Well, the initial numbers are in (or at least hints of the official numbers, at any rate), and by all accounts, the iMac had a terrifically strong debut weekend. A Bloomberg News article has the qualitative data, if not necessarily some good, scientific quantitative stuff. (We're hoping that the real numbers are positive enough that Apple issues a press release to fill us in, but you never know.)

CompUSA, for instance, isn't saying exactly how many iMacs they sold over the weekend, but they claim the number is in the "thousands," which can't be bad. Veep Larry Mondry states that CompUSA sold more iMacs on Saturday than they've "ever sold of any computer on a single day." That's great news, coming from the biggest U.S. computer retail chain. As for smaller outfits, ComputerWare (a San Francisco chain with ten stores) claims that they sold 225 iMacs between midnight and 2 A.M. and another 200 before the end of the iMac's first day out of the gate, exceeding their "wildest hopes." Several resellers all over the country are reporting that they not only sold all of the iMacs that Apple sent in the first shipment (which isn't all that surprising, given that pretty much every dealer received far fewer machines than they ordered), but they continued to rack up new orders even after running out of stock. And we've seen several reports of customers offering as much as $2000 for the display model when they found out that there were no more boxed iMacs to buy.

So far, so good-- no reports about "disappointing sales" or any of that stuff. In fact, the iMac's launch seems indisputably successful; even people who are dissing the iMac itself can't seem to deny the fact that it sold like crazy once it hit the stores. Now things get interesting; what will happen to the iMac's demand after its introductory weekend? Will remain at its current level, or will it flag suddenly now that the pent-up demand is being satisfied? After all, a lot of big-budget Hollywood movies have a strong first weekend and then disappear without a trace. Of course, the other scenario is that word of mouth from happy buyers (coupled with heavy advertising from Apple) shows iMac demand increasing steadily until the Christmas buying season, when it positively explodes. If that's the case, we just hope that Apple can build enough iMacs to keep up.

It's up again... Apple's stock continues to inch higher, fueled by reports of an iMac launch that can only be described as successful. Today it nearly reached 43, and finally closed just a hair shy of 42, up almost a point and a half; its high last Friday before the iMac's release was 40.75. A CNET article relates the happy story of Apple's stock, which currently sits well over three times as high as it was at the end of last year. (Is anyone else out there kicking themselves for not buying at 13?)

The fun part about watching Apple's stock is seeing all the analysts scramble to catch up. We recall just six months ago when several analysts were saying that AAPL wouldn't break 30 this year-- which it did in May, not long after the iMac was announced, at which time we were told that it was unlikely to hit 35 by the end of the year. That prediction was proven wrong last month, as was the subsequent prediction that it absolutely wouldn't reach 40 by the end of December. Lou Mazzuchelli, one of the most Apple-knowledgable (and Apple-friendly) analysts, has now raised his twelve-month prediction on Apple's stock to 50. We'll see if that one sticks for a while.

Of course, a company's stock price is by no means the end-all and be-all indicator of how well they're doing, but it's a nice gauge of overall financial confidence. At this point it seems unfathomable that Apple would fail to post a fourth-quarter profit, which would mean that they will have posted profits for a full fiscal year. In addition, we're expecting to see some interesting numbers when the post-iMac market share figures emerge. This could really be the start of something big.

Now that the iMac's here and there's little more guesswork to be done about its breakthrough design (although speculation about its proprietary expansion slot continues to rage-- DVD? FireWire?), it's time to start focusing on the iMac's portable counterpart. The consumer portable, now known by its code name "P1," is expected to be unveiled early next year, most likely at January's MacWorld Expo in San Francisco, though it probably won't be available for a few months after that. Until Apple releases any real information about the device, sites like Mac OS Rumors will provide the early juicy (if apochryphal) details.

So far, the preliminary specifications for P1 are positively astounding. For starters, it's expected to pack a wallop with its 333 MHz or faster processor, though it's possible that the chip will carry no backside cache. However, as we've had the pleasure of using a cacheless 233 MHz PowerBook G3, we can testify to the fact that the P1 will have plenty of speed. Rumor has it that the P1 will also feature 3D accelerated graphics optimized for game playing, though we fail to see how Apple could really squeeze a decent 3D accelerator into a consumer laptop; if they can do it, we're all for it. Throw in a color screen, pen input like the ill-fated eMate had, handwriting recognition, the full-fledged Mac OS (and not a "lite" version as once expected-- and yes, even Mac OS X), and throw it all into a translucent case that weighs about four pounds and takes up a quarter of the space of the current PowerBook line, and you've got a P1, Rumors-style.

Remember, this is a consumer portable, and therefore its price is expected to fall somewhere under the $1500 range. We're saving our pennies here at AtAT, because at that price, we'll buy two of them. They'd be a great companion to our iMac, especially since we bet that the two systems will be able to link via infrared. Cables, schmables...