"No bad news at the conference call?" we hear you asking. "But AtAT, surely you didn't miss that bit about how Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian models only comprised 20% of all iMac sales, right?" Why, no we didn't kiddies-- but we're not at all sure that we should consider that a bummer. In context, we think 20% is a pretty respectable sales percentage for two patterns that initially made the vast majority of Mac fanatics fight to hold down their lunches when the first images hit the 'net. We practically had to call the designs the cancer-causing, dog-kicking product of a secret alliance between Hitler, Satan, and Darth Vader before we finally goaded some people into rushing to Apple's defense and admitting that they liked the patterns.

Beyond that, let's think about this for a second: we're smack-dab in the middle of a nasty economic downturn, right? All we ever hear is that consumers are spending less and less on personal computer purchases. So given that harsh reality, isn't it fair to assume that of Apple's three iMac configurations, the low-end $899 entry-level model might account for, say, half of the sales mix? We think that's a reasonable bet; we can't imagine that in the current purchasing climate, more than half of the iMac buyers out there opted to spend at least an extra $300 for a "Faster" model (or an extra $600 for a Special Edition). Now, take another look at Apple's three iMac configs and tell us which model is not available in Flower Power or Blue Dalmatian. Uh-huh.

So if you look at it that way, if Apple's "funkyMacs" account for 20% of all iMac sales, they may well account for, say, 40% of sales of all iMacs that are actually available in Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian-- in other words, purely from a looks perspective instead of a features one, they may actually be selling about as well as Graphite and Indigo. That realization may be what caused the analyst who asked about the popularity of the patterns to sound pleasantly surprised when he heard Fred's "20%" response. (It's about 16 minutes into the call, if you'd like to hear it for yourselves.) Now, it's important to note that we're pulling these numbers straight out of our FireWire port, since Fred didn't give us any hard data on the iMac's price mix, but at this point we're reasonably confident that calling Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian sales "not horrifically bad" (as dailyMac puts it) may be understating things a bit.

What that would mean, however, is that Apple was probably right to unleash those two patterns upon the world-- and with the sales numbers to prove it, we wouldn't be terribly surprised to see Steve unveil some even more "way out" designs when he introduces the first Mac OS X-preloaded iMacs upon the world this summer. Personally, we're betting on patterns that will tie in visually with Mac OS X's Aqua look, but just in case, we're bracing ourselves for "Easter Plaid" and "Neon Swirly."