Apple just announced its results for the quarter that ended on September 29, and, um, wow did they put up some huge numbers. The one that stuns me is 2,164,000 Macs sold in the quarter, 400,000 more than they’ve sold in any other quarter, ever. (As John Gruber points out, a lot of people would have been holding up on Mac purchases because of the imminent release of OS X 10.5.) I can’t wait to see how many Macs sell this quarter.

A lot of people talk about the halo effect of the iPod for Apple, but I think the more fundamental reason is that Apple is just putting out a really nice product these days. Everyone talks about Apple’s higher margins, but when I start pricing Macs against comparable PCs from Dell, I don’t find the price difference to be all that substantial. The price of entry for a PC versus a Mac is completely different, of course, but comparing PCs with similar specs is telling, and I’m not including software in the calculation, either.

As a loyal Apple customer, I hope Apple faces more competition for the iPod and that Amazon.com’s MP3 store does well, I hope that the other mobile phone companies come out with innovative products to compete with the iPhone, and I hope they keep selling lots and lots of computers.