So Apple's got their traditional inventory problems whipped into shape, what with only two days's worth of inventory in the channel. As Steve Jobs rightly points out, that's a phenomenally low number-- Dell is a leading force in the personal computer industry, and is typically lauded for their inventory control, but they have seven days' worth of inventory hanging out there. That's all well and good. But can Apple's inventory stay under control now that iMacs are shipping in five fruit flavors? What if everyone wants Blueberry but all that's available is Tangerine?

Not to worry, says Apple CFO Fred Anderson. Even though Apple is currently selling the colorful new iMacs to resellers in five-packs to start with an equal number of all colors in the channel, according to NoBeige, Fred's got secret "contingency plans" for dealing with any big disparities in color popularity. We have no idea what those contingency plans could be. Is it something as simple as cutting the price on unpopularly-colored models by $100 or so? Or maybe it has more to do with the fact that the iMac's colored polycarbonate shell is removable and replaceable? Apple's already selling colored shells to dealers for $70 apiece. Does this imply that a Lime iMac can be retrofitted with a Blueberry shell, given a Blueberry mouse and keyboard, and that's all there is to it? (By extension, does that mean that well-connected iMac owners could bribe a dealer for some service parts and transform their old Bondi blue iMac into a sparking new faux Tangerine model? Intriguing, isn't it? Apple should just sell a "color upgrade kit" consisting of a new shell, mouse, and keyboard for $200 and see how many people bite.)

Actually, Fred himself also said that Apple's current inventory levels aren't expected to stay this good through the second quarter; he stated that those two days of inventory were likely to spread out into six or seven days for the second quarter. It wouldn't surprise us one bit if his reason for the warning is the iMac's new colors. Still, seven days is a very good inventory level (it works for Dell), and while we don't know Apple's emergency plan if Lime doesn't sell, we're confident that they've got something workable up their collective sleeve.