The February numbers are in, and it's good news for Apple-watchers everywhere. PC Data's latest statistics show that despite some availability problems, the fruit-flavored iMacs snagged a respectable number four slot in retail sales, making February the seventh consecutive month in which the iMac has been in the top five-- ever since it first debuted. A top-five hit for what, twenty-eight weeks straight? That's nothing to sneeze at, and Apple should be proud as heck at pulling off such an accomplishment.

And yet, the good news doesn't stop there; according to MacCentral, Apple as a whole edged its way up in the sales rankings, taking the number three spot and beating out IBM. Apple's share of the retail computer market was a chunky 12.5% of the whole enchilada, whereas Big Blue only commanded 9.5%. Sure, these days Apple and IBM are "friends," what with the AIM PowerPC alliance and all that, but for those of us who remember when Apple's deadliest rival was IBM and not Microsoft, the very idea that Apple sold more retail computers than IBM last month is an indication of just how much things have changed.

Just to put things into perspective, it's worth noting that Apple still has lots of room for improvement; the two computer manufacturers who topped the sales charts in February, Compaq and Hewlett Packard, snapped up 31.3% and 24.3% of the retail market, respectively. And then, of course, there are Dell and Gateway, whose computers don't even enter into these number because they don't sell in the retail channel. Still, 12.5% is a darn sight better than Apple's had in the past, and as far as we can tell, they're gaining momentum instead of losing it. Let's keep those numbers rising...

Depending on your lifestyle, we've got some good news and some potentially bad news about the upcoming consumer portable, code-named "P1" and expected to be dubbed the "WebMate" when it surfaces. The good news is, according to Apple Insider, the P1 is still on track for an official introduction late next month or in early May. The potentially bad news is that the P1 may not be as consumer-targeted as originally expected. Remember, the P1 has always been represented by Apple as the fourth quadrant of its pro/consumer-desktop/portable product strategy; the pro desktop is the Power Mac G3, the pro portable is the PowerBook G3 Series, the consumer desktop is the iMac, and the consumer portable will eventually be the P1. Or so we thought.

Now it appears that Apple may be refocusing the P1 and positioning it more as an educational laptop than as just an iMac-styled low-cost consumer system. Apple Insider sources claim that the P1 is referred to as the "Student Notebook" or "School Book" within Apple's walls. This isn't necessarily a problem, though we're just a little bit concerned that Apple will pull an "eMate" and initially not offer the P1 outside of educational channels. We doubt they'd pull that kind of stunt after plainly stating that we're to expect a consumer portable, but on the off-chance they do, it could mean an extra couple of months before working stiffs can get their hands on a P1. Think of other cool stuff that was only available to education buyers initially; the toothy-looking G3 All-in-one springs to mind. And if for some reason Steve Jobs loses his mind and restricts sales of the P1 to education only, well, we're going to have to quit our jobs and go back to school. Or better yet, knock down some school kid and take his P1. Heck, kids are small-- it shouldn't be too tough.

More than likely, though, the education focus just means that if you're a student, you might win big in the price category, and if you're a poor working slob like us, you might have to shell out some extra cash for a P1; even if it does ship to consumers as soon as the first models roll off the lines, it's more than likely that the price will be substantially higher at, say, CompUSA than it will be on the educational price list. But in terms of the P1 itself, it also means that we can all look forward to a Mac OS-based laptop with many of the education-friendly features that made the eMate so darn cool-- translucent colored plastics, instant-on technology, extended battery life, and a shock-proof construction that takes a licking and keeps on ticking. And a handle-- don't forget the handle. It's all about handles. From a design perspective, Apple's making a smart decision; after all, who in the consumer market needs a laptop more than anyone else? The students in the family.

You may or may not be aware of the fact that Microsoft shipped a new version of Internet Explorer recently. And the reason that you may not know about IE5 is because the Mac version won't be out for several more months. Still, that doesn't mean that the Mac-enabled can't at least derive a little bit of entertainment from the release of this PC-only latest version; take, for example, Microsoft's claim that downloads of IE5 "more than tripled those of the previous record-setting Internet Explorer 4.0." That's all well and good, but they go on to say that one million copies of IE5 were downloaded in five days-- but shortly after IE4 came out, they had claimed that one million copies of IE4 were downloaded in only two days. Let's see, so 200,000 downloads a day is three times more than 500,000 a day; is this Microsoft Math 99™?

Kindasorta. According to a Wired article, Microsoft has been forced to admit that they may have exaggerated the download numbers for IE4 back in October of 1997; it really wasn't true that a million copies of IE4 were downloaded in two days. Rather, a million copies of the installer were downloaded-- and the installer, when run, downloads the bulk of the software. (Why Microsoft insists on doing things that way we'll never understand, but we find it tremendously irritating to complete the download of an installer only to find that it's not actually a full installer at all, but another downloader.) So basically, back in 1997 Microsoft tried to make IE4 look a lot more popular than it really was.

Not that there's anything particularly evil about that-- or, at least, nothing specific to a Microsoft version of evil. After all, they were just making their product look better than it is; that's what marketing's all about. Consider the whole "G3 is up to twice as fast as Pentium II" thing, which is true, but only under very specific conditions. The reason that we find this IE4 exaggeration interesting is because it occurred at the height of the pre-antitrust-trial struggle between Microsoft and Netscape, and it shows what kind of tactics Microsoft used to make people think Netscape was on the way out. When viewed as a piece of the overall puzzle, we just find it noteworthy, that's all...