This morning's early trading has Apple (AAPL) stock recovering most of the loss it took yesterday after reports that iTunes sales had dropped precipitously. This correction makes sense, for two reasons. One, the Forrester report indicating that iTunes sales dropped by a scary-sounding 65 percent was not quite as gloomy as it seemed. The ratio of iTunes sales to iPod sales has never been especially high, and if you read the fine print of the report, it actually indicates that the ratio is up slightly, to an average of 22 songs per iPod sold.

But secondly, and much more importantly, Apple doesn't need to sell iTunes to make money - and it never has. Back in 2003, Steve Jobs admitted in a Time magazine interview that "the dirty little secret of all this is there's no way to make money" selling music online. As Time's (now Business 2.0's) Chris Taylor put it: "For every 99 cents Apple gets from your credit card, 65 cents goes straight to the music label. Another quarter or so gets eaten up by distribution costs. At most, Jobs is left with a dime per track, so even $500 million in annual sales would add up to a paltry $50 million profit. Why even bother? 'Because we're selling iPods,' Jobs says, grinning."

Real investors will keep the focus on the important number: Apple has sold 67.4 million iPods and counting. The Apple music strategy is akin to the classic razor business model: sell people the blades, and you can give the handles away.