Apple is much more cyclical than Google or Microsoft. They get a much larger boost from the holiday season. So you should look not only at Q1, or at Q4, but a

Apple is much more cyclical than Google or Microsoft. They get a much larger boost from the holiday season. So you should look not only at Q1, or at Q4, but at all four quarters. AAPL earnings for quarters ending: 2012-12-29 $13.078 billion 2013-03-30 $ 9.547 billion 2013-06-29 $ 6.900 billion 2013-09-28 $ 7.512 billion 2013-12-28 $13.072 billion