That tired cliché states that little things mean a lot and when Apple removed the word “Computer” from the corporate name, many people understandably believed that Macs were going to be set on the backburner, letting them fend for itself, more or less.

Certainly you had to believe the critics when Apple failed to give the Mac much play at the 2007 Macworld Expo, at least during the Steve Jobs keynote. Certainly the products were well in evidence over at their display booths. But no new models appeared.

Surely something is going on here, and it can’t be good, or at least that’s what some of you no doubt thought at the time.

Through much of 2007, Mac upgrades were incremental, to take advantage of new processors. Only the fall introduction of an updated iMac with a spiffy, aluminum case reminiscent of the Apple displays revealed any Mac focus on the part of the company’s crack design teams.

So what happened next? Well, iPod unit sales were relatively flat in the final quarter of the year in terms of unit sales, but Macs starred big time, recording over 2.3 million unit sales, which was a company record. Yes, more and more people bought MacBooks and MacBook Pros, but the star of the show was, you guessed it, the iMac!

Story continued in this week’s Tech Night Owl Newsletter.

This article was posted on Sunday, February 17th, 2008 at 3:30 PM and is filed under News and tagged with: Apple Computer, Focus, Macworld, Macworld Expo, Models, Night Owl, Owl, Processors, Star Of The Show, Steve Jobs.