Like last year’s D6 conference, this year’s D7 has had its share of memorable lines. A selection of some of the better ones below:

“He drew arrows everywhere. It looked like a Dilbert cartoon.”

– Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz on the org chart that company co-founder Jerry Yang drew for her while wooing her for the CEO job

“Unless you are selling porn, and weird porn, it’s not worth going the subscription route.”

– Arianna Huffington, Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post

“There’s always going to be someone trying to rush the fat kid to the head of the buffet.”

– Mark Cuban on a potential bandwidth crisis

“We should have named it ‘BOOM!’”

– Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer suggests an alternative Steve Jobs-esque name for Bing

“The Pre eats iPhones for breakfast.”

– Roger McNamee jokes about the Pre’s prowess

“People in the music industry, we’ve had a horrible record of shooting ourselves in the head.”

– Ticketmaster Entertainment CEO Irving Azoff states the obvious

“I’ve always said that if we described Twitter in three sentences, the first two would be about not putting too much fidelity on it, and the last sentence would be ‘we don’t know.’”

– Twitter co-founder Biz Stone

“You can’t take nine women and make a baby in the month; there is a process.”

– Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz

“Down 15 percent is the new flat. I mean, isn’t it? C’mon.”

– Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz on the econalypse

“It is a product that has changed the face of wireless communications.”

– AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson makes obeisance to the Apple iPhone

“Would I like to see the [Palm] Pre on our network some day? Of course I would.”

– AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson

“Do you want me to say something naughty now?”

– Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz to Kara Swisher

“Are you leading up to ‘I’m too old and too stupid to know what the Internet is?’ Cause by the way, Walt is 61 and I’m only 60. So… f— you.”

– Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz brings down the house with the f-bomb

“They’d have to have big boatloads of money.”

– Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz names Yahoo’s selling price to Microsoft

“I don’t see the benefits of a tablet over a notebook.”

– RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis

“That was pretty cool.”

– Walt Mossberg reviews the unreleased Nokia N97 from the D7 stage

“The people who fired you [from AOL] were later fired, so that must feel great.”

– Kara Swisher to Jon Miller, chief digital officer of News Corp.

“I’m sorry we’re starting late. Carol Bartz just trashed my hotel room.”

– Kara Swisher

“I wouldn’t have bought it.”

– Mark Cuban on YouTube

“‘First come the innovators, then come the imitators, then come the idiots.’ That’s where we are on the Internet.”

– Mark Cuban quotes Warren Buffet

“We just want everyone to get along.”

– Twitter co-founder Evan Williams on claims that the company will someday kill Google

“When someone in the government wants you, it’s not a good place to be. You don’t want to be someone’s skin on the wall.”

– Mark Cuban on his legal problems

“So what have you been up to besides dancing and fighting the government?”

– Kara Swisher to Mark Cuban

“We need companies to say, ‘this matters.’”

– Activist Eve Ensler calls for rape-free cell phones

“We like to call them minicomputers.”

– Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo renames the smartphone

“The discussion we need to have is about saving journalism, not saving newspapers.”

– Arianna Huffington, Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post

“You are so lucky I wasn’t born in this country!”

– Arianna Huffington, on running for president

“We’d like to be the most-watched TV network. We don’t have to be.”

– NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker on ratings

“If you were a business picking a space in which to compete, you wouldn’t pick one with Microsoft, Apple and Google.”

– Mozilla chairman Mitchell Baker

“Steve,

Forget it

Won’t help

Ha

Carol”

– Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz‘s note to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

“It’s aimed at women.”

– Roger McNamee on the Palm Pre’s mirror

“I worked with Steve for many years and learned a tremendous amount from him, the value of user experience and design–taste. I also learned the idea of great marketing.”

– Apple alum and Pre-designer Jon Rubinstein on Steve Jobs

“Most people think of the browser as a pane of glass, they don’t realize that it really effects the way they see the Web.”

– Mozilla CEO John Lilly

“Encarta is an encyclopedia…that is not getting much ongoing investment.”

– Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on the now-defunct Encarta

“It’s not hard, I’ve been watching ‘Green Acres’ for years.”

– Kara Swisher on her imitation of Arianna Huffington’s accent

“You’re now where Google’s “don’t-be-evil” bulldozer is heading.”

– Walt Mossberg to Mozilla execs John Lilly and Mitchell Baker

“I like Chrome.”

– Mozilla CEO John Lilly reviews Google’s new browser

“[The Pre is ] extremely competitively priced.”

– Sprint exec. Kevin Packingham

The great truism about rebates is that anything less than 100 percent redemption is free money for the companies offering them. That’s something Palm and Sprint are clearly counting on as they bring Palm’s new Pre handset to market with a $100 rebate.

The companies tout the Pre’s selling price as $199, but really that’s a bit disingenuous. If you intend to buy one, you still have to walk into the store with $299. Sure, you’ll be given that rebate, but Palm (PALM) and Sprint (S) are both hoping you won’t use it. And statistically speaking, you may not. Sahir Anand, Research Director at Aberdeen Group, says rebate redemption rates among the 175 organizations he recently surveyed were just 58 percent. Customers who failed to submit their rebates either found them too cumbersome or simply forgot about them. And that can end up being quite profitable for the companies that issue them. Consider this: In 2004, TiVo (TIVO) promised customers a $100 mail-in rebate within six to eight weeks of the purchase of a new DVR. About 50,000 of the 104,000 eligible for that offer failed to take advantage of it. That saved TiVo about $5 million.

How much might Palm and Sprint save on the Pre rebate program? It’s impossible to say with any degree of specificity, but certainly enough to raise the average selling price of the device above $199. Perhaps even well above it, if Aberdeen’s metrics are borne out.

Blu-ray is a bag of hurt.

– Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Oct. 2008

2009 may prove to be the year that Blu-ray caught on. Sales of the high-definition DVD players–sluggish throughout 2008–are surging in 2009. According to the latest metrics from the NPD Group sales of standalone Blu-ray disc players in the United States rose 72 percent from the first quarter of 2008, driven by an increasing awareness of the technology. As NPD notes in its report, Blu-ray disc video technology is moving further into the mainstream. Consumer awareness of Blu-ray in the United States has grown 90 percent, and purchase intent is up as well. Six percent of the people NPD spoke to said they would be “extremely or very likely” to buy a player in the next six months. Apparently now that the average selling price has plummeted 34 percent–from $393 in Q1 2008 to $261 in Q1 2009–consumers find it easier to get past the “my current DVD player is good enough” barrier.

“The rising penetration of high-definition televisions and lower Blu-ray player prices are broadening the format’s market opportunity,” Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at NPD, said in a statement. “Even as options expand for accessing movies digitally, Blu-ray is carrying forward the widespread appeal of DVD into the high-definition marketplace.”

That said, Blu-ray titles are still being dramatically outsold by DVD–though sales are rising quickly.

[Image Credit: The Onion]

Blu-ray is a bag of hurt.

– Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Oct. 2008

2009 may prove to be the year that Blu-ray caught on. Sales of the high-definition DVD players–sluggish throughout 2008–are surging in 2009. According to the latest metrics from the NPD Group sales of standalone Blu-ray disc players in the United States rose 72 percent from the first quarter of 2008, driven by an increasing awareness of the technology. As NPD notes in its report, Blu-ray disc video technology is moving further into the mainstream. Consumer awareness of Blu-ray in the United States has grown 90 percent, and purchase intent is up as well. Six percent of the people NPD spoke to said they would be “extremely or very likely” to buy a player in the next six months. Apparently now that the average selling price has plummeted 34 percent–from $393 in Q1 2008 to $261 in Q1 2009–consumers find it easier to get past the “my current DVD player is good enough” barrier.

“The rising penetration of high-definition televisions and lower Blu-ray player prices are broadening the format’s market opportunity,” Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at NPD, said in a statement. “Even as options expand for accessing movies digitally, Blu-ray is carrying forward the widespread appeal of DVD into the high-definition marketplace.”

That said, Blu-ray titles are still being dramatically outsold by DVD–though sales are rising quickly.

[Image Credit: The Onion]

But COO (and temporary CEO) Tim Cook’s dismissal of the netbook market will continue to spark speculation that the company is readying something that sits in between a laptop and an iPhone (which is itself a computer, of course). Silicon Alley Insider’s Dan Frommer got more of Cook’s response than I did so I’ll reprint his quote here:

“When I look at what is being sold in the netbook space today, I see cramped keyboards, terrible software, junky hardware, very small screens, and just not a consumer experience and not something we would put the Mac brand on. So it’s not a space–as it exists today–that we’re interested in, nor do we believe that customers in the long term would be interested in. That said, we do look at the space and are interested in how customers respond to it. People who want a small computer than does browsing and email might want to buy an iPod touch or iPhone. We play indirect basis. Then of course if we find a way where we can deliver an innovative product that really makes a contribution, then we’ll do that. We have some interesting ideas in this space.”

EARLIER:

Apple (AAPL) just turned in a strong quarter and followed it up with conservative guidance. A fairly typical performance for the company. Now investors will want to know about new product lines, Steve Jobs’s health and other matters. I’ll be covering the call live. Please refresh this page for the most current information. Click here if you want to listen in yourself.

Joining call now. Tim Cook CFO Peter Oppenheimer going over info that’s already in the release.

Mac products: 2.2 million Macs, a three percent decline year-to-year. Tough comparison from last year. But better than the seven percent drop in PC sales overall. “We feel very positive about our Mac performance.” Began and ended quarter with three-to-four weeks of Mac inventory.

iPod: People still buying ‘em! iPod touch selling well, and so are apps. Claims people like the new shuffle player. [Dubious about that]. We own the MP3 player market. [Duh.] Began and ended the quarter with four-to-six weeks of inventory.

iTunes store: 35,000 apps available in store, up from 15,000 a quarter ago. “We are within hours” of one billions app downloaded.

iPhones: Unless I’m missing something, absolutely no new data here. Praising new iPhone 0S 3.0 that’s in the works. Apple delayed the start of revenue recognition of all iPhones sold after the company announced the new OS, which was March 17. Will start up again once OS is released.

Stores: Half our Macs sold to people who had never owned one before. Average revenue per store is down year over year, because the economy is lousy.

Gross margins: Commodity and other component costs lower than expected. Higher-margin sales better are also than expected. Apple also spent less on operating expenses than expected.

Guidance: Forecasting is “challenging” in macroenvironment. Again, noting delay in revenue recognition for iPhones (see above). Excited about new products in pipeline, etc.

Q&A

Outlook for pricing on component supply? Mostly favorable, but some commodities, like NAND, will increase sequentially. Cook does not expect to see the level of reduction seen in calendar Q1. Will it be down? It will be “in a similar range as last quarter.”

Cash flow issues? Not really, for several reasons: 1) Apple made prepayment to…. [sorry, I didn't catch who that was]; 2) accounts payable were down, from holiday quarter to spring quarter, which is standard; 3) at $1.3 billion, tax payments were up “significantly” from last year.

Mac business: Desktops selling well, but average selling price down quite a bit. What’s going on? Sales accelerated in March after Apple announced new product launch. Higher-end Pro products sold to professionals are down a bit, which is related to economy for obvious reasons. Education sales also down a bit, for same reasons. Hoping Federal stimulus funds will help with that.

Back to netbooks–why won’t Apple sell them? Cook is still criticizing netbooks. The ones available today are ”just not a consumer experience and not something we would put the Mac brand on, quite frankly. It’s not a space today that we’re interested in, and it’s not a space we think that customers in the long-term are interested in.” But… a slight hedge with regard to smaller computers, which are, of course, what the iPhone and iPod Touch are. We “have interesting ideas in this space.” Today’s netbooks really shouldn’t even be called computers, really.

App store: What’s the mix between paid and free downloads and the iPod and iTouch mix? Nope. Apple won’t say. Again, Cook notes that we’re just “hours away” from the one billionth download. Cook: One of the keys behind the growth of iPod has been that sales of the iPod touch “more than doubled year-over-year.” The iPod and iPod Touch have reached sales of 37 million units, a big platform for developers. So there’s a virtuous cycle there.

[Sorry, missed two questions here.]

Why is Apple still doing an exclusive with AT&T for the iPhone? And how’s Steve Jobs? AT&T (T) is the best wireless provider in the U.S. “They have done a very good job with iPhone….We’re very happy with the relationship we have and do not intend to change it.” Structurally, we’re using GSM architecture, and Verizon (VZ) uses CDMA, and we wanted a world phone.

And Steve Jobs? Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer: “We look forward to Steve returning to Apple at the end of June.” [Translation: No news.]

[Yet another question missing here. Apologies.]

Any info on DRM-free/”iTunes plus” sales? Too early to tell.

How much impact did Wal-Mart (WMT) have on Apple sales? Very key partner for the iPod. The company believes Wal-Mart provides extended reach. Pleased with results, but “early going, and not much to report there yet.”

So many iPhone Apps. How can you make them easier to find on iTunes? (Same problem as music.) Any kind of unusual patterns? Nonanswer here.

Please talk about competition for smartphones–i.e., please discuss the Palm (PALM) Pre. “Difficult to comment on products that aren’t shipping. So there’s nothing intelligent I could say on the Pre.” But “we think we’re years ahead.” We see things through software lens and that has benefited us and customers very well. Power of device and ecosystem enormous and we’re now just scratching the surface.”

What about suing Palm re: patents on the Pre, etc.? “We think that Apple’s innovation is leading the industry by years. We think competition is great; we think it makes all of us better as long as other companies invent their own stuff.”