Apple Computer had plenty of good news in its quarterly earnings announcement this afternoon. It sold 33 percent more Macs during the quarter than it sold last year during the same period. Unit sales of iPods grew 21 percent.

Oh, yeah. It also sold 270,000 units of its new iPhone in just 30 hours.

The company said it earned $818 million, or 92 cents a share, on revenue of $5.41 billion during the quarter. The results blew away analysts' expectations, which called for earnings per share of 72 cents on revenue of $5.3 billion. Revenue rose 24 percent from the year-ago period, while earnings were up 73 percent.

The iPhone news in particular was something of a relief to investors, who sent Apple shares up nearly 10 percent in after-hours electronic trading. Yesterday, AT&T said it activated just 146,000 iPhones during the two-day period, which was far fewer than the 200,000 to 500,000 that many analysts had predicted.

"iPhone is off to a great start—we hope to sell our millionth iPhone by the end of its first full quarter of sales—and our new product pipeline is very strong," Apple C.E.O. Steve Jobs said in a statement. On a conference call this afternoon, Apple executives said the company is still on track to sell 10 million phones by the end of next year. It plans to be selling the iPhone in Europe by the end of the current quarter, and will expand into Asia during 2008.

But analysts on the conference call were a bit befuddled by news that Apple will not use the same accounting method for iPhone sales as it does for the iPod. Instead of recognizing revenue from iPhone sales in real time, Apple will defer the revenues over a 24-month period. However, it will record expenses from iPhone sales in the quarter during which they are incurred. Apple said it chose this "subscription accounting" method because it plans to release new features and software upgrades for the phone that will be available at no cost.

Apple said it will recognize revenue from its agreement with AT&T as it is received, but it recorded nothing from its partner during this period. It also would not provide any guidance as to how much it expects to receive from AT&T in future quarters.

Executives also declined to disclose what revenue, if any, the company receives from content partners who are featured on the front screen of the device.

Apple said it had $180 million in deferred revenue at the end of June from the iPhone and the Apple TV combined. The company declined to separate the two product lines in the balance sheet item.

All of this means that the iPhone won't have as much impact on Apple's bottom line as some might have hoped right away, but the company said the revenue-expense ratio will improve over time.

Apple expects to earn 65 cents a share on $5.7 billion in revenue during its September quarter, citing higher commodity costs as a factor that will likely drag margins down.