Of course, some folks would say this wouldn't be fair. But Macs are always stacked up against PeeCee totals that include thin computers, dumb terminals and other computing niches in which Apple doesn't compete. And the iPhone and iPod touch do use a version of the Mac operating system.

Heck, in an interview regarding Apple's recent financial results, Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook said, in regards to Apple's interest in the netbook arena, that those looking for a small computer that could do web browsing and access email might consider an iPhone or iPod touch. Small computer? Sounds like a Mac to me.

But to be really fair, let's exclude iPhones from our computer market share tally since it's always listed among smartphone and mobile phone counts. By AppleInsider's computations, Apple sold seven million iPod touches last quarter. Add that to 2.22 million Mac computers, and Apple sold 9.22 million devices running a version of Mac OS X. That's 9.22 million Mac OS X systems, per the Sellers Research Group's new accounting method.

Now according to the IDC research group, Apple had 7.6 percent of the US personal computer market share for the first quarter of 2008 on sales of approximately 1.1 million Macs. If we added just half of AppleInsider's estimated for iPod touches -- or 3.5 million -- to that total that would equal sales of 4.6 million Mac OS X computing systems.

By IDC's estimates, HP was the number one vendor in the US for the quarter with 4.1 million unit sales and 27.6 percent of the market. Figure in the iPod touch and Apple moves into the number one spot. Heck, it would also move into -- by my calculations -- third place worldwide, trailing HP, Dell and Acer.

Argue with my reasoning, if you will. Hey, they say that 99 percent of all statistics are made up.

But Apple at number one? Sounds good to me!