There was a time – in fact, all the time — when Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) went through the routine of being extremely conservative with its own financial forecasts.

What does it say about the near-term future that this tech behemoth that the company doesn’t even see the need for that anymore?

Apple absolutely pounded Wall Street’s first-quarter earnings and revenue estimates after Tuesday’s closing bell – delivering huge upsides vs. expectations on just about every product it sells.

The company said first-quarter profit soared to $6.43 a share, besting analysts’ estimates by more than $1. Revenue rose more than 70% to $26.7 billion – more than $2 billion more than what the Street expected.

The news boosted Apple’s shares more than 4% in after-hours trading, more than making up their decline in the wake of Monday’s news that CEO Steve Jobs would take a six-month leave of absence to focus on his health.

Where to begin with the outperformance of the company’s holiday quarter, is perhaps the question:  Apple moved 16.2 million iPhones during the quarter, analysts had expected 15.6 million. Nearly 20 million iPods were sold, above expectations of 17.7 million, while 7.3 million iPads sold beat analysts’ forecasts for 6.3 million.

About the only near-black mark on the company’s performance was that Apple only met expectations for shipments of its Mac computers with 4.1 million sold.

As for the old under-promise guidance game, even Apple couldn’t bear it: the company said it expects to earn $4.90 a share in its second fiscal quarter, on revenue of $22.2 billion. Wall Street had expected a profit of $4.47 a share on revenue of $20.8 billion (and likely expected the company to forecast well below that).

For long-term investors, of course, the issue becomes how the company can top what happened in the past three months with a more limited role by the CEO that made it happen.