As the Apple Turns: Scene 4452: Number One With A Bullet (1/19/04)

Number One With A Bullet (1/19/04)

So just how often does the Apple Store update its Top Sellers list? Because, you know, we would have expected it to be an automatic and live sort of thing, directly linked into the ordering database, but that's clearly not the case-- at least, it isn't unless everybody waited to preorder their miniPods until a few days ago. The iPod's freakishly small sibling was completely absent from the Top 20 list from its debut almost two weeks ago until just this past Saturday, when, as faithful viewer Medium Rare informed us, it vaulted onto the charts at Number 1. And somehow we doubt that everyone was just waiting until National Nothing Day before they preordered.

In fact, the miniPod's abrupt and delayed appearance isn't the only thing screwy about the Top 20 list; wasn't the non-mini iPod reigning supreme in the top spot before the miniPod usurped the throne? So where the heck is it now? It doesn't show up anywhere on the list, and we're having a really tough time believing that everyone who would have bought an iPod is now buying a miniPod instead. (If it's true, of course, Apple's Pod-related revenue and margins will both take a dive, and someone on Apple's marketing team is getting pelted with gum erasers from the folks in the finance department even as we speak.) Seriously, are we supposed to believe that Apple is selling more Jam Jackets to protect iPods than iPods themselves?

And we haven't even mentioned the categorical anomalies. (Well, okay, now we have, but that's not really the point.) Fifth on the list is the PowerBook 15", which wouldn't be weird at all if the listing didn't claim that the 15-inch PowerBook is available "in three sizes (12-, 15-, and 17-inch screens)." Similarly, in the tenth slot is the "Power Mac G5 Dual 2 GHz," which is available at speeds "up to" dual 2 GHz. Who knew you could get a dual 2 GHz Power Mac with a single 1.6 GHz processor? Meanwhile, the iBook and iMac are both on the list sans model designation, but the iMac is listed as being available in "two sizes of flat screen." Those would apparently be, what-- 15 and 17 inches, with the 20-incher being a mirage?

Folks, we hate to say it, because the very possibility chills us to our core and leaves us questioning our significance in what might therefore be an empty, godless universe devoid of reason or purpose, but we think it just might be possible that the Apple Store Top 20 list is... well... not very reliable. In fact, there's even a chance that it's pretty much completely meaningless altogether. At this point we imagine its results might be generated by a slightly modified version of a Magic 8 Ball simulator somebody wrote as an AppleScript exercise. Or possibly Phil Schiller and a dartboard.

We know, we know-- most of you are practitioners of one or more of the thirty or so religions that have been elaborately constructed around the tenet of the Top 20 List's Divine Infallibility, and what we just said constitutes blasphemy. We don't like the truth any more than you do, but you know, we call 'em like we 'em, and it's not like any of those religions lists blasphemy as a sin punishable by death or anything.

Wait-- they do?

All of them?

Well, hey, just kidding, folks! Ha ha, funny joke and not blasphemous at all! How 'bout that Top 20 list, huh? Is that thing infallible, or what?

SceneLink (4452)

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The above scene was taken from the 1/19/04 episode:

January 19, 2004: Things are slow because of the holiday, but that gives us time to catch up on some recent Apple Retail revelations. Meanwhile, the miniPod hits the top spot in the Apple Store's Top Sellers list (for whatever that's worth), and Microsoft goes haranguing a Canadian kid named "Mike Rowe" for having the gall to register "MikeRoweSoft.com"...

Other scenes from that episode:

4451: Say, We Have A Dream, Too! (1/19/04) Ho hum, another slow Monday-- made slower still by the fact that today's a holiday here in the states, so anyone who'd normally be making drama in the Apple world is instead quietly reflecting on the massive contributions to humankind made by Martin Luther King, Jr...
4453: Your Inbox Tells The Future (1/19/04) Hey, do you remember that thing people kept saying to you when you told them that you just got mugged by someone wearing a Donald Duck costume and brandishing a chainsaw? They kept telling you that "truth is stranger than fiction"-- which probably annoyed the living bejeezus out of you, in part because what you really wanted them to say was "I'm calling 911 so you can receive emergency medical attention for your assorted grievous chainsaw wounds," but mainly because it's a trite expression which only reveals that most people read really boring fiction...

Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast...


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