Although it was widely expected that Apple would introduce a cheaper MacBook this year, they chose otherwise. Since there will be no new products in 2009 from Apple, based on their own statements, this issue is closed, unless they have reason to change things in 2010 or beyond.

However, you can’t ignore the fact that an awful lot of people out there consider Apple’s products overpriced or at least premium priced. This is the mantra repeated regularly by Microsoft and its sycophants, and even the mainstream media says pretty much the same thing.

Apple only has itself to blame for these perceptions, because for so many years their gear was priced considerably higher than comparable products. It surely helped enhance the bottom line, but this high profit business plan surely didn’t help Apple’s market share.

These days, Apple still gets great profits, but not from overly high price points. Instead, it comes from smart management of the acquisition of raw materials and tight inventories. In other words, they control wasteful spending in virtually every department.

At the same time, the prices of Apple gear remain highly competitive, far more so than you might imagine. By picking and choosing which markets and segments to enter, they don’t overwhelm themselves with confusing product variations, and the customers aren’t so confused about which models to buy. Just about everything is clearly defined. Sure Macs come with the ability to customize, but the choices are starkly limited.

This, of course, is one key reason why Apple also gets a bad rap when it comes to being competitive, particularly in the PC arena, where there are so many different versions and subversions of a particular model, the mind boggles. If there is a nook or a cranny to fill, you can bet Dell, HP or one of the other PC box makers will attempt to fill it, even if there’s little money to be made.

This explains, for example, why so many PC makers jumped headlong into the netbook mess. Yes, a whole lot of them are being sold, but it’s an open question whether such miniature note-books are going to be long-term successes, or just vanish when customers have enough money to buy something really useful. It’s too early in the game, but it’s a sure thing that there’s not a lot of profit in a $300 computer of any size, even if it’s a desktop model.

So when Apple is asked about building a cheap Mac, they respond saying they don’t know how to build something inexpensive that wouldn’t wind up being a piece of junk. Surely they have the PC industry as a whole to present an example they don’t want to follow.

Unfortunately, far too many members of the tech and financial media feel they are smart enough to exhort Apple to build this, that, or the other thing. If other companies are doing it, why not Apple? They have to be missing out on huge market share gains, or at least they can prevent lost sales if customers go elsewhere for the product they still refuse to build.

People who believe in such things seem to forget that one of the reasons for Apple’s great success, despite the economic situation, is because they pick and choose carefully which products to make, and what to ignore. There may indeed be a tablet computer at some point in time, for example, but only if Apple thinks they can make a difference and make a profit. If the product doesn’t deliver on both, it won’t be built, or if it is, it’ll be discontinued.

Consider the Cube. It looked great. It set a standard for style, and I recall writing at the time that it belonged in a museum. Well, that’s probably where it ended up, as a gadget that was mostly style, little substance, and priced too high to sell a sufficient number of units to keep it going. Based on a comment Steve Jobs made to the media during the Mac OS X rollout in early 2001, during which he denied that the Cube would be discontinued, those of us in the audience got the feeling that he had a personal commitment to its success. But a few weeks later, the Cube left Apple’s product sheets, because the hard numbers demonstrated it would not live long and prosper.

This doesn’t mean that there can’t or won’t be a cheaper Mac. Certainly dropping the price of the MacBook Pro demonstrates that, if necessary, Apple can shave profits a little when it’s necessary, and in that case, they probably made up a lot of the difference by selling more of them.

Now what a future Apple leadership might do is anyone’s guess, but it’s clear the current executive team — with or without Steve Jobs — won’t be building those cheap computers anytime soon. Yes, there are inexpensive iPods and the iPhone is priced right there with its smartphone competition. But when it comes to personal computers, Apple has staked out a territory where they can be exceedingly prosperous and grow the market at Microsoft’s expense. They have no reason to change their strategy.

In recent weeks, loads of reviews of Windows 7 have been published. Most are based on beta or so-called “Release to Manufacturing” (RTM) versions, though some actually used the version that shipped last week. Regardless, there’s a sense that Microsoft has cured all or most of the ills that plagued Vista.

However, Microsoft chose not to call it Vista SP3. Instead they pulled their usual stunt and made some visible changes in the product so they could fool you into forgetting that it’s just a spruced up version of Vista. Instead, it’s now Windows 7, for better or worse, so Microsoft can also demand the full upgrade fee. So from a business standpoint, this certainly makes sense, even though I’m sure many of you would prefer a more honest approach.

To be fair, many reviewers have not been fooled by Microsoft’s bait and switch tactics. The know the score, and they’ve clearly attempted to treat the matter as honestly as possible.

Unfortunately, some reviewers have agendas other than approaching the topic in a fair and balanced fashion. When you consider the fact that they are also comparing Windows 7 to Mac OS X, you can see where they are coming from, and that’s not to serve the interests of the reader.

Sometimes the silliness even emerges when it seems the reviewers are clearly trying to take an objective stance. Take one performance comparison of Snow Leopard versus Windows 7 that actually used a Mac note-book. The reviewer simply installed Windows 7 with Apple’s Boot Camp, but Apple actually doesn’t have a version that officially supports that system and won’t until later this year. Even then, older Intel-based Macs won’t be supported. So that basically forces us to take the results of this comparison and toss it in the trash can.

More recently, a publication oriented towards the enterprise entered the fray. The writer of the piece claims to be a Mac switcher, and is supposedly skilled at the niceties of the platform. But this particular article — and it doesn’t deserve a link because it’s so flawed — conveys an opposite impression.

Now perhaps the problem can be traced in large part to an inadequate editorial process of fact-checking and copy editing. So the reader is first told that Snow Leopard is superior, but then the article concludes that they are essentially equal, and the author would be at home with either platform. Doesn’t anyone care about continuity anymore?

In evaluating the two, the writer seems overwhelmed by the ability to pin application windows in the corners of the screen in Windows 7, but seems oblivious to Apple’s Expose feature, which has been around for several years. He’s also ignorant of the fact that the Dock isn’t stuck on the bottom of the screen on your Mac, but can be moved to the left and right side, and, with some simple system hacks, placed pretty much anywhere else.

In comparing performance, we know that Snow Leopard starts up faster than Windows 7, but other benchmarks, such as how long it actually takes to launch identical applications on each platform, are lacking. In stating that Internet Explorer 8 under Windows 7 is the equivalent of running Safari 4 with Snow Leopard, the writer seems oblivious of the fact that both browsers were actually released months ago and also run on older operating systems.

Worse, there is no real comparison demonstrating just how well these two browsers render sites and how fast they perform. Instead, the author tells us he simply prefers Firefox and clumsily sidesteps the known fact that Internet Explorer 8 scores dead last in nearly every benchmark category against all the popular browsers, even Safari for Windows.

The long and short of it is that we have the sad situation of a publication catering to the business environment posting an article that should have never been published without extensive revisions.

Then again, the publication in question has fallen down on the review process on previous occasions too. A few years ago, for example, I called them to task as the result of an extremely flawed evaluation of a printer. I cited chapter and verse, and even got the attention of an editor who promised to examine the situation. I did not see any new articles from the reviewers in question after that, nor a correction to address the various and sundry errors. Oh well. Out of sight, out of mind.

Now to add insult to injury, Microsoft is now advertising Windows 7 in earnest on TV. The other night, for example, there was a spot featuring someone raving about the ability to clumsily move document windows to the corners of the screen on his laptop, as if this was the greatest operating system feature ever. Worse, you couldn’t miss the ragged movement of those windows, although you might have to look closely. Sure, I suppose Microsoft’s ad agency could have touched it all up, but then that would be false advertising.

Or does anyone even care about this stuff?

They say that a publication that only contains good news wouldn’t be long for this world, whether online or print. Indeed, there were newspapers of that sort over the years, but they’ve vanished in the dustbin of history. These days, it’s all about conflict and sensationalism.

Anything goes in order to get precious ad dollars. So the reason that I’m still poor in my middle years is the clear result of the fact that I won’t subscribe to making up stories just to pay the rent.

So let’s begin:

What is forgotten in the rush to credit Microsoft with good results because their sales didn’t drop as much as expected is the fact that Apple has been, by and large, seemingly immune from the effects of the worldwide recession. Or, if not, they would have actually sold far more product all things being equal.

Snow Leopard is selling twice as fast as Leopard over a comparable period, even though it’s supposedly little more than a Service Pack, if you believe what the Windows advocates tell you. Indeed, Snow Leopard is as seamless as an upgrade can be. Whether you go from Tiger or Leopard to Snow Leopard, it’s just a couple of clicks and the installer figures out the rest for you. Compare that to the torturous clean install you have to endure if you upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7.

Indeed, Apple actually ditched an “Archive & Install” option. Yes, you can still wipe your Mac’s hard drive and start over, but a hefty majority of Snow Leopard adopters will never have to do that. It just works.

Yes, I know there is a Snow Leopard bug evidently involving Guest accounts, which may delete your Users folder when you return to your regular account. However, I think it’s pretty clear from the current range of online chatter that a fix is due momentarily, so in the meantime, stay away from Guest accounts and you’ll be safe!

Aside from the usual spate of third-party conflicts, the Snow Leopard user experience has been incredibly positive. It does appear to me that Apple spent a lot of time doing the proper level of quality control to sidestep most of the serious issues. This is the sort of upgrade that will continue to grow in performance as more and more applications come online with full support for such 10.6 features as Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCL.

Apple’s newly refreshed MacBook and desktop models has received suprisingly good marks almost across the board. Even the PC magazines took notice, particularly the spectacular looking 21.5-inch and 27-inch iMacs. The Mac mini server model is sure to attract small businesses, educational institutions and even some home users. Apple has really cut the bottom out of the price, by including Snow Leopard Server, with unlimited users, pre-installed. No comparable Windows Server package can be had unless you’re willing to pay several times that figure.

Indeed, when people argue that Macs are more expensive than comparable PCs — something I will strongly dispute — they forget the low price of Apple’s software. What can you find for $79 on the Windows platform to match the quality and feature set of iLife or iWork? At $499, Logic Studio simply blows away the competition if you want a professional recording setup on your Mac, and your GarageBand projects will transfer seamlessly.

By lowering the price of Final Cut Studio to $999, Apple has leveraged its hardware to make it one of the best solutions for professional video production. Yes, there are specialty 3D animation apps and other products you’ll need as well, but Apple has brought the price of their apps to the point where even the smallest business or eager and ambitious amateur can find a way to buy studio-quality software.

Next time someone tells you that there are no apps on a Mac, just ask them to find the equivalent of this stuff on Windows without paying two or three times the price.

Despite these easily proven facts, I’m still seeing complaints about what a poor value a $599 Mac mini represents. But after you look at the desktop junk that PC makers offer at that price or less, you may find yourself singing a different tune. Besides, if you are into protecting the environment, you’ll be happy to discover that Apple does better than just about any other PC maker in reducing power consumption and making the parts recyclable.

The iPhone is another strong positive. Let’s forget any concerns you have about AT&T’s network quality. Apple doesn’t control that, nor the systems run by the other carriers that sell iPhones. But AT&T, from its ongoing apologies, clearly feels the pressure and I really believe they want to get better, although it’ll mean the ongoing expenditure of billions of dollars per year.

All told, Apple has assembled a terrific, fully-integrated product lineup that can smash the competition in almost every respect. They also continue to make record profits, which merely demonstrates that their customers agree and are only too happy to pay the price of admission.

A couple of weeks back, when David Biedny joined me on The Tech Night Owl LIVE, we were laughing up a storm about Microsoft’s pathetic house parties campaign to boost the launch of Windows 7. It seemed a pathetic or desperate act to want to promote an operating system upgrade with a series of events that had, at best, only a peripheral connection with personal computers.

Indeed, this wasn’t just a case of a couple of Mac fans ranting about Microsoft. Even the tech publications that you just know would be on Microsoft’s side were busy attacking most of the promotional efforts, and the house parties were just a small part of their objections.

Consider most everything Microsoft has done to make Windows warm and fuzzy. There were those meaningless ads featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld, for example. The latter reportedly received $10 million for his miniscule efforts and the campaign was halted when everyone realized they made no sense whatever.

More recently, there are the TV spots in which a little girl, maybe six years of age, is trying to show you just how easy it is for her to edit and upload photos on her PC. All right, she’s cute and all, but does that make anyone want to buy a Windows PC? Really?

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