Close your eyes and clear your mind. Now picture 5 million iMacs. If you've got a decent visual imagination, right now you're probably emitting a low whistle and thinking to yourself, "that's a whole lotta iMacs." (If you're a real Mac fanatic, you're probably also drooling a little.) Acres upon acres of translucent curves, a vast translucent sea of Bondi Blue, Blueberry, Indigo, Graphite, Lime, Strawberry, Grape, Ruby, Sage, Snow, Flower Power, a smidge of Blue Dalmatian, and even a few isolated blobs of Tangerine-- all bobbing and undulating as if to beckon and say "try us; there's no step 3." It's like some kind of beautiful dream, isn't it?

Well, as faithful viewer Mark Chally pointed out, some dreams do come true. According to an Apple press release, the company's 5 millionth iMac just rolled off the lines, and that's a milestone of which Apple is justifiably proud. We still recall the skepticism that arose when CompUSA's CEO said that he thought that Apple would sell "a million of 'em," but as it turns out, the man was thinking small. In fact, Apple's iMac count has now surpassed AtAT's Nielsen ratings, despite the fact that our Nielsen count has been around for about a year longer. For purposes of illustration, consider that these days, AtAT manages to sucker roughly twelve thousand of you poor misguided souls to tune in each weekday-- maybe that'll help you get a more visceral feel for how many iMacs Apple has sold in the past few years. In short, that's an awful lot of translucent plastic getting shipped around the world.

But the fun doesn't stop there; reportedly Uncle Steve actually had the boxed 5 millionth iMac on display at yesterday's annual shareholders' meeting, at which the proud poppa announced, "I look forward to shipping the 10 millionth iMac a few years from now." Now, whereas the pessimists are no doubt already noticing that, judging by his described time frame, Steve clearly isn't anticipating any iMac sales growth and therefore the company is doomed, the rest of us are taking this as a not-so-subtle clue that Apple doesn't have any short-term plans to retire the box that saved its bacon. So apparently we can look forward to at least a few more years of iMaccy goodness to come.

Incidentally, our own operatives have managed to secure some data on just where those 5 million iMacs wound up; apparently about 4 million of them shipped to the sets of various television shows. Who'da thunk it? But, as faithful viewer geddes and pointed out, even Survivor's getting into the "let's stick an iMac in front of the camera" game, thus proving two things: Hollywood loves a pretty face, and (as faithful viewer David West puts it) the iMac is the computer of choice among "stranded primal money-grubbers in the Australian Outback." So at least we know there's a ready market for the next 5 million...

Oh, man, not this issue again... Listen, we don't want to get into a heated discussion over racial quotas and affirmative action (we'll leave that for the feedback section of MacCentral's coverage of yesterday's shareholders' meeting, where the debate appears to be raging nicely), but without getting into the politics of the issue, we're just a little tired of hearing people complain that there are no minorities on Apple's board of directors. We'll tell you why in a minute, but first a little exposition is probably in order.

To the best of our knowledge, this issue first garnered widespread attention with respect to Apple just over two years ago, when civil rights leader and Dr. Seuss reciter Jesse Jackson publicly blasted Apple for using the images of people like Cesar Chavez and Miles Davis in its "Think Different" ads while not actually having any minorities on its board. It was at that time that Jackson announced that he had purchased Apple stock and "fully intended to be among the attendees at Apple's next shareholders' meeting." Strangely enough, though, we didn't hear about any Jesse vs. Steve showdowns at last year's do.

This year, however, someone else picked up Jesse's baton and the question popped up again; CNET reports that a shareholder noted that "Apple has no racial minorities on its board" and that "adding women and minorities would truly help Apple 'think different.'" Steve agreed, and admitted that it's Apple's fault for not having looked hard enough for suitable candidates.

Okay, now here's where we start to lose it. When he started this ball rolling ,technically Jackson complained about the lack of "African American or Latino" representation on Apple's board, but considering that two paragraphs later in his original statement on the subject he includes "Asians" in his list of minorities for whom he wants to open the "world of venture capital," does it strike anyone else as strange that amid all this complaining about a lack of minorities on Uncle Steve's dream team, nobody ever seems to remember Gareth Chang? The man's not even just of Asian descent-- he's a full-on native of Chengdu, China, according to Apple's press release announcing Chang's addition back in 1996. The picture of him there is broken, but we dug up an excerpt from a Cable & Satellite Europe article that includes a couple of snapshots of ol' Gareth, just in case anybody doubts the man's ethnicity.

So what's the deal, here-- are Asians no longer considered minorities among the proponents of racial diversity? Again, we're not saying that Apple wouldn't benefit solidly from more diversity on its board, but every time someone starts complaining about the alleged no-minority status of Apple's board, we always picture poor Gareth reading these articles and checking to make sure that he hasn't turned invisible. Even Steve seems to have forgotten Gareth, since you'd think he would have at least mentioned the man when the whole "no minorities" thing came up. Maybe Gareth just needs to score some more press coverage to get back into the public's view; perhaps he can find the time to date a wanton celebrity or get caught committing a highly embarrassing misdemeanor. There's always hope.

People are accusing us of being way too giddy about Apple's $40 million quarterly profit, particularly in light of the company's increasingly-declining revenue. What can we say? Everyone makes mistakes-- that's why pencils have Delete keys-- but we're mondo impressed by how quickly Apple seems to be cleaning up its messes. The Cube was a slow seller, but the PowerBook G4 is now burning up the charts. Apple stumbled in education, but then hired back Cheryl Vedoe and bought PowerSchool. Inventory had climbed to eleven weeks, but now it's back down to four-- well ahead of schedule. And even gross margins are only a hair beneath Apple's preferred 27% watermark-- also ahead of schedule. Top that off with a comfy four billion in the bank to ride out this nasty economy (you did hear how Gateway's quarter turned out, right?) and we think we've got every reason to be grinning.

But the real reason we're happy is not because of last quarter, nice though it turned out to be, but because the future has us all abuzz. We've got Mac OS X primed to hit the mainstream this summer-- probably on hot new iHardware that hopefully will duplicate Apple's success with the PowerBook G4. If Apple handles that rollout well, mind share will explode. Just think about what kind of ad blitz we're probably in for. And then there's Apple's worst kept secret: those retail stores we've been hearing about for years, now. Look, one third of Apple's sales last quarter were through the online Apple Store, right? Well, how many first-time buyers are ordering their computers over the 'net? Right. So retail is where it's at when it comes to broadening Apple's user base. Unfortunately, for the most part, the Mac-shopping retail experience is about as satisfying as chewing gravel.

Which means that once Apple gets its own stores out there and can control a nice chunk of its products' retail presentation, that's when we're expecting to be welcoming lots more people into the Mac fold. Take a gorgeous retail store in a high-traffic shopping area, deck it out as only Apple knows how, stuff it full of gorgeous new gear running Mac OS X, iMovie, iTunes, and all that other fabulous stuff, staff the place with honest-to-goodness Mac fanatics who know their products, and whammo-- you've got a recipe for explosive revenue growth. Or a really expensive dismal failure. Either way, you can bet it's going to be dramatic as all get out, so for us it's a win-win situation.

So bring on those retail stores! Think Secret claims that one of them is headed for Savannah, Georgia, provided that Apple winds up getting approval from the city's various zoning boards and whatnot, so there's yet another happy crowd of Macophiles who may one day be able to shop for Apple goods in style (and without being herded towards a beige box because "Macs can't access the Internet"). And if the whole plan falls apart, well, again-- that's why keyboards have erasers.