Sometimes it seems that Apple and other companies can’t produce products or services that Microsoft won’t try to imitate. Take the recent reports about plans to create a “Microsoft Store,” in a lame effort to duplicate the success of The Apple Store.

Now instead of hiring someone familiar with the sophisticated inner-workings of a retail chain that will provide a superior user experience, they select someone who had spent 25 years working for Wal-Mart.

Now despite Wal-Mart’s undeniable success as the number one retailer in the U.S., you can hardly call the shopping experience elegant. Serviceable, yes. Efficient, too, I suppose. But I would hardly call their marketing strategy adequate to provide a comfortable environment where Microsoft users can hang out and buy the cutting-edge gear they crave.

I’d think that if Microsoft’s erratic CEO, Steve Ballmer, would maybe spend a few days hanging out at an Apple Store, taking notes, and digital photos, he’d learn a lot more about the buying experience than what he might discover from someone who cut his retail teeth at a discount chain.

But that’s just me.

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

As Macworld’s Jason Snell reminded me this week while recording a segment for The Tech Night Owl LIVE, placing the iPhone in the arsenal of today’s number one mobile carrier, Verizon Wireless, would probably represent a culture shock to them.

Now I don’t pretend to know what went on behind the scenes as Apple was pitching the iPhone to the various carriers. However, it’s all but certain that Verizon Wireless was one a prime candidate. Indeed, Apple might have even gone to Sprint and T-Mobile. You never know.

Regardless, they made their so-far exclusive deal with AT&T, and, unlike other cell phone makers, Apple got a lot of authority to change things. The iPhone’s interface doesn’t resemble any other handset, and such features as visual voicemail are singularly original.

Such concessions, and there were no doubt many that you and I do not know about, give the iPhone a unique position with the wireless carriers. Indeed, it’s very possible that AT&T was also given marching orders to mend their ways, fix customer support problems and improve their network.

Yes, maybe AT&T did deliver more bars as their ads used to say, but they were also notorious for subpar technical support and flaky connections. However, in the time I’ve had my iPhone, I’ve never had a single problem dealing with AT&T’s technical support. Moreover, the network has shown steady improvement — at least in my corner of the universe — and I’d find it difficult to say that it’s inferior to Verizon Wireless right now.

But you have to imagine just what obstacles Apple encountered when they went around shopping their new gadget to the wireless industry. Up till now, the carriers have dictated the terms in agreeing to handle a certain make and model phone. Indeed, when you see the ads, the service package and the claims about call quality often rate ahead of the handset.

Because of heavy subsides, your mobile phone might even cost free or very little. It’s just a premium to get you to sign up for the standard two-year contract. Over that period, the price you pay will, in part, cover the discount you got on the phone.

It’s also true that the interface design and the way the handset interacts with the carrier’s network is also controlled by the service. The maker of the phone has to feel lucky their products are being accepted and thus they no doubt also make heavy design concessions in order to conform to the dictates of their clients.

So the Motorola RAZR you acquire from AT&T may look the same as the one from Verizon. Forgetting the fact that the two-way radio supports a different standard, the actual operating system provides features unique to the carrier, not to the device. Some hardware features may also be customized for a specific service’s needs.

To some degree — as in Windows PC land — the handsets, aside from a few minor feature variations, are interchangeable. When your contract is over, or the handset breaks, you get another. It may be the same model, or a different one, but, aside from some basic hardware specs, you don’t expect a huge difference.

With the iPhone, Apple holds the cards. I wonder how that fit in with Verizon’s culture, the way they deal with their suppliers. Is it possible that a key reason the iPhone didn’t go to Verizon first is not because they use a different network standard than you find in most other countries, but they wouldn’t let Apple assume virtually full control of the product’s design? At least that’s what some of the pundits suggest.

Of course, when the exclusive deal with AT&T is done, there’s nothing to stop Apple from making deals with the rest of the major carriers in the U.S. However, you have to wonder what sort of reception they’d get.

For relatively small T-Mobile, I’d expect that they would find a responsive audience. I might mention in passing something Jason reminded me about during that segment on my tech show. According to the law, the wireless carrier has to unlock a cell phone after two years, at the customer’s request. This would mean, for example, that the first round of iPhones could be legally activated on T-Mobile’s network beginning this summer. You wouldn’t have to jailbreak the phone.

As far as Sprint and Verizon is concerned, it shouldn’t represent a serious obstacle for Apple to design a CDMA version of the iPhone. The appropriate parts are already used in hundreds of millions of other handsets. There’s no question in my mind that struggling Sprint would be happy to make the appropriate network changes to allow for the iPhone to run on its network with all features intact.

Verizon? Well, maybe they feel that BlackBerry Storm is a powerful iPhone killer and they don’t need the real thing. But if they wanted to deal with Apple, they’d have to take the deal or be left wanting. It may be the network, but that network would have to change for the iPhone to run on it.

So only a few weeks ago, Apple COO (and acting CEO) Tim Cook announced that it’s not in Apple’s DNA to build cheap junk. But that’s nothing new, as he and Steve Jobs have been saying the very same thing for an awfully long time. You’d think that some folks would get the message.

Despite such claims to the contrary, however, some tech and financial pundits just won’t give up. To them, Apple is missing the boat not building cheap Macs, or a cheap whatever-it-is at the moment.

Oh yes, there is a cheap iPod out there, the shuffle, but a music player, aside from the software, is pretty inexpensive to make, so there’s nothing lost here. In fact, you can probably credit the shuffle with saving iPod sales this past holiday quarter. At a starting price of just $49, it is a sufficiently casual purchase to attract even those on a tight budget.

Just the other day, I was busy reminding them that Apple is not going to jump into the netbook space in the same way as other computer makers. If they choose to get involved, you won’t see a stripped-down MacBook or yesterday’s model regurgitated in a cheaper package. How could they expect otherwise?

When it comes to the iPhone, the critics don’t seem to understand that Apple isn’t trying to emulate Nokia or Motorola and build 25 different variations on a theme, covering all price points and styles. Indeed, in this particular economic climate, the traditional cell phone makers aren’t even doing all that well, so why imitate failure?

Apple has prospered by carefully picking and choosing just the right market segments to enter — at least for them. So while it may seem sensible to have a $99 iPhone, the question is what form should it take, and is there any sense in producing such a product?

Now let’s not forget that the price of the iPhone has already been cut twice. The second time takes advantage of the subsidy payments from the wireless carriers to provide a starting price of $199. But the trip to $99 is no vast gulf. As the price of Flash memory chips declines, and Apple continues to ramp up production, it may indeed be possible to deliver today’s iPhone 3G at that price level without any sacrifices whatever.

I can’t say when that might happen, but don’t be surprised if the next generation model either costs the same for more memory and features, or costs less with configurations similar to today’s models. That way Apple can deliver on the promise of a low-cost phone without having to design a cheaper product.

Besides, what would that alleged iPod nano offer? Would it have a smaller screen? Really? Consider the limitations of the current screen in navigating Web pages. Now imagine if the screen size were, well, one third less. It wouldn’t help to pack more pixels into the smaller space. Even our younger readers would need visual aid then.

If Apple ditches the same sort of screen, they begin to end up with something that’s no better than the standard, garden-variety mobile phone with a few frills. And remember that being a wireless phone is perhaps but a small part of what the iPhone does. It’s actually a tiny personal computer that packs in many of the functions of its larger siblings. As Apple — we all hope — adds true editing features, such as cut, copy and paste, I rather suspect that some people may not actually need a Mac or PC.

That may seem beyond comprehension, but consider the person who does little more than check email, write short messages and maybe browse a few sites on a regular basis. In that sort of environment, anything more powerful than an iPhone would be overkill and perhaps a waste of money.

That is no doubt the attraction of the netbook, other than the cheap price of course.

In any case, don’t expect to see an iPod nano this year or any year. Sure, Apple is no doubt going to expand its iPhone product line in some fashion. I wouldn’t hazard a guess whether they will move the line upscale and perhaps deliver a Pro version as their answer to the netbook. It may indeed be possible to produce slightly smaller version actor too, but consider the limitations.

And please ignore the lame suggestions the media pundits make about what Apple is about to do. While I expect to be surprised, amazed, and more often than not completely wrong, I don’t think Apple is going to abandon simple common sense. Do you?

I find some of the tidbits presented by so-called media analysts simply fascinating from a particularly perverse point of view. Take a commentary by Scot Finnie, the editor-in-chief of Computerworld, a sister publication to Macworld. You can certainly forgive Finnie for having the temerity to believe he knows how Apple should be run, since I’m sure we’ve all put ourselves in that position.

It’s what he says that troubles me, because I don’t think he gets it, and that’s particularly disturbing since he’s editor of a magazine that caters to the enterprise. In other words, power users comprise the lion’s share of his readership.

As to the article itself: In suggesting why the fact that Steve Jobs isn’t around to manage Apple’s affairs right now — although he’s no doubt contacted about critical situations — Finnie imagines several scenarios where Apple ought to change its tune.

Now before getting to the specifics, I think it’s pretty clear that Apple’s executives were given a pretty specific set of marching orders before Jobs left on his partial sabbatical, either directly, or just implicitly, and they are not suddenly going to switch on a dime and move in new directions contrary to Steve’s wishes. Finnie is living in fantasyland if he truly believes otherwise.

But the ideas he raises are nonetheless worth a few paragraphs, if only for the amusement factor. In fact, some of his ideas even have merit.

Take his suggestion that Apple should “deliver a lower-cost, netbook-style Mac.” All right, that’s something they are actually considering, but did he forget that acting CEO Tim Cook also stated, during the last quarterly conference with financial analysts, that Apple isn’t going to build junk? Does he think that things are poised for a change because Jobs took a leave of absence, and now Apple is going to alter its strategy?

More to the point, just what form would a netbook take? Would it just be a low-cost MacBook with slower processor, smaller hard drive, and tinier form factor? Would it eschew the charms of its big brother in the goal to keep the price down?

Or would Apple take the opposite approach, which is to take the iPhone and go upscale? Would the e-book 300, a Newton derivative of the last decade, become the main influence for an iPhone or iPod touch Pro? Well, Finnie talks of a “streamlined Mac OS X,” evidently unaware that the iPhone already uses such an operating system.

Another request, perhaps self-serving, is that Apple should be “a lot more transparent with customers and the press.” Maybe so, but that’s something we’ve all asked at one time or another. At the same time I trust he respects the fact that Apple has its own vision of how its products ought to be marketed, and they have been extremely successful. You can’t argue with that.

Now this doesn’t mean Finnie’s grasp of logic is completely off the reservation. He does make suggestions that I can’t disagree with all that much. One is for Apple to play better with “independent software vendors,” in other words the third-party developers who have created all those marvelous apps for the iPhone, and the thousands more who labor at Mac software.

I suppose you could say Apple has had a love and hate relationship with its developer community. However, I think they are doing a better job of taking care of programmers these days. Yes, maybe some of the early limits in the iPhone SDK, such as not allowing communication across the community and the publication of instruction books, were a little overboard. But things are settling down nicely.

When it comes to Finnie’s suggestion that Apple make a better effort to market its wares to the enterprise, I suppose that argument is old, and it’s also true that the main focus remains on the consumer. However, Apple has also turned the iPhone into a serious business smartphone while losing none of its charm. The next version of Mac OS X will include enhanced support for Microsoft Exchange. These are good steps, and even if Apple doesn’t court businesses in the same fashion as Dell and HP, they appear to be moving in a positive direction.

And just one more subject before I leave you for today’s session:

If you’re a customer of Verizon Wireless, the cell phone carrier that became number one in the U.S. by virtue of its purchase of Alltel, a regional provider, you no doubt wish you could get an iPhone too that’ll work with your chosen service. Indeed, AT&T may not have been the best choice for a U.S. provider, except that this decision allows Apple to sell the same product worldwide, using the sam GSM standard.

I realize AT&T is not everyone’s favorite wireless provider, and they have gotten mediocre ratings for customer service and network quality. However, they do appear to be improving noticeably, particularly in my part of the world, so maybe it wasn’t so bad a decision. It could even be that Apple demanded AT&T get its act together to earn that lucrative contract.

Even if Apple does add Verizon Wireless to its list of carriers after its deal with AT&T expires, they’d have to develop a version with a different radio, supporting CDMA. That shouldn’t present an insurmountable obstacle, though, since that state of affairs would be no different than that faced by all other cell phone makers.

In any case, you can bet that Apple’s strategy is going to continue to follow the playbook written by Steve Jobs before he went on leave. How could it be otherwise?