“The most promising new service, Apple’s iTunes works only on Macintosh computers, which represent just 3 percent of the national home computer market,” reports Gloria Goodale, Arts and culture correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor here.

We would like to know where Gloria Goodale got her 3 percent figure. Looks like she mixed it up with market share, not understanding concepts of installed base, longetivity of Macs vs. Wintel, how many Wintels are dumb terminals in offices that will never be used for online music purchasing, etc.

This “only 3% of the world uses Macintosh” is turning into the biggest lie the media perpetuates about Apple and the Mac. At least Forbes got it right last month:

“Naysayers have been calling for Apple’s demise for years. But Apple not only has survived but thrived, it seems, at least partially by the sheer force of Jobs’ will and his ability to maintain the ferocious loyalty of Apple’s users, who still account for 10% of the world’s computer users, while its sales usually account for about 3% to 5% of the world global PC market,” Arik Hesseldahl, Forbes.com, June 2, 2003. More info here.

We sent Gloria Goodale a link to this article.