In a late day conference call on Tuesday, Apple announced yet another beyond-forecast fiscal quarter with a net income boost of 78%  — an all-time record revenue increase for the Cupertino, California-based company.

The company posted third quarter revenue of $15.7 billion and a net quarterly profit of $3.25 billion. In the same quarter of 2009, the company had revenue of $9.73 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.83 billion.

Apple reported that it sold 3.47 million Macs during the quarter, representing a new quarterly record and a 33% unit increase over the same quarter last year. It sold 8.4 million iPhones in the quarter and that was up 61% from the same time in 2009.  Very few of those sales, however, were the sometimes-maligned iPhone 4, which went on sale just a few days before the third quarter ended in June.

While Apple also sold “only” 9.41 million iPods during the quarter — a 8% drop over last year at the same time — the company also began selling iPads during the quarter. How many? 3.27 million.

These figures make it plain: The iPad is hurting sales of a lower cost (and therefore, lower profit making) item and not cannibalizing sales of the company’s big ticket units like computers. In fact, the iPad may be enhancing the brand and introducing users to company’s quality and user-friendly interfaces — which could account for the spike in Mac sales.

“It was a phenomenal quarter that exceeded our expectations all around, including the most successful product launch in Apple’s history with iPhone 4,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPad is off to a terrific start, more people are buying Macs than ever before, and we have amazing new products still to come this year.”

In what might be called the classic understatement, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said: “We’re really pleased to have generated over $4 billion of cash during the quarter.” Pleased, he’s pleased, to have an extra $4 billion in cash.

Oppenheimer also predicts: “Looking ahead to the fourth fiscal quarter of 2010, we expect revenue of about $18 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $3.44.”

And the effect of Tuesday’s announcement on the price of those shares? In early trading on Wednesday, following the announcement, Apple stock price rose about $5 per share — an increase of about 2% over the day before.

The company’s launching the service that’s aimed at small and midsize companies with reps who need to process credit card payments on the go (think personnel making a service call who don’t have to be equipped with expensive new card readers and other equipment just to accept a client or customer’s fee).

AT&T’s new service uses software from Apriva, a manufacturer of wireless payment devices.

Cost: starts at $14.85 per smartphone, in addition to monthly voice and data costs.

Apriva has two apps that mobile workers can use. AprivaPay, is browser-based and allows processing a credit or debit card transaction using the mobile phone’s web browser.

AprivaPay Professional has more bells and whistles, including software that has to be added to the phone. It can be integrated with a credit card reader device and a device for printing receipts. For now, AT&T is offering the AprivaPay Professional service for download to Windows Mobile devices, but it plans to add Android, iPhone and BlackBerry versions soon.

The benefits are obvious. Businesses get paid faster, payments are authorized and secure, and reps avoid having to lug extra equipment around with them just to accept payment.

But of course, there’s still AT&T involved.

That’s the latest on the new unit aimed at young people and their social networking ways.

Once again, Microsoft had taken aim at snatching a bite out of Apple’s “coolness” factor by attempting to create a low-cost phone that would appeal to the young and the young at heart.

Most reviews of the phone had been lukewarm at best. Despite having a 5 megapixel camera for still shots, the unit couldn’t play web videos (a social networking must for those YouTube clips embedded in posts).

The phone also lacked things like a calendar, the ability to upload photos and video to Twitter, and a universal e-mail in-box.

And this was Microsoft’s stab at a social networking tool? No wonder the company’s in the doldrums with consumers.

Microsoft is reportedly going to anchor its future mobile efforts on Windows Phone 7, the overhaul of its ailing and much maligned Windows Mobile operating system (probably the only Microsoft product less popular than Vista) that is due out on phones later this year.

After its iPhone 4 became available last Thursday, the company sold more than 28,000 in an hour.

Total for the first two-and-a-half days of availability: 1.7 million units sold.

All this despite the fact that the company doesn’t have any white iPhones (the smartphone comes in two basic colors, black and white). The Apple folks issued this statement on Wednesday just before the floodgates were due to open: “White models of Apple’s new iPhone 4 have proven more challenging to manufacture than expected, and as a result they will not be available until the second half of July. The availability of the more popular iPhone 4 black models is not affected.”

Who knew there was a worldwide white plastic shortage?

The remarkable thing about the iPhone sales is they run counter to normal sales trends for gadgets and technology, which tend to lose their appeal over time and with subsequent versions.

A check back on sales of the iPhone GS that came out around this time last year shows that in the first weekend of sales for that version, the company sold 1 million units. Flash forward a year and sales of the new upgrade nearly double that healthy showing. (Did I just write “flash?” Forget I did that.)

Despite some bizarre issues concerning how left handed folks may be interfering with the phones reception by the way they hold it, the new phone is getting good reviews from gadget experts. Consumer Reports called it “the best iPhone yet.” Computerworld’s Michael deAgonia calls it “the one to beat.” His rave review of the phone cites its perfect storm of features: the new operating system, Face Time (a user-facing camera for video chats) and that awesome display.

Top ranked feature among most early reviewer: The phones super sharp display, dubbed “Retina” that produces stunning and crisp images and text. A new feature called “Gyroscope” will likely be popular with gamers because it allows for the phone to adjust itself in all directions, not just horizontally and vertically.

The problem for many companies: IT and HR folks could have the impression that the practice of driving and texting is just a teen phenomenon.

Though texting while driving is often assumed to be a big problem for teenagers, it turns out adults are the more likely culprits.

Nearly half (47%) of adults admit to texting in the car, according to the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project — that’s compared to 34% of teens.

The study also revealed that 74% of adults have talked on a cell phone while driving, compared to 52% of teenagers.

Research (and common sense) has shown the use of a cell phone in the car can lead to traffic accidents — and court cases have shown businesses can be held liable when an employee’s work-related calls or texts cause accidents.

Especially if the company provides cell phones for users, make sure you have a policy against using them in the car.

But this week’s release of OS4, the new operating system for Apple’s incredibly successful iPhone, might just be a lesson in humility for the company.

While the phone itself is still user-friendly and simple to operate, this latest software upgrade has added some sophisticated features that not every owner of the device will understand.

The upgrade’s also created a number of glitches in the phone that owners will have to work through. A quick trip through the Apple Discussion forums on the company’s website will show you just how many.

My own personal Waterloo: The upgrade caused the Bluetooth in my Mini Cooper to forget its close, personal relationship to my iPhone. My iPhone, as well, pretended not to know my car’s built-in speaker dashboard phone controls. In the past, this has happened occasionally, and switching off and back on the phone’s Bluetooth solved the problem.

Not this time.

After about a half hour of reading discussions, I determined that a divorce was the only solution. I removed the device from my car’s memory and told the phone (via its Bluetooth settings) to “forget” the Mini. Then, I got them back together by going through the pairing process again.

It worked. Car and phone are friends again.

My next problem was the multitasking feature. Initially, it didn’t work. So I shut down my phone, restarted and it did. Simple, but not exactly intuitive.

Then, I couldn’t figure out exactly how to shut down a running app. Again, no tutorial, no instructions on the Apple site for this new feature. But there was an Apple discussion on the topic.

Moral of the story: Support from fellow users is probably your best bet.

But it wouldn’t hurt if Apple created a tutorial for the new software. With 100 new features to play with, a guide would come in handy.

And with the company’s financial success these days, it wouldn’t hurt to spend a little of those profits on the customer service Apple’s become famous for in the past.

Earlier this week, Apple replaced the shipping date on units of the new phone from June 24 to July 2 — over a week later.

Seems like Radio Shack, which also was taking pre-orders for the phone, ran through its inventory of units in about 90 minutes after it began accepting customer reservations for the new smartphones.

It took five whole days last year for vendors to run out of the previous version of the phone, the iPhone 3GS.  This time, the supply ran out in less than 24 hours.

Does anyone out there see an end to this insanity?

At the eye of this cutting edge triangle: Phoneballs, a protective iPhone case that sports a set of rather limp looking testicles in a variety of colors whose sellers vow to donate part of sales to cancer research.

The idea of selling a product and giving the proceeds to some charity or other isn’t new. It’s a brilliant marketing move and one of the reasons half the planet is now covered in pink bows — and also one of the reasons researchers have breast cancer on the ropes.

The folks who make the Phoneballs case promise to give 10% of their proceeds to testicular cancer research, and their motto is rousing. “We’re here to support ‘em! (Our balls that is.”)

The company’s website features lots of pithy, 10-year-old boy humor like “Need to protect your iPhone from everyday cuts and scrapes? Have a soft spot in your heart for testicles? Just feel like your iPhone needs some balls? Presenting phoneballs…. maybe not a revolution in protective silicone cases, but we think a pretty fun way to show your support for those little fellas that give us so much.”

Even the instructions for taking care of the case are, well, pretty silly. But for $15 a pop (no pun intended, I don’t think) there are bound to be enough customers for maybe a lab coat or test tube or two.

Check out the cases, or not, here.

Jobs’ dreams of face time via technology are beginning to come true with the official unveiling of his latest version of the iPhone, previewed this week in San Francisco.

Jobs cited Jetson’s prescient video chatting in his announcement at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference. He also provided a target date for the new phone’s availability: June 24.

That’s three days before existing iPhone owners will get their free upgrade to Apple’s mobile operating system, OS4, on June 21.

For customers who are annoyed with AT&T (which would be a lot of customers, in the face of recent changes to data plans and continuing spotting service by the carrier), a bone of sorts is being tossed. Anyone with an AT&T contract who’s eligible for a phone upgrade in 2010 can get the upgrade price for the iPhone right away.

Which is probably a smart move. Plenty of iPhone users have been frustrated by AT&T’s unreliable service and death grip on the popular phone. In fact, during Jobs’ demo, when there was a problem loading a page, an audience member shouted “Verizon” when Jobs asked for suggestions resolving the problem. (He was, in fact, using a WiFi connection, but you get the point.)

As further evidence of AT&Ts disappointing infrastructure provisions, that video chat feature Jobs likes so much won’t be supported initially using the carrier’s network. It will only be available between iPhone users, both of whom have to be using a WiFi connection.

George would be so disappointed.

The bottom line is that AT&T has ditched its $30 unlimited data usage plan, an attractive product for power users who send and receive large amounts of data on a regular basis.

So those would be the losers.

But for folks who transfer a modest amount of bit and bytes (about 65% of smartphone users), there’s a new data pricing option. For a mere $15, users get 200 MB of data exchange. Customers who go over 200 MB in a monthly billing cycle, get an additional 200 MB of data for $15 until the end of that billing cycle.

For $25 a month, consumers sign up for the DataPro plan and get 2 gigabytes of data. If subscribers exceed 2 GB during a billing cycle, they will be charged $10 for an additional 1GB of data.

You see where this is heading, right? The more data your smartphone sends and receives, the more you pay.

So what kind of user are you?

All this doesn’t affect past subscribers whose contracts are still in force. They get unlimited data for $30 until their contract is up. But anyone who signs up with AT&T from June 7 forward will have to buy into the graduated use and pay plan.

Folks who currently have a contract can switch to the new payment plan (probably a good idea for folks who don’t do a lot of data transfer), but there’s no going back to the $30 unlimited plan once you’ve gone over to the new plan.

What eats up the most data chunks? Video transfer is the big culprit, so anyone who regularly downloads or streams video to their device will likely see the the meter running fast.

The bottom line: Average users probably won’t be slammed by the new pricing deal, but power users will.

Figuring out which one you are, if you’re an AT&T customer, won’t be hard. The company will let you check your usage online and will send you an e-mail when you’re getting close to the limit.

In reality, the big winner here is AT&T, a company that sees the enormous surge of streaming video as the wave of the future. They’re conditioning their users to expect to have to pay for the privilege. While other providers are probably going to attempt to lure iPhone and iPad users away from AT&T and onto new devices with unlimited data offers, don’t expect those kinds of plans to be around long.

The old rules of supply and demand will remain in effect no matter what new technology any company out there comes up with.

With data usage by smartphone users tripling on average every 18 months, the idea of giving all that bandwidth away for a song isn’t going to be profitable much longer.