Mac sales still up, despite iPad release

If the iPad is going to cut away at the audience for more full-featured computers, it's not going to be the Mac audience, apparently. Even though Apple introduced a tablet earlier this year, Mac sales are still up 35%, showing that the iPad is much more a new category all to itself than a subset of desktop or laptop users. NPD data from the month of May hints that Macs may see 19-23% growth year-over-year this year, which would top Wall Street's estimates.

If there's an issue in Apple's line at all, it's the iPod -- that device is set up to be down 13% year-over-year, which is a higher drop than expected. But that's not a huge worry -- the iPad sells for more than the older, smaller devices, and rumor has it that Apple is going to refresh that line with new functionality anyway, from a cloud-based iTunes to better camera integration.

So it looks, according to the data so far, like Apple has done what it wanted to: successfully created a new kind of computer, something that sits in between the mobile functionality of the iPhone and the full OS of the MacBook.