If you accept the conventional wisdom, Consumer Reports is the best product review publication in the U.S. The reason is that it’s run by a non-profit corporation that not only doesn’t accept advertising, but actually purchases the items it tests, most often from regular dealers. In other words, it’s incorruptible.

So how can you beat that?

Unfortunately, there’s also that old saying about being a jack of all trades and the master of none that applies very much to Consumer Reports.

Yes, they seem to do a credible job at auto reviews, and on such ordinary consumer products as dishwasher detergent, washing machines, and even digital cameras and flat screen TVs. But the situation becomes troublesome when they confront such sophisticated gear as personal computers and smartphones.

Even though they seem to have a more tech-savvy staff nowadays, their reviews remain useless when it comes to the promised intent, which is to guide you towards making the right purchasing decision.

Take the eternal Mac versus PC dilemma. You never see detailed descriptions of the differences between the Mac OS and Windows in the pages of CR. They may pay lip service to major upgrades, such as Snow Leopard and Windows 7. But when confronted with a choice between the two, which should you pick?

CR won’t tell you why one might be better than the other, or even, in their collective opinion, that there’s no practical difference. Of course, I’d dispute that heavily, as would most people who have had a fair amount of experience with the Mac and the PC, but the question isn’t even asked in their annual reader surveys.

You do see Apple getting high marks, because Macs contain premium hardware. But you might come away with the impression that the Mac is nothing more than a high-priced PC, so why even give it a second thought if you’re not prepared to pay extra for one?

To CR, it’s the same as choosing whether to buy a Toyota or a Lexus. In this case, it’s the same company, sometimes similar platforms, but it’s mostly about style, right?

CR does, however, have a knack for getting solid press. You’ll find their spokespeople on many TV shows, not to mention being quoted regularly in the mainstream press. But they are also given softball questions and never pressed to confront the serious lapses in their testing process.

That takes us to Antennagate, where CR became a major offender, along with the Web-based tabloid publication that is credited with (or blamed for) disclosing the notorious signal attenuation problems encountered on the iPhone 4. Now maybe the official offender, Gizmodo, has an ax to grind, having gotten themselves embroiled in that notorious missing or stolen iPhone prototype. It stands to reason that they are no longer included on Apple’s official invite list for media events, and good luck to them if they hope to get review products in the future.

Unfortunately, the Antennagate controversy quickly became a YouTube sensation, then got picked up by the major media, particularly after CR was able to duplicate the phenomenon in a specially-configured test that an independent antenna expert regarded as essentially junk science.

Although the iPhone 4 got the highest rating among all tested smartphones, by a small margin, CR won’t recommend it. It doesn’t matter that you can pretty much take any smartphone, as many people have done, and find an appropriate death grip to cause the signal to dip.

Apple has been busy exposing blatant offenders from rival companies on their site, as the executives from those smartphone makers continue to cry foul.

But you wonder how CR might have missed the obvious warnings in manuals and, on occasion, affixed to the smartphones themselves, which explained the potential for signal loss and perhaps lower battery life if you hold those gadgets the wrong way. You’d think a publication that prides itself on being thorough (not to mention fair) would actually read the manuals and make an effort to understand a product’s known limitations.

On the other hand, posting a blog about the iPhone generates far more attention, and hits of course, than if they identified a similar shortcoming with a gadget from HTC, Motorola, Nokia or Samsung. After all, we’re talking about Apple’s “Jesus phone” here, the one that’s magical, mystical and therefore cannot possibly obey the laws of physics.

What’s even more troubling is that CR refuses to admit the testing was not properly conducted. Rather, they imagine that Apple will have an unknown fix at some undefined moment in the future, and, while saying that the offer of free bumpers or third-party cases is a good first step, it’s not enough.

If CR wants to be fair and balanced, they should be demanding the same of every other smartphone maker; that is, free cases. That way, all the products will be on an equal footing, and not susceptible to signal variation under normal use and service.

But I’m not expecting that to happen anytime soon. As long as Apple continues to have difficulty meeting iPhone 4 demand, there’s little to be concerned about. But my respect for CR has gone down several more notches.

Some foolish blogger the other day wrote an inane piece claiming that I said that the Mac Pro would soon be history. For the benefit of those who haven’t read these columns regularly, and even for those who have, I have never made such a claim.

I have said that there may be a time in the distant future when there won’t be a need for a desktop workstation from Apple, but that is not something we can expect right now.

What’s more interesting, however, is that, despite spending very little money to promote Macs, Apple managed to sell 3.47 million of them in the last quarter, which is a company record. You can parse that any way you wish, except that more than 70% of those sales were portables. Other than the recent Mac mini revision, there have been no new Mac desktops since last fall’s introduction of the hot-selling iMac. Even that Mac Pro is sadly in need of an update, and serious content creators are depending on the recent introduction of new Intel Xeon chips as reason to expect a near-term speed bump.

Indeed, even the iMac was introduced with nothing more than a press release. The last MacBook upgrade a few weeks back simply appeared at Apple’s Web site. There was no announcement, although the nature of the update was quite minor in the scheme of things. The big improvement was to gaming performance, with somewhat better battery life.

Sadly, those cute “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads are now history. But perhaps Apple’s bean counters decided that the campaign wasn’t productive enough in terms of new Mac sales or perhaps other methods are faring better.

This is something implied by Apple COO Tim Cook at Tuesday afternoon’s conference call with financial analysts, citing again the famous “halo” effect that supposedly has convinced iPhone and iPod users to buy new Macs.

The real question, though, is whether the iPad is also delivering more Mac sales, or cannibalizing them. In other words, of the 3.27 iPads sold in its first quarter on sale, how many of those purchases would have otherwise gone to Macs? Ever the bob and weave artist, Cook deflected this to the possibility of grabbing more PC sales instead.

Maybe that’s partly true, witness the fact that netbook sales have evidently collapsed since the iPad became available. Whether there’s a connection, I don’t pretend to know. It may well be that the people who bought those shrunken note-books realized they were pathetic products and decided they should get a full-sized note-book instead. Or perhaps they will gravitate to Macs or iPads.

Of course, the continued success of Macs without marketing augers will for the platform. Even with the vast sales gains, Apple has lots of room to grow. Macs still represent a low single digit share of the worldwide market overall, and other PC makers seem to largely take sales from one another, although the numbers are on the upside again. However, a lot of that may be due to the fact that home and business users finally believe they can afford to put older computers out to pasture and replace them. So the industry is not getting more new customers so much as selling product to the existing user base.

The potential new customers might indeed be buying Macs, iPads, or just relying on a smartphone for Internet access, gaming and that occasional productivity app.

When it comes to smartphones, it’s still the wild west out there. There are many competitors fighting for their places in the sun. Even if the Android OS surpasses the iPhone in the near future, remember that it is a comparison that includes many companies, many models and lots of carriers versus one company with a single product line and, in the U.S. at least, support from a single wireless provider.

On the long haul, I still believe that the PC era is coming to a close for most people. There will certainly be the need for traditional desktops and note-books for serious business users and content creators for a number of years. But a lot of people will find that tablets, be it the iPad or something else, will fulfill all or most of the needs that were formerly the province of a personal computer.

Smartphones will also assume more and more computing features and, for those who can handle the tiny screens, will also replace the PC in some instances. I know my iPhone has for me. I am able to keep it on my night table, and refer to it late in the evening or early in the morning when I need to check a message, or, if I can’t get back to sleep, engage in some casual Internet surfing.

Indeed, it’s also possible that tomorrow’s Mac will morph into something that encompasses an iPad and what we’ve come to recognize as a regular computer. Or maybe some undreamed of product will arrive that replaces all of them.

You can almost see how the 24/7 cable news talking heads are handling the situation. Apple Inc., after being at the top of the mountain several years, is now once again a beleaguered company as the result of the Antennagate scandal. Both customers and the press have lambasted the company and mercurial CEO Steve Jobs for failing to understand the known flaws in the antenna design for the iPhone 4, and Wall Street is wondering just how Apple’s bottom line might be hurt.

Well, that’s what the critics might say, but where’s the truth and can they handle it?

The facts are that Apple beat the street yet again with their third quarter results, reporting quarterly sales of $15.7 billion and net quarterly profits of $3.25 billion, or $3.51 per diluted share. You can compare that to last year’s numbers of $9.73 billion, with profits of $1.83 billion, or $2.01 per diluted share. All told a 78% increase in profits.

Not too shabby!

Total Mac sales amounted to 3.47 million, a new quarterly record and an increase of 33 percent over last year. So much for Macs going down the tubes anytime soon, or the reports that the iPad would cannibalize sales. What makes the results all the more intriguing is the fact that this is happening without any major Mac announcement in months. Recent product upgrades have been minor, mostly speed bumps, and they arrived with minimal publicity. The last MacBook upgrade didn’t even merit a press release. It just showed up.

At the same time, some 3.27 million iPads were sold, so it didn’t quite match the Mac numbers, but give it time. Already the analysts are inflating their iPad estimates for the rest of this year and 2011, as it becomes more and more obvious that this new gadget isn’t just a flash in the pan.

As to the infamous Antennagate controversy, it appears that the iPhone is, as yet, unaffected. Some 8.4 million were sold in the June quarter, way on the upside of analyst estimates, an increase of 61% over last year. Steve Jobs calls the introduction of the iPhone 4 “the most successful product launch in Apple’s history.

After some time in the doldrums, Apple’s stock price had risen several percent ahead of the third quarter results, which clearly indicates Wall Street remains positive about Apple and isn’t taking the iPhone brouhaha seriously. At least not until there’s evidence that sales have slowed, and with the product still on three-week backorder, clearly most people don’t care about death grips.

That is except for some members of the media who don’t buy Apple’s explanations and are willing to give the lame excuses from competing smartphone makers a pass. It’s highly unfortunate, but not atypical for a news operation that makes mountains out of mole hills and gives tiny stories far too much prominence.

If you want to examine the numbers in more detail, you can check out Apple’s press release on the subject.

During Apple’s quarterly conference call with financial analysts, COO Tim Cook put to rest any lingering concerns that the iPhone 4 antenna uproar would hurt sales. He characterized demand as “absolutely stunning,” commenting, “We are selling every unit we can make currently.” He also denied that Apple is deliberately underproducing iPhones to create shortages “for buzz,”

As the controversy fades, unless some serious new iPhone 4 problem emerges, it does appear they’re going to ride out this one.

As usual, financial analysts are poor journalists, and they seldom ask the hard questions or engage in extended follow-ups for clarification. It’s also true that Apple’s top executives have their key talking points well rehearsed, so they won’t be tripped up. They also know how to avoid answering a question by subtly changing the subject. Too bad Consumer Reports continues to live in denial about the whole thing.

The rest of the session yield unsurprising news. Some 50% of new Macs bought at an Apple Store are sold to folks new to the platform, but Apple again was never asked how they come by these numbers.

When questioned once again about alleged inconsistencies in the way App Store submissions are handled, Cook repeated the usual excuses, that they approve most submissions within seven days, and that bugs or the presence of pornography are the main reasons why apps are rejected. Nothing was mentioned about those about gray areas, where there’s still ongoing controversy over why some apps don’t pass muster.

I had hoped for a a direct question about whether Verizon Wireless would soon get the iPhone. You’d think with the revelation that there’s are Verizon cell towers on the Apple campus, that very question would have been asked almost at the starting gate. The best the analysts could offer was a clumsy query about the state of Apple’s relationship with AT&T and whether some sort of “expansion” is planned, which is the code word for adding another U.S. carrier to the lineup.

Cook responded they were “very happy to be partnered with AT&T,” but avoided any further illumination on the matter. He wasn’t asked about that published report that claimed Apple and AT&T had nearly parted ways several times.

When you look over the history of Apple’s association with AT&T, it may well but that this was the only major carrier that would not only carry the iPhone, but accept Apple’s demands for tight control of their platform. That goes against the grain with other companies, particularly Verizon.

As I said, financial analysts make for poor journalists, so the responses they get are generally prepackaged and only of interest to people who crave hard numbers above all else.

As I speculated in yesterday’s column, the makers of competing smartphones are trying to mirror Adobe’s approach on the Flash controversy with smoke and mirrors responses to Antennagate.

Whether HTC, Motorola, Nokia or Samsung, the spin control reads the same, using near-identical talking points playbooks. They know all about antennas, and Apple doesn’t, and is thus responsible for the alleged faulty design of the iPhone 4.

However, I’ve yet to see any response that actually attempts to disprove Apple’s online demonstration showing how smartphones from RIM, HTC and Samsung react to various forms of death grips. In each case, Apple shows you exactly where the dead spot, or antenna, is located, and the physical position that will reliably cause signal attenuation.

More to the point, there are loads of YouTube videos out there showing how to induce this very common phenomenon on a fair number of popular smartphones.

Worse, the manuals for a number of these products, such as those from Nokia and HTC, specifically warn customers against death grips. If you touch them in the wrong place, signal quality will degrade. How can they possibly claim with a straight face that the problem is primarily Apple’s when their own documentation and numerous demonstrations show precisely the reverse?

The answer is, of course, that in this politically charged society, you really don’t have to produce evidence of anything. You just make the claim, such as the tragically pathetic and morbid one about so-called “Death Panels” during the debate on the health care bill in the U.S. Without getting into the endless emotional arguments about that topic, there were certainly legitimate criticisms to be offered without having to make things up.

The problem in the tech industry is that it appears many of these companies are not really run by visionaries or tech-savvy people. For the most part, the executive suites are peopled by professional managers rather than individuals who are really schooled in any particular industry. That explains the denial and deflect posture they assume.

Unfortunately, with only a few exceptions, the media has totally failed to report correctly and responsibly on the issue. I suppose they believe they are being fair and balanced when they simply report what company representatives say without asking the tough questions. That, however, is a total disservice to the public, which demands factual reporting. They might as well crib the company press releases and be done with it. It would take a whole lot less time, and maybe they should also take a pay cut if they want to emulate copying machines.

This is not to say that Apple is totally innocent of blame. Maybe they didn’t expect that everyone in creation would practice death grips on their new iPhones, but when the uproar erupted, they waited far too long to deliver a smart response. That snide email answer from Steve Jobs to just hold the phone differently didn’t help matters, and Apple’s proclamation that they displayed the bars incorrectly may have been true, but it didn’t go down too well. Few believed it, regardless of the truth of the matter.

Certainly, Apple and Steve Jobs in particular did some really positive damage control during that Friday press conference. Jobs outlined the problem clearly, with real evidence to back up what he said. If you didn’t believe him, all you had to do was take one of the phones Apple tested and see if you could duplicate the symptoms using the very same death grip.

I also continue to wonder why this became such an important issue. It’s not as if there aren’t more important things to report than whether you can affect a mobile phone’s reception by holding it the wrong way. I’d think the sad state of the economy, the oil spill in the Gulf, and a host of other issues that impact our planet would rate far higher on the priority scale.

On the other hand, maybe Apple’s marketing approach, calling the new iPhone “magical,” was sufficient to encourage people to see if the emperor had any clothes. In the end, it’s just a smartphone, folks, as imperfect as any, despite a few compelling features that make it more fun than most other gadgets of its type.

Besides, Apple has been on a roll, becoming the number one tech company on the planet via market cap. Their income may soon exceed that of Microsoft, which would only cement that position. Despite their ongoing success, Apple has been poised for a fall, and the media is just delighted to turn a winner into a loser with the slightest incentive.

But that ZDNet writer who is now suggesting that Steve Jobs retire as a result of Antennagate is little more than a clueless idiot!

On the long haul, Apple will overcome this problem, but I rather suspect you’ll see an iPhone 5 far sooner as a result, maybe even early in 2011. That, of course, depends on whether or not the current model remains on the back order list and if demand somehow nosedives.

Or maybe the death grip will be a perverse incentive for some to just buy it anyway and see if they can duplicate those symptoms too.