Statements made by Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer during the recent 3Q 2012 earnings call are beginning to make sense in light of news from AllThingsD's John Paczkowski that shows that Apple's prepayments for inventory components are ramping up in a big way.
The Apple executives had noted that the 4Q 2012 earnings guidance would be down due to a "product transition," basically a way of saying that they'd be spending more on building inventory for a new product coming down the pike. Cook and Oppenheimer also repeatedly referred to "confidence in the new product pipeline," meaning that somet
