At a town hall meeting today, Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook talked about new employee benefits. Cook announced that Apple employees will soon be given $500 discounts on purchases of new Macs and $250 discounts on purchases of a new iPad. The new discount program will be applied at some point in June 2012. The Apple employees may utilize the discount opportunity once every three years and the employee must have been working for Apple for at least 90 days. The Mac discount includes the Mac Mini. Current employees already have a 25% discount on Macs.

Today Apple Inc. announced the financial results for the first 2012 quarter which spanned 14 weeks and ended December 31, 2011. The company reported $46.33 billion and recorded a net profit of $13.06 billion. One year ago, the company reported $26.74 billion in revenues and profits of $6 billion. International sales accounted for 58% of the company’s revenue.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has admitted that Siri’s inability to locate abortion clinics is a glitch. Initially people suspected that Siri was anti-abortion, but Apple said that Siri is a work-in-progress and it lacks answers on several topics.

The late Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) co-founder and chairman Steve Jobs worked on company operations up until the day before he passed away. When Apple CEO Tim Cook was meeting with Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank Capital, he received a call from Jobs. “That was the day of the announcement of the iPhone 4S. He said that Steve is calling me because he wants to talk about their next product. And the next day, he died,” said Son.

Samsung Electronics COO Lee Jae-yong and Apple CEO Tim Cook met with each other to discuss the long-term parts cooperation between the two companies. The two met this past Monday after Lee attended a memorial service for Steve Jobs. Apple and Samsung are strategic partners and rivals in legal battles at the same time. Jae-yong told reporters that Samsung will continue to sell parts to Apple until 2012. “For the 2013-2014 period, we discussed how best to supply even better parts,” said Jae-yong. Apple is Samsung’s largest semiconductor customer today. [KoreaHerald]

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has announced the financial results for their fourth quarter ended September 24, 2011. Apple posted a quarter revenue of $28.27 billion and profit of $6.62 billion. During the same quarter a year before, Apple reported revenues of $20.34 billion and quarterly profit of $4.31 billion. Apple sold 17.07 million iPhones, 11.12 million iPads, 6.62 million iPods, and 4.89 million Macs in the quarter.

Tomorrow is the official announcement at Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) about the new iPhone. The iPhone 5 (or iPhone 4S) is expected to have a large touchscreen and faster processor than the current iPhone. The iPhone 4 sold more than 20 million devices in the third quarter ended June 25th alone.

Tim Cook, the new Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO, has sent out an e-mailed an update to employees saying that joining Apple was the best decision he has ever made. He also said that “Apple is not going to change.” Tim Cook is known for being aggressive in driving down the costs of Apple’s gadget prices and making deals with suppliers. Cook also filled in for Jobs when he was on medical leave: