $10 billion to our investors in the March quarter", said Luca Maestri, Apple's CFO.
After pent-up demand for the next iPhone eases, the next big for Apple could be augmented reality, closely followed analyst Steven Milunovich said Wednesday.
Elsewhere, iPad sales were down by 13%, with Apple selling 8.9 million units for $3.9 billion this quarter compared to 10.3 billion units for $4.4 billion the same time a year ago.
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A senior executive at one of the Big Four banks warned the government of "unintended consequences" of introducing a new levy. The flagship project is an A$8.4 billion Melbourne to Brisbane inland railway to begin construction next financial year.
In spite of a drop in iPhone sales, Apple's sales were 4.6% higher. Also, while quoting the future, Cook said that the company has a really great pipeline when it comes to the smartwatch segment but refused to elaborate any further. Its revenue rose 18% to $7.0 billion, beating estimates of $6.78 billion.
The figures fell slightly short of Wall Street expectations.
IPhone suffered its first declines previous year, and only managed to briefly return to growth in the quarter that the iPhone 7 first launched.
The company said it expects revenue in the current quarter will be somewhere between US$43.5bn and US$45.5bn, which was less than what analysts had been expecting.
The company also saw the highest absolute number of both upgrades and switchers ever in a six-month period.
This is always the least impressive time of year for Apple's earnings, coming as it does after the Christmas period.
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