Okay, real sales data is rolling in, and according to a CNET article, the market research firm PC Data has some good news and some bad news. The good news is, the iMac is kicking some serious butt when it comes to sales figures; it's been so popular that it propelled Apple back up into the number three spot in the sales market share races for August, up from seventh or so a little while ago. Apple's 13.5% share in August means it now trails only behind Compaq's 30.9% and Hewlett-Packard's 23.2%. A lot of people were hoping that the iMac would help Apple shift back up into the top five. Ta-daaa!

The bad news is, the iMac was not the best-selling single computer for the month of August. (Consternation! Uproar!) That honor goes to HP's Pavilion 6330 (isn't that an eerily Performa-like name and number?), which accounted for 8.6% of all computers sold. The iMac came in second place with 7.1%. See, if only more of you had been as impulsive as we were and rushed out to buy one of the first models, the iMac could have taken the top spot, but nooooo, you had to be responsible consumers, didn't you? For shame. ;-)

Of course, there's still more good news: sure, the iMac came in second, but it also debuted on August 15th. That means the Pavilion that beat it had a two-week head start, but still only won the race by a nose. We'd be willing to bet that if sales data were compared for the thirty-day period beginning August 15th, the iMac would be the hands-down winner. Sure, that would only illustrate the pent-up demand that Mac users have been building for so long while we all waited for a decent consumer-level offering from Apple, but it would still be an impressive sight.