So, how did the Apple analysts do?

“There’s a good reason most Wall Street analysts don’t publicly review their predictions after the fact. It’s called self-preservation,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune. “Who wants to advertise how badly they misunderstood the companies they follow?”

“Case in point: Apple (AAPL), and the quarterly report it issued Monday afternoon. Apple management gave ample warning that it wanted to change its accounting procedures under the rules revised last fall — recognizing iPhone revenue when it comes in, rather than spreading it out over 24 months (see The day Apple released its revenue bomb),” Elmer-DeWitt reports.

“Yet nearly half the professional analysts we polled missed the boat entirely — never bothering to publish estimates for the so-called non-GAAP (generally accepted accounding procedures) numbers that pushed Apple’s revenue to a record $15.68 billion in its first fiscal quarter of 2010,” Elmer-DeWitt reports.

“And those who did were all over the lot, getting as many calls wrong as they got right,” Elmer-DeWitt reports. “None of the professionals hit as close to the mark as our three favorite independent analysts: Turley Muller, Andy Zaky and the blogger who calls himself deagol.”

Check out the numbers in the full article here.