One of the criticisms often made of Windows-based PCs is that they can be very complicated to set up, once you get past the basics. In contrast, people who prefer Windows will remark that OS X just doesn’t offer the granular level of settings to which they are accustomed.

Now, depending on what you expect of a personal computer, not having a lot of options with which to configure your system may actually be a good thing. Assuming the standard setups accommodate your needs, you can just go about your business, free in the knowledge that you won’t be confounded with a problem that requires further adjustments to the OS.

But if you’re a power user, you may find Windows to be closer to your needs — except that OS X offers lots of extra configuration choices via the command line, in Terminal. That way you can see the underbelly of OS X and do all sorts of powerful things, but there won’t be a confirmation dialog. So you better do your research if you’re not accustomed to such things, or consider one of those utilities that puts a pretty graphical face upon those functions, and, one hopes, offers a Reset button to fix what might go wrong before it gets out of hand.

Now with Windows 8, it seems Microsoft may have tried to take simplicity in the wrong direction. Settings for Modern UI (formerly Metro) apps tend to be bare bones, often lacking important features. You want to be a power user, or you just want to get your work done without putting up with a new interface and new problems, you may be better off with Windows 7, and that’s what customers appear to be telling Microsoft. Windows 8 has really failed to boost PC sales, which continue to flag.

When it comes to the smartphone wars, it’s still all about the iOS and Android, but here the actual battle is closer to a Mac versus Windows confrontation when it comes to interface conventions. Android kinda, sorta looks like iOS, and that’s one of the reasons Apple has gone lawsuit crazy against Samsung and other companies building Android-powered handsets.

Put an iPhone next to, say, a Samsung Galaxy S3 and you can’t help but see the similarities when it comes to the icons and Home screen. Many of the touch-based functions are similar enough so you can use the skills you learned from one and apply it to the other. Unlocking the Samsung, however, involves swiping the screen, rather than sliding to unlock. That’s likely because Apple owns the rights to the latter. But either gets the job done.

When I say it’s a Mac versus Windows interface scheme revisited, consider that the iOS makes the settings simple, usually predictable, without loads of options with which to confuse the user. Surely this has complicated the task of book writers who want write treatises that promise to teach you to become an iPhone or iPad power user. You can get there yourself if you spend a little time playing with things, knowing that most of the changes you make are reversible and won’t mess you up — except for deleting something you didn’t want to delete, such as an email account.

With Android, let me remind you that each manufacturer will customize the OS for their particular needs, and the carrier is likely to do their share. At the end of the day, this means that your Android may not be the same as mine, and OS versions vary too. It’s not the same thing as the iOS, where new releases are installed by most users within days. On Android, it’s up to the handset maker and the carrier to work out the updates, and critical security fixes may take months to reach the end user.

My comments in this article are confined to the Galaxy S3, running Android Jelly Bean 4.1.1. There are later OS versions, but that’s what AT&T is pushing right now to that handset. In any case, as with Windows, the Android OS settings screens are far more involved, often with choices that may not seem to make a whole lot of sense.

With Android email, for example, there are nine sets of General preferences that supposedly apply to all email accounts. Not so bad, but, with a regular IMAP account, there are 18 different settings options, including the Incoming and Outgoing server settings, each of which carry their own choices. And these settings are separate for each account. Many, such as the number of recent messages to display, and whether images should be displayed with your message, would seem to be suited for a global preference. But that’s not the Android way.

Now having so many choices in Android land also can present you with organizational options that aren’t offered in the iOS, such as an alphabetical grid display ootion for your apps. That’s surely a great way to find the ones you want. You can also put apps in separate widgets to highlight a few that may have special priority. When all is said and done, you’ll also find that Android status messages are also remarkably Windows like in their execution.

Indeed, you have a reason to believe that, had Microsoft not decided to go with the tiled interface in Windows Phone, and if Google hadn’t gotten involved in building a mobile platform, something similar to Android might just have emerged from Redmond.

Consider a new Mac user, one  attracted to the platform because they bought an iPhone or an iPad. They discover an App Store icon in the Dock, and they likely assume that’s probably the best — or the only — place to get Mac software. And therein lies the developer dilemma.

Certainly this attitude makes sense for someone accustomed to the iOS App Store. It also provides a degree of reassurance, since Apple is curating the inventory, and thus you can feel reasonably assured that the application will at least launch without crashing, and not bring malware to your machine. After all, even those recent Mac malware outbreaks had nothing to do with an App Store product. It was all about Oracle’s Java, but that’s an entirely different story.

Unfortunately, not all Mac apps are available in the App Store, not just because developers may want to distribute their products separately, although that’s one factor. The main reason is that Apple’s rules and regulations won’t allow those apps to be accepted. Part of the reason — or problem if you will — relates to security. Apple wants those apps sandboxed, which is a way to wall off or protect one app from being harmed, or harming, another. For system stability and malware protection, this is a good idea, but it can cause problems for apps that need to “talk” to the OS or other apps to do their thing.

So there are, for example, apps that capture audio from other apps, such as Skype. The ones I use for my radio shows are Ambrosia Software’s WireTap Studio and Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack Pro. What these apps do keeps them out of the App Store. The same is true for apps that provide background anti-malware scanning, or check your hard drive to recover deleted files, or just to make sure that there are no directory problems, and that’s just part of the picture.

Now Apple does allow exceptions, or entitlements, with sandboxing, so some level of inter-application and system communication is permitted. I suppose if Apple added more of these entitlements, it might be possible for WireTap Studio and Audio Hijack Pro and other apps currently barred to gain admittance into the App Store. But that’s up to Apple, and their intentions can be charitably described as inscrutable. Some developers have far harsher words.

One problem that also impacts the iOS App Store is how to handle app demos. The answer is, of course, that they can’t. A developer can offer a limited feature free version, I suppose, and offer the full version for the regular advertised price as a separate app. That, however, tends to confuse the customer, even if there full-featured version is offered via an inter-app purchase. But since you can’t post a demo in the App Store, there’s no way to put a time limit on it, which is what developers prefer to do, since that way they can deliver all the features for, say, 14 days or 30 days. The customer buys a license to unlock the app so they can continue to use it without having to download a copy all over again. Yes, I suppose they can point you to their site to get the demos, but that may add yet another layer of customer confusion.

The other problem is how to handle paid upgrades. If there’s a free upgrade, no problem. You can get it from the Mac or iOS App Store, and the installation process is fast, almost seamless. But many developers depend on ongoing income from users to survive, and existing customers deserve a discount on the new version. Unfortunately, there’s no way to do that within the existing App Store structure. The developer can’t offer a cheaper price for existing users, since the customer base is controlled by Apple. If the developer wants to earn money from a new version, it has to be posted separately, and everyone pays the same. That may work for Apple with OS X and iLife, but third party developers have a right to organize their business the way they like, and customers do expect lower prices for major upgrades, particularly when the purchase price is high.

Now I understand that Apple wants to keep it simple. Adding complications, or extra choices could, I suppose be confusing for some. But Apple also needs a prosperous, active, and innovative developer community. If developers don’t release an app because it won’t make it into the Mac App Store, Mac users will lose out on a potentially great product. The same is true if a developer “dumbs down” an app, removing key features because Apple won’t allow them. That’s bad for everyone. Some developers may even seek other platforms that may be more friendly to their needs.

Sure, you can buy Apps for your Mac from a variety of sources. But lots of newcomers have been conditioned to believe the Apple Store is where it’s at, and that’s unfortunate. It’s up to Apple to fix the problem, but they first have to listen, and I do hope they will pay attention. We all deserve better.

So Dell isn’t doing so well these days. The product line doesn’t have anything to distinguish the company from any other PC box assembler, so sales haven’t been in the doldrums for a while, particularly as we move to the Post-PC era. But that’s true with lots of PC makers, who believe that innovation is changing the color of the case, stuffing in a different AMD or Intel chip, or finding another dumb scheme to make a convertible note-book/tablet.

In the old days, it didn’t matter. PC sales were climbing fast enough that any company that could deliver them cheaply enough, in sufficient quantities to service the enterprise, and with at least adequate customer support, could get a decent foothold on the market.

Dell was founded in 1984, when 19-year-old Michael Dell, then a pre-med student, set up his computer business as a sideline. The PC ended up taking over his life, and the rest is history. But after making billions selling generic PCs, Dell has had a difficult time finding a second act, particularly with mobile gear taking an increasing share of the PC marketplace. This is the same dilemma Microsoft has confronted with Windows Phone and Windows 8, not to mention the so-far failed Surface tablets.

Well, in a move that will at least liberate Dell from the stock market race, the company has decided to go private in a deal totaling $24.4 billion. Curiously, Microsoft is putting up $2 billion as a loan to help fund the transaction, and I wonder how that decision will influence other PC companies who might decide they need to raise capital, or embark on a similar exercise.

Dell’s move is part of a restructuring designed to make the company more relevant to the 21st century. By not having to worry about expectations for profit and loss by the financial community, Dell is supposedly free to redirect the company to focus more on business services rather than the sale of cheap PCs, although PCs will evidently continue to deliver the majority of the company’s income.

So what’s really changed other than the structure of the balance sheet?

Well, a published report from Reuters mentions that “Analysts say the restructuring may entail job cuts and more costly acquisitions, as the company arms itself to do battle with larger and more established rivals like Hewlett-Packard Co. and IBM Corp.

Now I don’t know about you, but I do wonder how reverting from public to private will somehow be the magical bullet for Dell. It’s not that they couldn’t make strategic acquisitions and add more business services in their current incarnation, although the change also means they can’t be second guessed by anyone. There will be no stockholders to please, so if Dell fails big time in trying to remake itself, only Michael Dell, his team, and his employees need be concerned.

Speaking of employees, isn’t it strange how moves to make a company more profitable, more efficient, whatever, seem to often raise the spectre of job losses? So does Dell become more prosperous simply because fewer people are drawing paychecks, or will the company somehow be able to provide more value to the tech industry by shuffling paper and altering the balance sheets? Somehow I don’t think the move is going to make much of a difference, beyond making Michael Dell a richer man if revenues are high.

Yes, I can understand Microsoft’s motives for wanting to help finance the deal, and make it proceed as smoothly as possible. Dell remains a key OEM partner, to the tune of tens of millions of Windows and Office sales each year. Microsoft has a vested interest in wanting that lucrative partnership to continue. Having strong competitors in PC land is also a good thing.

But I wonder whether Dell’s move will spark any innovation at all, or does the company hope these unnamed business services will somehow change things for the better? Besides, it’s not that Dell would be better off emulating HP, which remains a public company, by the way, although the stock price is going nowhere.

After all, HP made this silly pitch about embracing more businesses services, and that decision has gone nowhere. Indeed, every move made by HP in recent years has demonstrated a lack of clarity and vision about the company’s future direction. Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard are no doubt rolling in their graves seeing how the company they built, which fueled the rise of Silicon Valley, has been on the skids for years. No, HP won’t go out of business anytime soon, but it’s not that they are doing anything to advance the state of the art, and it doesn’t seem as if CEO Meg Whitman has a clue about what to do next.

As to Dell: I’ve actually had positive encounters with the company over the years, and I wish Michael Dell well. In all fairness, he’s making a huge bet on this so-called “turnaround” scheme, and that includes his vast wealth. For the sake of Dell and his employees, I hope he succeeds. But I remain skeptical about financial maneuverings of this sort that really have nothing to do with products or services.

And it is curious that Michael Dell believes that, in returning money to shareholders, the company will somehow flourish. Indeed, one headline suggested Dell’s stockholders are being put out of their misery, and didn’t Dell once suggest that Apple return money to their shareholders?

So the story is still playing out. Starting in December, there was an unproven claim that demand for the iPhone 5 had taken a nosedive. Why? Because of one unconfirmed report claiming that Apple had cut back on orders for the latest iPhone’s displays. Apple’s stock price took a dip, but things got real bad in January when no less than the Wall Street Journal published a similar report evidently based on the same unproven claim.

Even though Apple reported record sales for the December quarter, which lasted a week less than the December quarter for 2011, Apple couldn’t catch a break. Profits were flat, even though, after introducing so many new products in the previous few months, you’d expect exactly that result. And don’t forget Apple did caution against lower profits for the quarter.

Despite the flat profits, they still totaled over 50% more than Samsung, and many times more than Amazon, which seldom reports much of a profit. The stock market responded by tanking Apple’s stock price, but keeping Amazon relatively high. Does that make sense? Well, I suppose it does if profits aren’t important.

Consider, also, that Apple managed to sell 47.8 million iPhones, despite the fact that the newest model was in short supply for much of the quarter. And, once again, it was a 13 week quarter, compared to 14 weeks last year. Had there been another week, assuming the same sales rate for that extra seven days, Apple would have sold nearly 3.68 million more iPhones, a total that would have comfortably exceeded analyst estimates. And don’t forget the impact to profit margins.

While it’s true that you can get an iPhone 5 without waiting nowadays, the same isn’t true for the iPad mini, where the backlog has been reduced to one to three days as of this week. For the iMac, prepare to wait several weeks for the configuration of your choice, though standard models are more readily found at dealers if you shop around. The point is that there doesn’t seem to be any evidence at hand that demand for Apple products has suddenly taken a turn for the worse, other than normal seasonal trends. That Maps for iOS 6 was seriously flawed out of the starting gate isn’t enough to render Apple impotent, and the same is true for an unconfirmed report about a supply chain cutback.

It’s curious that the media didn’t make much of a deal about Tim Cook’s statement, during the quarterly call with financial analysts, that a single supply chain metric, such as a possible reduction of orders for one part from one supplier, can’t be used to judge the entire supply and demand situation. So even if Apple did reduce orders for iPhone 5 displays, there might be different reasons for the decision. One is simply to allocate supplies among different suppliers. Another is that manufacturing yields are higher, hence fewer parts are needed, and the third is the normal seasonal downturn in sales.

On last week’s episode of The Tech Night Owl LIVE, I asked industry analyst Stephen Baker, of the NPD Group, about Apple, and he said he felt the company was in fine shape. Of course, he’s not a financial analyst, so I wouldn’t expect him to understand the nuts and bolts of Wall Street, nor why stocks rise and fall with neither rhyme nor reason.

But Tim Cook still has to rise to a higher standard, and I expect that industry watchers will be paying close attention to how Apple fares this quarter, when no new products are expected, and the next. If Apple continues to do well, and there are no serious constraints to new product shipments beyond the current backlogs, I wonder how Wall Street is going to react.

This is very much a situation of the media talking down Apple without any logical reason. Some alleged journalists continue to blindly accept the rumor of an alleged falloff in demand for the iPhone 5. And that’s just a single example. There have been all those wacky articles suggesting that Tim Cook must be a failure because Apple doesn’t turn a market upside down every six months, and that Mapgate demonstrated a serious misfire that never would have happened under the watch of Steve Jobs, even though Jobs had his own notable failures over the years.

I suppose one real question is how Mac demand will shape up once the iMac backlogs are resolved. Is there going to be enough pent-up demand this quarter to really produce a huge sales increase? I do expect most people who want a new iMac are simply waiting for delivery, or holding off ordering anything until the model they want is in stock. It’s also possible that interest in the Mac will grow once the next version of OS X is announced.

If Apple is truly on an annual schedule for a while, you should expect word of OS 10.9 later this month. Some are already giving it the name “Lynx,” suggesting it’ll debut this summer, perhaps along with a few Mac refreshes, and a brand new Mac Pro.

Meantime, predicting Apple’s future sales is a waste of time, since getting it right is a crap shoot. It’s more fun, and more productive, to predict future product directions. You may be wrong most of the time, but it helps keep the gray matter healthy.