Just moments before I started writing this article, I listened to an ad on a local talk station that aptly summarizes the Mac versus PC argument in less than a minute. The announcer asked whether the listener would finally follow their New Year’s Resolution to fix serious problems on their PC?

What problems? Well, slow performance and those “annoying pop-ups,” which means, of course, it’s all about Windows. Yes, Macs can become slow sometimes, but the cause is, more often than not, an external issue, such as a slowdown in your Internet connection, though I grant OS and hardware issues may be involved on occasion. Desktop pop-up ads have been symptoms of Windows malware invasions for many years.

Now I’m not going to suggest the problems can’t be solved, or that a Windows user can’t do that themselves with one of those system speed-up utilities, and a malware protection utility to deal with the pop-up issue. Indeed, if you expend some energy, and perhaps some cash, you don’t need to bring in an outside service company for most Windows problems. Aside from hardware issues, you should be able to perform those maintenance chores yourself.

But the question is whether many Windows users understand that they shouldn’t have to put up with this stuff in the first place, nor invest in software or technicians to get them out of these jams, and that’s a question with many answers.

Certainly, if your employer has standardized on the Windows platform, getting them to change their ways can be extremely difficult, and no doubt costly. Even if the Mac is comparably priced to a similarly-equipped Windows box, and that’s often the case, there’s still the cost of buying that hardware, acquiring new software licenses and training. Yes, most skills are readily transferred from the PC to the Mac, but sometimes it takes a little time — and some extra instruction — to make less skilled users adapt to the differences.

In the best situations, where there’s a Mac version of a Windows app, the publisher may accept a standard upgrade fee for a cross-platform transfer. Sometimes they won’t. If there’s no Mac counterpart, you have to look for an equivalent product, if there is one, and then there’s the issue of transferring data, and retraining. It’s not cheap by any means.

Yes, it’s also true that the Mac is generally less expensive to maintain than a Windows PC, and it’s possible that savings would be sufficient to justify a platform switch, if you take a long-term view of the situation. Certainly if a company is planning to upgrade their computer arsenal anyway, and buy new versions of the software they need, the real cost won’t be quite as high. More and more companies are making that decision.

As far as consumers are concerned, where they want high value, with products priced above $1,000, Apple has an amazingly high market share, particularly in the U.S. Apple also claims that 50% of the people buying new Macs at their retail stores are new to the platform. Assuming the stats are correct (and can be extended to include third-party Apple resellers), it signifies a potential steady erosion of Windows users, although it will take years to become meaningful, assuming the trend continues.

Certainly, there have to be loads of people who are sick and tired of the Windows irritants that are expressed in that radio ad, or on some of the tech radio shows, but not mine, since I don’t deal with that stuff.

However, Apple doesn’t always make acquiring a new Mac as easy as it might be. Yes, I continue to maintain that Macs are fairly priced, from the cheapest Mac mini at $699, to the multiple thousands of dollars you pay for a fully-outfitted Mac Pro. But there are also tens of millions of PCs that sell for just a few hundred dollars. Apple is considered a high-end player, very much a BMW in a sea of Fords. And, yes, I realize that Ford has a luxury division, Lincoln, where the high-end models may rival the price of some of BMWs.

While PC makers are struggling to convince netbook buyers — at least those who haven’t ditched those often-useless boxes for iPads — to upgrade to regular note-books, Apple won’t play the rush to the bottom game. That clearly costs them loads of sales from people who look at the upfront price, not the cost of ownership over a period of several years, assuming their cheap PCs last that long without requiring major repairs.

That’s not an audience Apple can expect to reach. The same holds true for the business that needs thousands of identically-equipped custom-built PC boxes. Apple can offer them a competitive price, but they won’t remove the stuff the businesses may not require, such as Wi-Fi and Web cams. That’s not Apple’s focus, even if they are making a bigger move to gain enterprise customers.

But as I return to the motives behind those PC support ads, I do hope listeners will consider other options before picking up the phone and calling for help.

There were loads of expectations ahead of Tuesday’s announcement that Verizon Wireless would put the iPhone on sale beginning on February 10th. Add all of them up, then consider the simplest and quickest path to availability, and you end up with the latter. Even Steve Jobs didn’t consider the event important enough to show up; he sent along his “First Officer,” COO Tim Cook instead to join Verizon COO Lowell McAdam for the session.

Just the other day, I read a blog suggesting Apple would be offering a specially crafted iPhone 4G model, delivering compatibility with Verizon’s CDMA network, AT&T’s GSM, and the upcoming LTE or 4G protocol. The author of that speculative wet dream didn’t consider that it might cost more to build a “world phone,” and thus the price would be higher.

Another report suggested that Verizon’s iPhone would cost $20 than AT&T’s, because CDMA chips are more expensive, while ignoring competitive considerations that would keep the prices as they are.

In an effort to get the product into the stores as quickly as possible, the product won’t support Verizon’s burgeoning LTE network. Apple says that they opted not to go with LTE because it would require design changes that would delay release of the product. That will likely have to await for the iPhone 5, or whatever it’s called, which is expected this summer.

The end result of the Apple/Verizon deal is an iPhone 4 that’s nearly identical to the current model, except for the CDMA hardware, a minor position change for the Mute switch, and antenna modifications required to support a different network. Whether those changes would reduce or eliminate the so-called “Death Grip” phenomenon, where reception deteriorates if you hold it the wrong way, wasn’t stated. While the definitive answers may not come until the product hits the streets, Ars Technica contributor Chris Foresman, who attended the session and got his hands on one of the Verizon iPhones, said that his attempts to duplicate the signal loss phenomenon failed. A similar experiment by a reporter from pcmag.com managed to reduce signal strength by one bar, but it required gripping the phone with both hands. Since this issue depends on signal strength, it may be that it never dipped low enough to cause a serious impact.

But then Verizon does claim to have better reception than AT&T, particularly in New York City, where the press briefing was held. So that may be the answer, but the jury is still out on that score. Unless, of course, the antenna changes addressed more than the switch to CDMA.

Forgetting any differences in contracts and data plans, there’s a significant limitation in the CDMA version, one touted often by AT&T in their ads. You won’t be able to make a phone call and browse the Internet at the same time. Clearly Verizon was unwilling or unable to modify its network architecture to allow for these simultaneous tasks, but customers who have already bought Android and BlackBerry smartphones from them don’t appear to be complaining too loudly. I’d chafe at this inconvenience, particularly when a caller asks me to look up something. It shouldn’t be necessary to call them back, or look for another device to perform that search.

However, Verizon trumps AT&T in one key respect: You’ll be allowed to use your iPhone as a wireless hot spot, supporting up to five devices. That’s an advantage that AT&T may be forced to offer as well, particularly if there’s a danger of losing lots of customers when they’re contracts are up.

The deal is also reported to be non-exclusive, meaning there’s nothing to stop Apple from offering an iPhone for customers of Sprint and T-Mobile, although media analysts aren’t expecting that to happen right away. Maybe by the time the iPhone 5 arrives, assuming the remaining major carriers in the U.S. are ready to agree to Apple’s requirements. Right now, all you are seeing is the usual corporate spin control.

The impact to AT&T’s bottom line, and that of Verizon Wireless, is also uncertain. Apple didn’t make this deal cheaply, and will grab as much as they can on each phone sold. But income from cell phone contracts are spread out over a two-year period, and Verizon clearly expects to come out way ahead.

While a Verizon iPhone shouldn’t come as a big surprise, since it’s been predicted from the first day AT&T offered the product, Apple’s competitors are suddenly placed in a very disadvantaged position. After all, Verizon didn’t stage special media events to tout the arrival of a new phone from HTC, Motorola or RIM on their network. To them, these handsets are just commodity products, and one is as good as the next so long as customers accept a two-year contract.

As I said in yesterday’s column, none of this tempts me to switch to Verizon when my AT&T contract is up. Service is good in these parts, and being able to host a Wi-Fi hot spot is not sufficient temptation for me to make the jump to a new provider, at least not so far.

On the eve of the expected announcement that the wishes of many mobile phone customers would be fulfilled with the arrival of the iPhone on Verizon’s network, there’s a larger question that’s not so easily answered. That question is whether a large number of supposedly disgruntled AT&T customers will switch as soon as their contracts expire, or before, forcing them to suffer a large early termination fee.

Although AT&T’s share of the market is only slightly behind Verizon’s, they are perceived as being vastly inferior. In large part, that’s because of frequent reports of connection problems in such major cities as New York and San Francisco. It doesn’t help that readers of Consumer Reports — a magazine I regard as highly flawed when it comes to their coverage of consumer electronics — regularly gives AT&T bad marks. I’ll accept the surveys as accurate, and the reader perceptions as genuine, although maybe not up to date. It’s not as if CR is making up those numbers.

Contrast that with AT&T’s ongoing claim that they are pouring billions of dollars into boosting their network capacity, particularly in cities where the existing systems are overloaded. Here in the Phoenix area, AT&T has gotten better, partly because they have built new cell towers in my area. I even got text messages extolling the network enhancements, and my personal experiences do verify improved connection quilt,y and the lessening of dropped calls, although they still happen occasionally. But I’ve also had dropped calls with other carriers over the years.

Unfortunately, adding cell towers isn’t such an easy process, even if the carrier is willing. Steve Jobs has claimed it can take up to three years to build them in San Francisco, partly because of zoning requirements, and protests from people in the neighborhoods where the facilities are to be constructed. Since that statement hasn’t been factually disputed, I’ll also accept it as accurate, but it doesn’t help AT&T.

Now, in advance of the iPhone’s arrival on their network, Verizon has been quoted as saying they are fully capable of handling the demands posed by Apple’s iconic smartphone. After all, all those Android OS phones rushed into the market with two-for-one deals seem to work all right, and certainly Verizon’s network quality almost always rates higher than AT&T.

But there are a few questions on the horizon. First is the inability to take a phone call and browse the Internet at the same time. This is a feature iPhone users are accustomed to, because the GSM technology permits such multitasking. But not the CDMA system employed by Verizon, and some other carriers around the planet. It will be interesting to see how or if Verizon addresses that shortcoming. The other issue is download speeds on their network.

AT&T touts its network as being superior to Verizon when it comes to speed, and this has been borne out in independent tests, although they don’t focus on the ability to get connections and the relative freedom from dropped calls. If you have to put up with frequent disconnects, it doesn’t matter so much if your downloads are faster when you get connected.

My personal mobile phone experiences include Sprint, Verizon Wireless, and AT&T. The first was treacherous, with bad network quality, and horrible customer support. My two years with Sprint represented one of the few times where I felt like yelling every time I got a support person on the phone for one reason or another. In fairness to Sprint, they claim to have improved both the network and support, and this is also evidently confirmed by published reviews. I ditched Verizon largely to get the iPhone, but also because support had deteriorated. I’ve never had a problem of this sort with AT&T.

When it comes to personal contacts with a company, though, my experiences may not mirror yours. Maybe I just talked to the right — or wrong — people, and no doubt certain call centers fare better than others.

The long and short of it is that my AT&T contract is months away from expiration. I do not have any issues that would spur me to move to a carrier that, in my personal experience, doesn’t really deliver a superior user experience. I’m quite pleased with my iPhone 4. Since the unit has one of Apple’s bumpers, I do not suffer from that alleged “Death Grip” problem.

When the iPhone 5 arrives, as one expects it will by summer, I’ll reconsider the issue. I expect AT&T will be working as hard as they can to retain customers, although there will be a fair amount of churn, particularly if the Verizon iPhone is given a superior rating in the cities where AT&T is vulnerable. I also expect that Apple will do some redesigning of the antenna setup for their 2011 model to reduce the impact of holding it the wrong way, though they surely can’t violate the laws of physics, even if some critics think otherwise.

The news that there were over one million software downloads from the Mac App Store in the first 24 hours seems but a blip on the horizon. It’s not a lot when compared to the iOS App Store, but you can surely see the handwriting on the wall. What’s more, as third-party developers line up to get their products displayed, some will quickly abandon their own efforts to sell their products in favor of Apple’s solution.

Certainly having Apple’s marketing muscle behind all those third-party developers, even those run by a single person, can take a relatively unknown product and turn it into a best seller almost overnight. Some might feel that Apple’s 30% cut is somewhat high, but consider how it simplifies bookkeeping chores for a small business. Just sell the product, and sit back and wait for Apple’s monthly check.

Of course, nothing stops developers from selling their own stuff through their sites or elsewhere. As a matter of fact, Apple’s stringent (but evolving) restrictions will likely cause rejection letters from loads of apps that would seem otherwise to be compelling entrants.

Over time, of course, I expect Apple will find ways to deal with many of these exceptions. I like to think that audio capture utilities, such as Ambrosia Software’s WireTap Studio, which installs a kernel extension as part of the setup process, would be an ideal candidate for App Store customers, if only system changes and/or enhancements would be allowed.

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