Apple misses 4Q expectations

Apple misses 4Q expectations

NEW YORK

Apple missed Wall Street earnings expectations for the second-straight quarter, as iPad sales fell short of analyst forecasts.

The slowdown in the growth of iPad sales was not unexpected, as the rumor mill correctly predicted that Apple Inc. would launch a smaller, cheaper iPad. It announced that device, the iPad Mini, on Tuesday.

Sales also were hurt by slowing growth in China. Apple’s sales in China more than doubled in fiscal 2010 and in 2011. Growth in the July-September quarter also was slow in economically troubled Europe.

Net income in the fiscal fourth quarter was $8.2 billion, or $8.67 per share. That was up 24 percent from $6.6 billion, or $7.05 per share, a year ago.

Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting earnings of $8.84 per share.

1878 Edison audio recording unveiled

SCHENECTADY, N.Y.

Researchers have recovered and digitized what experts say is the oldest playable recording of an American voice and history’s first-ever recorded musical performance.

Also included: the first recorded blooper.

The recording was done on a sheet of tinfoil on a phonograph invented by Thomas Edison and made in St. Louis in 1878. It opens with a short cornet solo and is followed by a man reciting nursery rhymes.

Near the end of the 78-second recording, the man laughs after messing up one of the words to “Old Mother Hubbard.”

The tinfoil and the newly digitized recording was played publicly Thursday by a museum in Schenectady (skeh-NEHK’-tuh-dee), N.Y., where Edison founded the General Electric Co.

Experts at California’s Berkeley Lab recovered the recordings using technology developed for the project.

Associated Press