Remember the giddy sense of pride we all felt when the iMac fulfilled its destiny and topped the retail sales charts, finally silencing the naysayers who predicted a dismal flop? Ahhh, that was sweet. Seeing, for example, a longtime anti-Mac fanatic like Hiawatha Bray not only publicly recant his prediction of terrible sales numbers for the iMac but also admit to using one himself, well, that was one of the high points in Apple's recent press history. In recent months, though, the iMac has tumbled from the top of the sales charts. We're awaiting post-Kihei numbers to see if Apple's new iMac DV can propel the translucent little buddy back to the top.

In the meantime, though, it appears that out-of-the-gate sales success runs in the iFamily. Faithful viewer Jerry O'Neil pointed us to an Apple press release which states that PC Data's October sales numbers are out, and the Blueberry iBook was the "number one selling portable computer in the U.S. retail market in October." That's great news for the iBook, who suffered from even worse production delays (LCD shortages, the Taiwan quake) than its big brother did at introduction. And it's also great news for Apple, who claims that the iBook has boosted the company's share to 11% of the retail portable market last month-- up from 6.5% the month before. A CNET article has more on the whole happy subject.

At the same time, we can't say we're shocked at the iBook's commanding sales performance at retail outlets. After all, the iBook is really the first portable computer that's targeted completely at the consumer market-- its looks, its price, and its feature set are all focused on the home user, not the suits who spend half their lives on airplanes, trying to look important. (Forget it, buddy, you're not impressing anyone-- we can see you're only playing Tetris.) And where does Joe Schmoe buy his computers? Yup, at retail outlets. Large businesses, on the other hand, who have to make sure their salespeople have those nice, boxy, impressive Wintel laptops, often buy direct from a company like Dell or Gateway, and those sales don't show up in PC Data's numbers. Not that this in any way detracts from the iBook's terrific success; it simply shows that it's succeeding in the very market it was designed to conquer. And now that production and availability problems are easing up, we're anxiously awaiting the sales numbers for November and December's holiday season. Santa might just have a bag full of Blueberry and Tangerine this year...