AP Photo/Andy Wong, File

Because the global economy is still somersaulting its way out of the recession, somewhat good news is enough to make people breath a sigh of relief.

Then again, we’re talking about Apple here. The tech giant announced yesterday that net profit for the company was down 18 percent year-over-year in Q2 to $9.55 billion. But sales were up 11 percent to $43.60 billion; 37.4 million iPhones were shipped out, up 6.6 percent; and 19.5 million iPads were shipped out, up 65 percent from the prior year. Even crazier, the company has $145 billion in cash at its disposal. Like, just lying around. I would like some of those dollars.

With its stock price off dramatically, the company has decided to buy back shares and announced an increased dividend for shareholders. That sent the stock price up and up, meaning it’s hovering around the $405 per share mark. That’s down (check out the graph in the next link), but still, wow. Experts and onlookers are saying that these results are a clear indication that the company needs a big, shiny new thing to jump start the excitement again. CEO Tim Cook said we’ll have to wait until the fall for that.

Today, however, that’s exactly what everyone says Apple really needs. New products would give the company a shot in the arm. Fortune notes that Apple has talked about entering new categories. “This (hopefully) suggests something more than a iPhone5S – same form factor with some new tricks,” the article says. ZDNet also takes a closer look at the prospect of new products, software, and services, saying it all sounds “promising.”

In the meantime, Apple will host a Worldwide Developers Conference June 10 through 14. “At this year’s WWDC, there will be more than 1,000 Apple engineers on hand presenting over 100 technical sessions for developers,” writes Mashable. Cost: $1,599 with tickets on sale tomorrow morning.

What new product or service would you like to see Apple come up with?

Denzel at the Los Angeles premiere of “Flight.” Image: Todd Williamson/Invision/AP Images

Flying can be scary. So when people are 7,000 feet in the air, the last thing they want to see is a film about a frightening flight.

This could be a problem for Denzel Washington‘s new film, Flight, in which he plays an alcoholic pilot who is faced with an in-flight emergency. The movie, which cost $35 million to make, hits theaters on November 2. The studio, Paramount Pictures, has received lukewarm reception from the various airline companies about showing the film onboard during flights.

While the aviation disaster flick wouldn’t have made a ton of money from being shown in-flight, the fees airlines pay to show films does usually add up to a few million dollars. And during a time when ticket sales are down, any extra profits are good news. “According to The Wrap, summer ticket sales dropped nearly 20 million from 545 last year to 526 million summer 2012,” reports Business Insider. In fact, ticket sales have dropped $100 million over the last ten years.

“Don’t think it’s going to happen,” the film’s director, Robert Zemeckis, said of the chances that Flight would be shown in-flight, reports The L.A. Times.

Even Delta Air Lines, which helped train Washington in a cockpit simulator, might not show the film on its planes.

The film also stars Don Cheadle, Melissa Leo, Bruce Greenwood, Kelly Reilly and John Goodman. It is actually based loosely on the 2000 crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261, in which the pilots attempted to recover from catastrophic loss of control by flying the aircraft upside down. That crash had no survivors.

Although the airlines aren’t jumping at showing Flight, early reviews have been good, according to Rotten Tomatoes.

Image: Lewis/Starlite/Picturegroup via AP IMAGES

No shock here: Oprah Winfrey lands atop the Forbes list of “Hollywood’s Highest-Paid Women” banking $165 million. OWN is coming into its own with help from Iyanla Vanzant and more people have access to the station. All good things for “America’s only African-American billionaire.” (“Wow!” on that statement right there.)

What is surprising — at least to us — is Rihanna at number four with $53 million. The magazine attributes the showing to, naturally, her hit music including “We Found Love,” but also a rigorous touring schedule that took her to 85 shows, her perfume Reb’l Fleur and endorsement deals, among them Nivea and Vita Coco.

Has anyone smelled Rihanna’s perfume? I don’t even know that I’ve seen it in stores. The Vita Coco ads have been around, but if asked, I wouldn’t have remembered she did anything with Nivea. Actually, besides the music, I remember Rihanna most for her videos and her constant appearances on websites, red carpets and, now, her big Oprah interview. So much money was on that couch.

What’s crazy is that our writer Ann Brown reminded me that Rihanna sued her former accountants over the summer for breach of contract and negligence, alleging that they “squandered” millions of her dollars and got her audited. So she’s saying she should actually have more millions if not for their bad dealings.

Rihanna is tied on the list with Ellen DeGeneres, who is a spokesperson for Cover Girl and JC Penney, and has a hit daytime show. The two top names like Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez and Katy Perry.

I’m amazed by the Rihanna news mostly because I thought maybe Nicki Minaj or Beyonce would be on the list. True, Beyonce was busy becoming a mom over the past year, which slowed her down a bit. But Nicki Minaj seems to be everywhere — in Pepsi ads, on awards shows, and on this video giving Mariah Carey the what for. Oh. Next year could be Nicki’s time now that she’s on American Idol and has a perfume of her own on the shelves.

Her fans are the ones that have taken Rihanna to the top of this list, and she has millions of them on Facebook, Twitter and everywhere else. So even if someone like me is a little out of the loop and missed a perfume here or an advertisement there, there are others adding to her bank account.

BTW, Judge Judy is on the list. Get a gavel and a bad attitude readers and maybe you can make it to Forbes next year.

The Olympic flame makes its way through London. Photo: London2012.com

-Facebook released its first earnings report as a public company and it wasn’t all they’d hoped. The social network posted a net loss of $157 million on income of $240 million. Revenue was $1.2 billion, up about a third from last year. “Advertising” is the key word and the company’s ad impressions have dropped because users are increasingly accessing the site on their mobile devices. “Mobile users are 20 percent more likely to use Facebook on any given day,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on the earnings call. As of June 30, 2012, monthly active users of the site reached 955 million.

-The 2012 London Olympics’ opening ceremony is today! Are you excited? Creative director Danny Boyle (usually a film director of such movies as Slumdog Millionaire) had a £27 million budget (about $42.5 million) for the performance, which is expected to reach 1 billion viewers. If you want a preview, some footage has leaked on YouTube, although now it might be hard to find. Even if you’re not watching the Games on TV, you’ll be inundated with details online, where news outlets and sponsors will be giving minute-by-minute updates. (#Openingceremony for tonight.) In related news, Mitt Romney went to London and insulted all the Brits.

-The U.S. economy slowed over the spring as consumers kept their spending to a minimum, fears continue over the fate of Europe’s collective economy, and unemployment remains high.

-Business Insider has got a math lesson for you, breaking down the personal finance equations that you should know.

-PC Magazine shares its choices for the best personal finance apps. Get your money matters sorted!

Photo: iStockphoto

-Attention moms! The Venezia and Pliko-P3 strollers both made by Peg Perego are being recalled because of the risk of entanglement and strangulation. The strollers were made between January 2004 and September 2007. The recall of the 233,000 strollers is voluntary. An infant died in 2004 after becoming trapped.

-Business Insider breaks down the “11 biggest mistakes you can make when choosing your LinkedIn photo.” No bikini shots!

-Apple’s earnings announcement feel below expectations as consumers decided to wait for the next iteration of the iPhone, driving down sales. The tech giant sold 8.5 million fewer iPhones (“only” 26 million) during the third quarter of its fiscal year. Don’t worry about Apple though. The company also sold 17 million iPads, up from 12 million the previous quarter. The company reported $35 billion in revenue and the stock still closed at $600.92 per share.

-DNAInfo.com has full coverage of yesterday’s wake for Sylvia’s founder, Sylvia Woods. Her funeral service will take place today at Grace Baptist Church in Mount Vernon.

-A U.S. appeals court ruling says airlines can no longer advertise the cost of airline tickets without including taxes and fees. Rather, the advertised ticket price must include ”the entire price to be paid by the customer.” These taxes and fees can total up to 20 percent of the cost of a ticket. No more surprises when you book that next trip.

I moved to the United States from Tanzania on a scholarship to the University of Chicago. I studied economics and did really well, so I worked in banking for a while when I finished school. But then my visa expired and I couldn’t get it extended. No one would hire me — it didn’t matter how capable I was.  So one day, I was walking around the city trying to think of jobs I might be able to do, and I saw windows all over the place — and I said `That’s it! I’ll be a window washer.’ So that’s what I did. It doesn’t matter if you have visa, as long as you have a Social Security number and pay taxes.

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By Alexis Garrett Stodghill

More couples than ever are choosing shacking up over matrimony, with their numbers doubling since the ’90s, according to a new report released by The Pew Center. Its analysis of recent Census data revealed another discovery: unmarried college-educated couples who live together have a higher household income than similar married people. Unmarried partners earned a median sum of $106,400, while the legally wed took in a little less at $101,160.

These facts disprove the widely-held notion that marriage is the ideal financial arrangement for all. CNN.com elaborates:

The report’s findings fly in the face of conventional wisdom that says married people have it better economically than their unmarried counterparts.

“When we started writing this report, we thought that people who were married, and not those just living with each other, would be better off. But that’s not the case,” said D’Vera Cohn, the study’s co-author.

The key is a college degree, Cohn said.

Cohabiting couples without college educations typically fare worse than comparably educated married couples and are on par with the economic means of an adult living without a partner, the study said.

In fact, “unmarried cohabiting couples who have only completed high school have a median income of $46,540,” while “married high school-educated couples have a combined salary of $56,800,” according to AOL’s MyDaily. So for those with only a high school diploma, marriage still provides greater stability — yet less than that of a single person with a college degree.

Pew found that college educated singles earn an average of $90,067, almost twice that of high school educated unmarried live-ins. Being single and college educated does not cause one to have a high salary — this is a statistical correlation. Yet, this correlation proves the importance of a college degree over marriage for creating wealth. Because of this, when college educated singles unite, they become an economic powerhouse.

The larger combined income of educated, unmarried partners enables these couples to save 1.4 times as much as couples who do not live together. Other factors contribute to their ability to save, such as the fact that only 67% of married couples count both spouses as earners, as opposed to 78% of unmarried loves.  More income automatically means more discretionary funds.

In addition, unmarried, college educated households have fewer children. Child rearing, for couples all along the education spectrum, leads partners to drop out of the workforce.

These findings portray remaining unmarried as an economic advantage — if one has a college degree. Being college educated can make living with a similar spouse a means for getting ahead, but one can also do pretty well alone. According to this new research, anyone without a college education else is better off getting hitched.

What do you think? Does being college educated trump marriage as a foundation for financial security? Or is there more to matrimony than money? Leave your comments on your personal experiences, and discuss.

(AJC) — The personal income of Georgians grew by 1.65 percent in the first three months this year, thanks in part to a reduction in Social Security withholding tax. But the state still lagged behind the nationwide average gain of 1.8 percent.  The first-quarter increase outpaced the 0.97 percent gain in Georgia incomes for the last three months last year, and it marked the sixth consecutive quarterly gain in personal income, a streak that began at the end of 2009.

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(Rolling Out) — Celebrity power couple Jay-Z and Beyoncé have been raking in the big bucks for nearly a decade, besting most of their fellow power couples when it comes to earning power. But individually, Beyoncé has been the breadwinner of the household, earning millions more than her Roc Nation husband, following their marriage in 2008. But now, with the release of Forbes annual Celeb 100 package, Jay-Z has finally overtaken his wife when it comes to their finances.

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(New York Times) — Think of the last 10 pieces of personal finance advice you’ve read. Do any of these sound familiar?

• Cut back on lattes!

• The world’s top 10 coupons

• Don’t go on vacation this year!

If you boil all the advice down, there are just two ways to improve your financial situation: earn more or cut costs. So why don’t more personal finance experts talk about earning more? Because most of them don’t know how.

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