Well, the cat is being prepared for shipment and is ready to pounce upon millions of expectant Mac users come Friday. Now all last week, there were rampant rumors that Snow Leopard development had wrapped. Well, for a product promised for a September delivery, that development made perfect sense. Unless the DVD processing plants are waiting 24/7 for Apple to deliver the Golden Master, it takes time to ramp up production and ship to retailers.

The other rumor was rather more intriguing, that Apple would beat its deadline, and deliver Snow Leopard the last weekend in August. Now not to toot my own horn, but my original shipping date, as predicted on the radio show, just happens to be Friday, August 28. That statement, however, was made before the September timeframe was announced at WWDC. I actually apologized in public for my overeager optimism. So consider the apology withdrawn.

Consider the other development in the tech universe, the completion of Windows 7, which is set for a gradual rollout to both consumers and businesses. General availability will apparently come in October, but even now Windows fanboys, both paid and otherwise, are busy touting the wonders of the replacement for the disastrous Vista operating system.

That sort of behavior comes in contrast to the news about the arrival of Vista several years back that was almost uniformly bad or, at best, noncommittal. Whether this is a genuine harbinger of truth or Microsoft making up for its marketing mistakes is anyone’s guess. We’ll know when the real — and not the prerelease versions — of Windows 7 are truly upon us.

Now I’m sure most of you know that Microsoft is notorious for delivering products late and sometimes never, witness a few of the features of Longhorn, the original development version of Vista, which were tossed under the bus probably because they didn’t work.

In recent years, Apple has been pretty good about getting products out the door with all or most features intact, and pretty much on time. Sometimes shipments are a few weeks late due to early production difficulties or unexpected demand, but it doesn’t happen all that often. Sometimes, too, there is the need for an early revision of a software product because of the mad (or otherwise) rush to shipment, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find a 10.6.1 in our near-future, unless Apple has changed their ways big time.

By getting Snow Leopard out the door ahead of schedule — after letting the press speculate on the subject for several days — Apple is reaping the rewards of lots of advanced publicity. Now unlike some of you, I haven’t been checking Apple’s site daily for news that I could finally place my Snow Leopard order. If you must now, I got up Monday morning, checked a few of my favorite sites on my iPhone, and discovered a link to Apple’s press release.

No, I didn’t rush to my Mac or attempt to place the order direct from the iPhone because I felt I would somehow suffer if I didn’t hand over my $29 (plus sales tax) to Apple right away. I took my time, and set the task aside until other more pressing needs were dealt with. Then I placed my order, and, despite an apparent heavy load on Apple’s servers, experienced no problems completing an express checkout process. Indeed, since my credit card is already on file, they only asked me to enter the CVV number, those three letters from the back of the card that are used for verification.

Oh, and if you must know, CVV is an acronym for Card Verification Value. So there you go.

Minutes later, I had an email acknowledgement. A few hours later, it was already “Prepared for Shipment” along with the promise that it “Delivers on Aug 28th.”

Already the media pundits are projecting sales of up to five million units before the end of the September quarter, perhaps owing to the cheap price of admission. That Snow Leopard quickly rose to the top of the pack on Amazon and Apple’s online store augers well for its ultimate success. Besides, how could it miss?

As you know, the arrival of Snow Leopard will be accompanied by the release of a number of books on the subject from some of my friends and colleagues who stay play that game. You’ll see electronic books from Adam Engst’s Take Control Books and printed titles from such people as Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus and David Pogue. Commentator Daniel Eran Dilger is making his first foray into book writing as author of a nearly 1,000 page volume covering Snow Leopard Server, and that huge book will arrive in early November. But he has a lot more work to do, of course.

It’s interesting to note that the server version of Snow Leopard is selling for $499 in an unlimited edition. Now compare that to the pricing for any recent server suite from Microsoft and you’ll see, once again, where the real “Tax” is paid, and it’s not to Apple.

Better yet, I wonder what will happen if a few gutsy members of the media dared to confront Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer about some of his missed projections, such as the “obvious” failure of the iPhone and the claim that there’s such a thing as an Apple Tax. He might want to toss them out the door, but his response, if any, would nonetheless be interesting to contemplate.

Despite ongoing reports to the contrary, Apple now claims that it never actually rejected that controversial Google Voice application that’s now a part of an FCC investigation.

In case you’ve tuned in late, Google Voice is a technology being rolled out that, among other things, attempts to simplify your telephone life, particularly if you have separate home, office and mobile numbers. Basically, you dial just one number to reach someone, and the calls are funneled behind the scenes to the correct number. There is also a low-cost international long distance element that no doubt has the wireless carriers freaking.

Let’s consider a personal issue. Today, my son lives on two continents. In the summer, he stays with his parents, and the rest of the year he is living in Madrid, where he works for the government of Spain as an English teacher. It’s a great gig if you get one, particularly at a time where decent employment is well-nigh impossible to find.

In any case, we have our wireless account with AT&T, primarily because of the iPhone. Grayson also wanted one, but he’d have to acquire the product in Spain, for the AT&T version would be horrendously expensive to use there. Although VoIP phone services, such as Skype and Vonage, offer you free or low-cost calling plans in loads of countries, the best alternative I could find for my account, AT&T World Traveler, which carries a $6.99 a month surcharge, gives you the “discounted” rate of 99 cents per minute on roaming calls to and from Spain.

Story continued in this week’s Tech Night Owl Newsletter.

Let’s take the infamous Apple Tax argument only so far and no farther. Comparably equipped Macs and PCs cost pretty much alike. There’s no sense in discussing configurations Apple doesn’t offer, could offer, should offer or anything else. It’s all about A versus A, not A versus Z or some other combination.

However, once you’ve paid the price of admission, the price of using your Mac is apt to be a lot less than you might expect. You see, personal computers aren’t designed as pieces of artwork that you’re supposed to look at. Well, at least most of the time. The late Apple Cube, for example. It didn’t do so well from a sales standpoint, but it sure looked great.

Yes, some of Apple’s current gear might fit into the category of lookers as well, but that’s not why you buy them. You see, they’re designed to run apps, as we all know. To the surprise of many skeptical media pundits, a lot of iPhone and iPod touch owners bought them to run apps too, numbering some 70,000 varieties at last count.

The current lineup of iPhone ads, for example, speak less of the product and its features, and far more about the fact that there is an app available for all sorts of uses. Stretch your imagination as far as you can, and there’s probably an app to fit the need. If not, one might already be under development, or being considered by Apple, and the less said about that the better.

One of the most important features about iPhone apps is not their usability, but their price. Thousands are free, in fact, and others are available for as little as 99 cents. Very few are priced beyond the impulse category, which means almost any developer, whether large or small, stands a chance of getting a hit, which can mean hundreds of thousands of sales in the space of just a few weeks. That adds up to a whole lot of money, particularly in a struggling economy.

At the same time, there are lots of shareware publishers out there with Mac and Windows apps that are lucky to move a few dozen user licenses in any given month. Lots of people download the products, use them, and never pay a cent. It’s a tough business out there, and you wonder why some developers stay in the business, particularly if it’s their day job. Maybe they need to consider some changes to their business models.

Do you see where I’m going here?

Let’s look just a little bit further, at the way Apple is handling Mac apps these days. iLife comes free with new Macs, and a retail copy for the entire collection of great consumer apps is a mere $79. The same holds true for iWork, a surprisingly powerful productivity suite that more and more people are embracing in place of Microsoft Office. At the same time, Microsoft is changing the name of their email app, Entourage, to Outlook for the next version, hoping that will make you believe that it’s a closer compatriot to the Windows edition. They will probably not be cutting the price, however.

Moving up the scale, the last two releases of Apple’s Logic Studio, an audio production suite for professionals, have sold for $499, with upgrades pegged at $199. That may seem a bit much until you compare the price to almost every other comparable software collection. In movie business, Final Cut Studio is a mainstay in the film and TV industries, and it retails for just $999, hardly more than one of the major desktop publishing apps.

So it is quite true that Apple doesn’t build cheap computers. But they compensate by keeping the prices of their software relatively low. You see, Apple evidently believes they can make more money be selling apps cheaper, simply because much greater quantities will be moved. Fair prices also mean less piracy.

All this is, of course, a lesson largely lost on Microsoft, which evidently tries to snag as much as they can from everything they build. Yes, if you purchase a million copies of Microsoft Windows, you’ll end up paying a relatively low sum for each user license. If you’re a lone consumer, you’ll pay several times as much, unless you’re building your own PC. Then you can buy a so-called OEM license at a fraction of the regular price, even though you are only manufacturing one computer.

The care and feeding of your Windows box is made more expensive by the price of malware protection. Yes, there are free alternatives, but most people buy the commercial variety. Here you can’t just buy a copy and be done with it. You have to renew the update subscription every year or you will suddenly find your protection is out of date. That’s one reason why lots of consumer-level PCs end up as spam bots, feeding junk mail to unwary victims around the world.

When it comes to software with both Mac and PC versions, you’ll see pricing to be pretty close, although there are some Mac-based surcharges that make no sense whatever. All in all, however, the Apple value proposition makes the care and feeding of a Mac less costly than a Windows box. And that is regardless of any real difference in the original purchase price.

All right, so the latest craziness to emerge from some elements of the text press suggests that in a post-Jobs Apple, the company would somehow find “synergies” with Google and would contemplate a merger. You can take that to the bank, they feel, but I think it would have to be a bank that’s failing.

In any case, you have to wonder why two wildly successful companies that, in some respects, compete with one another, would need to combine into a single entity. I suppose you can find reason to suggest that Microsoft and Yahoo!, having both failed to topple Google, have reason (valid or otherwise) believe they can succeed together.

In the world of personal relationships, do people who can’t get along make good marriage partners? Aren’t those difficulties clues to potential problems later on?

This isn’t to say that Microsoft and Yahoo! don’t or can’t get along. But they are right now direct competitors for the very same customers. Pooling their resources doesn’t necessarily mean the sum is greater than the parts. Indeed, the reverse may be true, because glitches encountered during the merger process may turn off customers who therefore will seek other search and online advertising vendors. In that case, Google stands to benefit most from this marriage of desperation.

In any case, why on earth would Apple and Google need to combine anything? Apple is not in the search business, nor the search advertising business and has no reason to enter those markets. Their existing business relationships with Google — and Yahoo! for that matter — are quite beneficial to both parties.

Operating systems? Well, Apple has created OS X for the Mac and the iPhone. Google’s forthcoming Chrome OS may be thought of as a potential competitor, but their real target is Microsoft, which makes a big share of its income selling overpriced software licenses to businesses, including PC makers. It will be the eternal argument of free versus paid, and how much Microsoft would have to cut prices to compete with the former. Well, that would certainly be good for the industry, and having some more competition might force Microsoft to actually try something new — innovation — in order to maintain a successful business model.

Smartphones? Well, I suppose you can say that a phone preloaded with Google Android is an iPhone competitor, so that would indeed be one way in which Apple and Google might find themselves seated at opposite ends of the table. But why does that make a compelling argument for a merger?

Is there any such argument, anywhere, that can be made to justify such a thing?

Besides, do you really think the newly-awakened antitrust regulators in the U.S. and the EU would condone such a thing? The chances are little to none. Indeed, that’s the beginning and end of it. Governments will say no, and there are no synergies or benefits that benefit both sides.

Now you can see why I’m not providing links to those articles suggesting the possibilities that such a silly transaction might occur. They clearly don’t deserve the hits. But since this is the silly season, I suppose it might be fun to talk about it anyway, if only as an example of the extreme measures some take to create lurid headlines and spread unfounded rumors.

Then there’s the story that the quality of Apple’s tech support declined slightly in a recent survey, to the tune of about 1%, whereas some PC makers managed similar improvements. Worse, one headline, based on this information, stated that “Apple Loses Customer Satisfaction Points,” indicating the title’s author didn’t understand the distinction between singular and plural.

In the real world, the thrust of this story reveals its absurdity. Surveys traditionally allow for small errors in the results, call it the noise instead of the signal. I would venture to say that 1% is well within the noise spectrum. What this means, basically, is that little has changed one way or the other. Now if the difference was three or even five percent, there would be reason for concern on Apple’s part if support quality declined that much. Otherwise, the real story is that tech support quality by PC makers is mostly unchanged. That, however, makes for poor headlines, thus intimations of a change, however subtle, are emphasized.

Or maybe it is true that our educational system has suffered greatly in recent years, so far too many students lack proper reading, writing and arithmetic skills. That may be one reason why you encounter any of this nonsense. Yes, they believe it. So sad!

Another possibility is far more sinister, that the media, in its search for more circulation (online or print) and ad revenues, remains willing and able to sacrifice credibility and accuracy in order to create a story where no such thing exists.

But as long as people like me are around to shout the morons down down and demonstrate the falsity of their claims, I suppose yellow journalism won’t dominate. But it’ll never go away.