Not only is this important for wooing developers to Mac now, but I see it as essential to OS X's success. Hopefully this increase came about because of increased sales on high-margin products like PB or G3, but even if that is the case I'd like to see unit volume account for an increasing portion of earnings growth than it has tradittionaly. Or maybe I just want to purchace a G4 and a ACD on the cheap. Earnings are earnigs, and AAPL has shown the ability to leverage its investment capital into new technologies and strategic parterships. So I think that for a while, AAPL will continue to post additional revenues to their balance sheet.
More revenues is good revenues.
To wrap it all up, my outlook for AAPL is as optomistic as ever. My expectations are high though. AAPL is now a prime time player. They've proven their success was not based on a one hit iWonder. But, I can't help but think that the institutions and brokerage houses will flee AAPL like a sinking ship if it can't meet those expectations.