Apple on Tuesday announced financial results for its fiscal 2016 second quarter and for the first time in 13 years, it posted a year-over-year decline in revenues.

For the quarter ending March 26, 2016, Apple generated revenues of $50.6 billion with $10.5 billion, or $1.90 per share, in profit.

In the year-ago quarter, Apple produced revenues of $58 billion with a profit of $13.6 billion, or $2.33 per share. Gross margin was also down slightly, from 40.8 percent during the same period last year to 39.4 percent in the most recent quarter.

Apple sold 51.2 million iPhones in the second quarter, or just over 10 million less than it did in the year-ago quarter. Unsurprisingly, sales of the iPad continue to slide as Apple moved just 10.3 million units, down from 12.6 million in Q2 2015.

Most any other company would be dancing a jig over these financial results but for Apple, many are considering this a turning point (and not in a good way). For one, there's the obvious decline in revenue, profit and sales - there's simply no looking past that.

The criticism that Apple's likely to field over the coming days and weeks isn't without merit as its last three new products - the iPhone SE, the 9.7-inch iPad Pro and the new 12-inch MacBook - all look identical to their predecessors. As CNET notes, they're not at all bad products but the fact that there haven't been any new designs thus far in 2016 probably isn't helping matters.

Is it too early to panic? Probably so.

As of the most recent quarter, Apple is sitting on a staggering $232 billion in cash and investments. It's pretty much common knowledge that Apple is incredibly interested in the automotive and virtual reality spaces with products said to be at varying degrees of development. There's also the streaming Internet TV service in the pipeline as well as a second generation Apple Watch (meh) and the iPhone 7 later this year.

Simply put, Apple has the cash to make it through a couple of rough quarters but if it wants to remain atop the technology totem pole, it can't make a habit of results like it posted today.

Lead image courtesy Mashable