“Apple reports rare miss on earnings” – The Verge

“A miss: Apple sells 26 million iPhones in third quarter” – CNet

“Apple blames quarterly miss on new model anticipation, economy” – Reuters

“Apple Shares Slump After Big Earnings Miss” – WSJ Blogs

Maybe these writers consider it a shorthand, but it’s not a standard and it’s completely unclear to the average reader what exactly it was that Apple “missed”. A truly casual reader (I’m picturing someone in sweat pants with a can of beer… possibly even a beer hat) might think Apple reported a loss. When, in reality, they had a very good quarter that Wall Street over-estimated. Frankly, the only concerning thing from today’s results was that Apple’s growth was the lowest since 2009. If you want to accentuate the negative, that should be your lede, not that they missed analysts’ estimates.