There’s no slowing down the Apple freight train. Despite missing revenue estimates by $2.2 billion this quarter, 2012 is continuing to evolve as a blockbuster year for Apple, with record-breaking iPad sales. The icing on the cake for Apple fanatics? Apple announced it will launch OS X Mountain Lion on Wednesday, July 25.

“We could not be more confident in our product pipeline,” Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said in the earnings call.

Apple garnered $35 billion in revenue for a quarterly net profit of $8.8 billion. Nonetheless, even $35 billion in revenue is a bit of a disappointment when Wall Street estimates projected $37.2 billion in revenue. While gadget hounds shrugged off the rare Apple earnings miss, investors weren’t so charitable: Apple’s stock fell about $31, or about 5 percent, in after-hours trading immediately following the announcement.

The iPad continued its record-breaking streak, as Apple sold 17 million iPads during the quarter that ended June 30 — an 84 percent unit increase over this period a year ago, and an all-time quarterly record for iPad unit sales. Last quarter was also the best quarter ever for education-related iPad sales: Apple sold nearly twice as many iPads as Macs to U.S. educational institutions.

And Apple apparently isn’t threatened by the Kindle Fire, Galaxy Tab, or any other competing tablet that’s been released thus far. “We’ve all seen many different tablets, hundreds of them come to market over the last year,” CEO Tim Cook said. “I have yet to see any of them really gain any level of traction at all.”

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, China, one of Apple’s biggest markets, didn’t factor into iPad sales numbers. Apple’s latest tablet went on sale in China only last Friday.
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