Hmmm, apparently Steve's math does not resemble our Earth math. According to MacMinute, during his keynote address in Tokyo a couple of days ago, ol' Jobsy took umbrage at recent allegations that, at the height of the iMac drought, Apple had been funneling more than its fair share of available units to its own retail stores, while the shelves of third-party resellers made Old Mother Hubbard's pantry look like the dog food aisle at Petco. Not so, said Steve; Apple has been playing entirely fair with its long-suffering resellers, as befits the promise it made that, when it came time to divvy up the goods, the company would never favor its own stores over those of its partners.

There's just one problem with that: the figures he gave to back up that assertion just leave us scratching our heads. According to the Stevester, Apple's 28 retail stores have gotten "only 25,000" new iMacs. Only 25 grand? This is obviously some strange use of the word "only" that we weren't previously aware of, because that's almost 900 iMacs per store. Meanwhile, none of the resellers we've heard from report having received even ninety, let alone 900, with most claiming that they've gotten only between fifteen and sixty units. (Note, Steve, the proper contextual use of the word "only" in that sentence to indicate fewer units than expected or appropriate.)

Moreover, Steve insisted that "90 percent" of the new iMacs were shipping to channels other than Apple's own retail stores. Unfortunately, he also mentioned that Apple has shipped 125,000 iMacs since the product's introduction in January. Grab a calculator and you'll soon see that there's something wrong, here; 90% of 125,000 is 112,500 iMacs for the resellers, leaving 12,500 for the Apple retail stores. But riddle us this, Batman: if Apple's boutiques received "only" 25,000, where did the extra 12,500 iMacs come from? Huh? (We're thinking maybe Venus.)

Still, though, even if Steve played a little fast and loose with the numbers, it is worth noting that, in any case, he's basically right: "most" of the iMacs did go to Apple's resellers. Unfortunately, there are a whole lot more Apple resellers than Apple retail stores, so while only ten or twenty percent of the iMacs were kept "in the family," that still means that Apple's boutiques each got something like 900 iMacs while everyone else got maybe a tenth that many, if they were lucky. Whether the numbers add up or not, you have to admit, Steve was essentially telling the truth. It's like Yogi Berra once said: running Apple is ninety percent mental; the other half is spin. Or something like that.

As far as CEOs go, most of you would probably agree that Steve Jobs ranks right up there near the top of the list; those of you who are old enough to recall the Dark Days of 1996 most likely still consider it nothing short of a miracle that Steve was somehow able to keep the company from cratering in a thick, choking cloud of financial insolvency. But what really makes His CEOship the stuff of legend (aside from the obvious "ousted from the very company he cofounded, only to return and save it years later" angle, of course) is the fact that, besides the occasional private jet, his yearly salary has typically been a single measly dollar. That's the CEO compensation equivalent of saying "Shucks, ma'am, 'tweren't nuthin'; seeing you safe and no longer tied to the railroad tracks is all the thanks I need."

As it was, so shall it be again-- or, rather, so it was again. According to a CNET article, Apple just revealed in an SEC filing that, yes, last year, Steve was once again paid his traditional one-buck salary. Of course, no one should be crying for Steve's bankbook, seeing as the guy is still on the list of the world's billionaires. Think of it this way: even if the guy has "only" one billion dollars and he's goofy enough to have it all in a basic interest-bearing checking account with a measly annual interest rate of just 0.5%, that would mean the man is still raking in $5 million a year-- just for breathing air. Clearly a man with that kind of spending power isn't running Apple for the paycheck, so it's almost a moot point whether he's pulling down one buck or a million for his CEO duties. (Color us impressed with the man's work ethic; if we were getting paid $9.50 each and every minute we drew breath, we'd be doing as much of our breathing as possible in front of a big, honkin' TV set while wolfing down various snack foods.)

That said, if you were to take a closer look at that dollar bill Steve earned from Apple for fiscal 2001, you might notice something interesting taped to its back-- namely, 7.5 million stock options with an exercise price of $18.30 apiece, making them worth over $43 million as of market close today. Ahhhh, so now we're getting into some serious moolah; heck, with that kind of cash, Steve could stop breathing for over eight full years and still live in the manner to which he's accustomed. (Well, other than that whole "accustomed to inhaling oxygen" thing, but you catch our drift.) Apparently he's only allowed to cash in up to a quarter of those options now, with the rest vesting over the course of the next three years, but even so, $10 mil up front makes for a nifty little bonus on top of that $1 salary.

This has us pondering, actually. Since Billionaire Steve isn't running Apple for the money, does it strike anyone else as perhaps just a smidge fiscally irresponsible for the compensation committee to have tossed him $43 million when he's clearly willing to work just as hard for his one teensy buck? Not that we don't think he deserves it, mind you; we think he's worth every penny. It's just that, at a time when Apple is drawing widespread criticism for raising iMac prices $100 a pop due to rising component prices, we can't help but notice that $43 million (a drop in the money bucket for Steve) would have allowed Apple to keep iMacs steady at their original prices for at least the next three months. And, you know, the man does already have a jet to play with...

We seem to be experiencing the most extraordinary feeling of déjà vu. Remember about a year ago, when folks who had pre-ordered their Power Macs with barn-burning nVIDIA GeForce3 graphics cards were starting to get a little antsy about their Macs being in Assembly Limbo? If not, let us refresh your memory; basically, folks who had pre-ordered their Power Macs with barn-burning nVIDIA GeForce3 graphics cards hadn't yet received them, and thus they were starting to get a little antsy about their Macs being in Assembly Limbo. (Is any of this sounding strangely familiar?)

Anyway, what happened was that Apple had gotten all excited about the long-awaited GeForce3 being available for the Mac first, and so the company may have jumped the gun a little by offering it as a build-to-order option so early; many eager customers had placed their orders in January, and still hadn't received their new toys as of early April. So Apple did a very honorable thing: customers soon got word that the GeForce3 was taking much longer to ship than anticipated, and so people who had pre-ordered could choose to take immediate delivery of their Power Macs with a lesser GeForce2 MX installed; Apple would then ship the GeForce3 separately once the cards were available, and the customer could even keep the original GeForce2 MX at no charge. Nifty!

Fast-forward to 2002; like before, many build-to-order Power Macs are backordered. See, apparently Apple had gotten all excited about the long-awaited GeForce4 Titanium being available for the Mac first, and so the company may have jumped the gun a little by offering it as a build-to-order option so early; many eager customers had placed their orders this past February, and still haven't received their new toys as of late March. But faithful viewer Kevin Schlei informs us that Apple has done a very honorable thing: according to an article at MacNN, customers have just gotten word that the GeForce4 Ti is taking much longer to ship than anticipated, and so people who have pre-ordered can choose to take immediate delivery of their Power Macs with a lesser GeForce4 MX installed. Apple will then ship the GeForce4 Ti separately once the cards are available, and the customer can even keep the original GeForce4 MX at no charge. Nif...

...Sorry, we seem to be experiencing the most extraordinary feeling of déjà vu...