How could I not link to this? (For those of you still keeping track, Horace has now bitten his fingernails completely off.)

Asymco’s estimate for iPhones sold: 55.5 million.

Actual iPhones sold: 47.8 million.

Close, but no cigar. I expect Horace to write a follow-up article soon, explaining his thoughts about the discrepancy.

Benedict Evans crunches some numbers:

In Q4, Apple sold 75m iOS devices and 4.1m Macs. Most estimates of total PC (including Mac) sales in the same period were around 90m.

In other words, Apple is now (in peak quarters) selling as many computing devices as Windows. This trend is not going to change.

When I read this, a few things struck me. Firstly, that’s a lot of iPhones.

Second, Horace doesn’t usually preface estimates with quite this many caveats:

So I’m very uncomfortable with my forecast and find it hard to defend this quarter. I considered not publishing one at all because it gives too much confidence when none is warranted.

We may be surprised when the real numbers come out. Horace’ll be biting his nails.