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.