Apple reported another blockbuster quarter thanks to record sales of iPhones and Macs, making the most money ever in company history: $15.7 billion.

Even more unbelievable, Apple is projecting $18 billion in revenue next quarter—and the company is known for lowballing estimates.

Apple is likely to equal Microsoft in annual revenues this year, and may even pass it’s long-time rival. Apple is on track to make more than $60 billion in revenue this year, which is almost equal to Microsoft’s $61.5 billion. Apple already surpassed Microsoft two months ago as the world’s most highly-valued tech company.

Apple sold boatloads of Macs and iPhones. The iPad is also a big hit: Apple has shifted 3.27 million iPads since launch. The only downside was iPod sales.

Here are the key numbers:

• Macs: 3.47 million Macs sold, the most ever in a single quarter, and 33% more than last year.
• iPhones: 8.4 million sold, up 61% year-over-year.
• iPods: 9.41 million sold, down 8% from the year-ago quarter.

In addition, Steve Jobs hinted at even more new products this year:

“It was a phenomenal quarter that exceeded our expectations all around, including the most successful product launch in Apple’s history with iPhone 4,” Steve Jobs said in a statement. “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.”

Here’s the full press release:

Although Apple is not set to launch its iAds platform until July 1, placeholder tests are already being spotted at the App Store. The placeholders appear with the iAd logo in apps for developers OneTap Movies and the Yellow Pages, according to Monday reports.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs told a Worldwide Developers conference that 17 advertisers had already signed onto the platform, committing up to $60 million for iAds. Jobs said 60 percent of that money will return to developers. “Apple sells and serves the ads, and you recieve 60 percent of the advertising revenue,” he explained.

The clusterflug continues. If you were one of the few prospective buyers who managed to successfully order an iPhone 4 from AT&T last week before their whole untested system crashed, you may well have gotten an email from AT&T over the weekend, claiming your order had been canceled for no particular reason.

When Steve Jobs announced yesterday that they were finally taking the “phone” out of the iPhone OS and rebranding it “iOS,” I breathed a sigh of relief: even before the iPad, branding an operating system that runs on non-phone hardware like the iPod Touch always seemed confusing, and if rumors of a new Apple TV are correct, Apple’s plans for iOS are far bigger than the smartphone arena.

But I also met the announcement with a bit of a “Whuh?” Cisco has owned the trademark for iOS for almost two decades: it’s what their routers run on. Then again, Cisco also owned the iPhone trademark, and Apple came to a deal with them on that one back in 2007: they must have worked out a deal.

They did. According to a Cisco blog post, “Cisco has agreed to license the iOS trademark to Apple for use as the name of Apple’s operating system for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.  The license is for use of the trademark only and not for any technology.”

As of this moment, there’s no news if Apple reached a similar licensing agreement with the Greek government, who certainly could use the money right about now.

On the eve of WWDC, a speculative story on mp3newswire.net suggests some interesting possibilities for Apple in the video and media space given the explosive adoption of iDevices:

In 1959 5,749,000 television sets were sold in the US, bringing the cumulative total of sets sold since 1950 to 63,542,128 units. This number supported, through advertising, three national television networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS (a fourth, Dumont, folded in 1956) and numerous local independent stations. Television was big business by the start of the 1960’s.

Now here are another set of numbers. As of April this year Apple sold 75 million iPhone and iPod touch units, devices capable of delivering video via Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. Add to that figure 2 million iPads and counting. By the end of the year Apple should have about 90 million smart mobile devices in the wild.

Boxee, the innovative software solution that puts the Internet on your television, has long been among the brightest lights in the strange hinterland inhabited by users of AppleTV.

Friday, the company announced a new partnership with Wolfgang’s Vault, the virtual motherlode of live music recordings, that immediately sweetens the pot for those intrepid souls who dare to invite the Internet into the living room.

Lest one mistake Wolfgang’s Vault for a sparkly bauble dangled at aging Boomers and Hippies lost in nostalgia for the Summer of Love, the company also offers access to plenty of current music, including high-fidelity recordings from artists such as Death Cab for Cutie, Ani Difranco, Sean Hayes and Vampire Weekend.

The Elgato EyeTV HD DVR is easy to recommend to Apple fans who are serious about video: it’s whole raison d’etre is to make it as easy as possible to transcode your high-defenition television content to watch on your MacBook, iPhone or iPad.

As a DVR, the EyeTV allows you to plug it into your satellite or cable box and record shows in high-definition H.264 video, which can easily be converted to iPad or iPhone optimized files when you plug it into your Mac’s USB port. If that’s too much work for you and you expect to watch a show on your iPad over your HDTV, you can opt to record in iPad or iPhone mode.

Even better? If you don’t want to physically sync your EyeTV media to your iPhone or iPad, you can just stream it over 3G or WiFi with the EyeTV app.

The Elgato EyeTV HD is available now at your local Apple Store for just $199.

“Everything that Apple makes is meant to be dropped”

Adam Carolla tells it like it is in his latest rant about Apple products including a demonstration using his lucite handled Apple Tower. (Anyone know the model?) And apparently everything that Apple makes is shaped like soap.

Adam’s off TV, but he’s certainly doing well for himself. Check out Adam Carolla on his podcast available in iTunes.

When you have deep pockets, you’re likely to be the target of lawsuits. That maxim has never been more true than with Apple. A week after Nokia again sued the Cupertino, Calif. company, a graphics display outfit in Washington State has sued Apple, claiming the iPhone infringes its patents on scaling web graphics to mobile devices.

Patent No. 7461353, entitled “Scalable Display of Internet Content on Mobile Devices,” mentions many iPhone-centric features, including manipulating the size of on-screen graphics. “Mobile devices enabled to support resolution-independent scalable display of internet (Web) content to allow Web pages to be scaled (zoomed) and panned for better viewing on smaller screen sizes.”

Steve Wozniak is unhappy at the Mac launch, which resembles “Woodstock for nerds.” Part 10 of “My Close Encounters With Steve Jobs,” a personal history of the original Mac by Macworld founder David Bunnell.