One of the earliest superstitions bandied about when it came to a Mac was that it wasn’t a serious business computer. In those days, real computers used command line interfaces, and Apple’s graphical flourishes were meant as entertainment. You couldn’t, they said, get any real work done on one of those little boxes. But since Apple wasn’t heavily into games, just what could you do?

Well, of course, there was the advent of desktop publishing, for one, which turned one industry upside down. I also recall how quickly musicians adapted to Macs, and used them for digital recording studios.

Later, when Microsoft embraced a similar operating system concept, by building a graphical interface layer on DOS, using technology they acquired from Apple — and don’t get me started on that subject — the excuses had to change.

These days, Apple continues to foster the impression that Macs are strictly consumer computers, what with the iLife suite bundled on every model. They’re great for getting online, sending email, managing your digital photos and music, but when it comes to word processing and spreadsheets, it’s still Windows all the way.

This, of course, ignores the fact that Microsoft’s Mac business suite is quite good, actually, and fully compatible with the Windows version. So if you must use Office, the Mac is not an impediment. Besides, all the Adobe applications that content creators use are still available on the Mac, where most actually debuted.

However, Apple hasn’t really gone after the enterprise when it comes to Macs, but that may be poised to change.

It all began with the decision to support Microsoft Exchange with the latest iteration of iPhone software. In fact, Apple went directly to Microsoft to license ActiveSync rather than use some third-party alternative that wouldn’t be fully comptible. That decision puts the iPhone in a different league, as a direct competitor to the BlackBerry. So businesses no longer have excuses to bar iPhones from their employees.

Indeed, recent retail surveys have demonstrated that the iPhone has risen to the top of the heap among smartphones in the U.S. I don’t know about the rest of the world, but we’ll know that soon enough.

When it comes to Macs, however, other than the Mac Pro workstation, all design elements seem to be geared to individuals rather than businesses. Beginning with Snow Leopard, or Mac OS 10.6, though, there is the promise of full support for Exchange.

That represents a potential paradigm change for Apple.

Now why would Apple add Exchange support if they didn’t intend to go after the business market in a way they never have previously? It’s not as if Exchange is a consumer-level email server; far from it. In fact, until its spate of network difficulties became well known, Apple had marketed the service formerly known as .Mac as “Exchange for the rest of us.”

But where does that put the current Mac lineup? I mean, the MacBook Pro and Mac Pro are surely creditable products for any company regardless of department. But the MacBook and iMac seem far more tailored for students and home-based users. Do you really expect to see them on lots of corporate desktops?

The other issue is the extra gear that Apple provides, such as the built-in iSight Web cams, which would surely not qualify for a work environment. After all, it’s not as if the boss wants you wasting your time chatting online with your aunt in Colorado, or your sister in Australia.

While Apple does let you customize your new Mac to some extent online — or via many dealers — you can’t ditch the consumer-grade stuff. You’ve got to take it the way they deliver it, iSight and all.

Now wouldn’t it makes sense to develop a parallel line of business-only Macs that ditched some of this stuff, and even shipped with hard drives without iLife? It’s not as if they serve a purpose at the office, except to allow you to goof off, right?

I can’t say that the price would come down that much, except for money saved from losing the iSight. But it would allow the enterprise to more easily add Macs to their ordering lists. What’s more — and Apple has done this before — they could provide custom-configured models with Microsoft or Adobe’s suites preloaded, for example. That would mean that a company wouldn’t have to mess with multiple seat licensing schemes, or manual deployment to computers via a network feed or direct installation.

Yes, such things are done routinely by PC makers who provide so many configuration options, the mind boggles. In those cases, however, the situation ends up being unduly confusing. Apple’s great advantage here is that they restrict themselves to a small number of models and configuration possibilities. So any business-oriented Mac lineup would have to be considered from the same vantage point.

Such a strategy might, in fact, create the need for the midrange minitower that I’ve talked about so often, the one that I’ve already dismissed as a viable Apple product. Prove me wrong, please!

Just yesterday, I repeated my hopes and dreams for a new expandable desktop Mac to fill the vast gulf between the unsung hero of Apple’s low-end, the Mac mini and the costly Mac Pro. Yes, there’s an iMac, but for millions of people who don’t need another display, and crave expandability without a price to match, I would have thought this idea would be a no-brainer.

Or maybe I’m the one who isn’t thinking.

You see, two thirds of all Macs sold these days are note-books. The PC industry, in general, is catching on and note-books are dominating there too. In fact, some companies are trying different colors to move boxes, though I believe that an ugly note-book in shocking pink is still ugly.

So where does this leave the old fashioned desktop computer? Well, the iMac fits into a somewhat different category, as a descendant of the original all-in-one Mac, with everything in a single case. So in a sense it’s a hybrid that offers the benefits of a desktop with a large screen and solid footprint, and the single form factor that allows it to travel (with difficulty) should you want to take it to a different location. It also helps somewhat with wire clutter, particularly if you go for wireless input devices.

The iMac also looks good enough to place in the bedroom or den. It doesn’t have to be consigned to a cluttered office area, although that hardy matters near as much in a real office.

Certainly, from a cost standpoint, separates still matter if you don’t need to buy everything, but convenience has always been a strong attraction in the electronics industry. At one time, for example, if you wanted a home audio system, you’d buy a separate amplifier, preamplifier, tuner and so forth and so on. While such components are still available to folks looking for the ultimate in sound quality, having everything in one box has proven to be a viable tradeoff, particularly since power supplies and other components can be shared, hence actually reducing the price.

Now If Apple were to consider expanding its computer lineup, it would want to make doubly sure there is a market for the product. When it comes to Dell, HP and all the rest, they flood the market with dozens of overlapping products where actual differences may be near impossible to detect, in the hope that your precise needs will be fulfilled.

Apple tried that trick in the 1990s, and even their own executives couldn’t tell one from the other. Of course, that’s probably true with the product people from the PC box assemblers. If you put them into a room without Internet access or a cheat sheet, I bet they’d be hard pressed to define the real differences among lots and lots of similar models.

That behavior prevails throughout the electronics industry. From TVs to DVD players, are the product distinctions large enough to make sense? Quite often everything is the same except for some frills with fanciful labels that few people use anyway. But adding them can seriously boost profits over the entry level model, even though the differences in core functionality, such as a TV’s picture quality and the ability to add peripheral products, such as a DVD player, audio system and such, are not impacted in any noticeable fashion.

Apple surely doesn’t want to fall into that trap. Yes, there are four iPod models, but each is highly distinctive and it shouldn’t be hard to choose which one you want; except, perhaps, the iPod nano color you prefer. Then again, you can always buy two or three and use the one that suits your particular mood on a particular day.

In the note-book arena, maybe Apple should consider a tablet model, though the sales prospects don’t seem huge beyond certain vertical markets, such as medical practitioners. There are some who suggest some sort of bridge between the iPod touch and the MacBook, a tiny network device. But didn’t Apple try that before, with the eMate, a hybrid based on the Newton? Is there truly a need for such a gadget?

I don’t know. I’m just asking.

Spreading beyond that, I still think that Apple hasn’t quite decided what to do with he Mac mini, and even the possible future of the Apple TV. There is a lot of potential there, but nobody has figured out how to tap it yet. Or maybe there’s no need? Beyond your cable or satellite set top box with built-in DVR, what else do you need to connect to your TV set to receive the content you want? Is the victorious high definition DVD format, Blu-ray, poised to take off at last, or is some future iteration of the Apple TV going to be the ultimate bridge between the computer and the living room?

More to the point, is Apple truly the company that can really answer that question?

At one time, if you posted photos or other information that was dangerously accurate about a forthcoming Apple product, you’d get a legal letter demanding you stop. But after losing a high-profile case against some popular bloggers last year, and convincing Think Secret to close shop, it appears Apple has pulled back and is taking a less obsessive view of the situation.

You see, at the end of the day Apple benefits from all those predictions and expectations, even if, at the end of the day they can’t fulfill all the hopes and dreams. More to the point, with the mainstream media joining in the rumor game, legal letters would basically have little or no impact. It’s not as if, for example, they could stop CNET, which is now owned by CBS, if it posted secret content. CBS would probably just laugh at them.

So with all the extra help, all eyes are looking towards the next group of product announcements, which may happen later this month. What, for example, is that major transition that will severely impact on Apple’s profit margins? Surely it wasn’t the recently-revised iPod line. Yes, Apple doubled the memory on the iPod nano for the same price, but Flash memory costs far less these days.

Since it’s been months since the note-books and iMac lines were refreshed, they are the focus of media attention, especially the note-books, which are super hot in the retail market these days. How, for example, might Apple enhance the MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro in a way that you can regard as a major product transition?

It’s not just faster processors and bigger hard drives at the same price. Even if the rumors about the next MacBooks containing graphic chips from NVIDIA are true, the bill of materials probably won’t be much higher. There’s nothing there, so far, to hurt profit margins unless Apple becomes especially aggressive on price.

Consider, for example, a refreshed MacBook line retailing for $999, which is, I gather, a sweet spot for a low cost note-book. This doesn’t mean that Apple will suddenly get the customers who buy the cheap PC knock-offs at $699 and $799, but three digit pricing surely has its appeal.

Indeed, if Apple is earning $100 less per note-book, that is going to have a fair amount of impact on the bottom line. Then again, they may make up for that in increased volume, which can lower the cost of raw materials.

But what if the new note-books contain major revisions to case design? Not so much the MacBook Air, which is brand new in terms of form factor. But today’s MacBook Pro shares much of its looks with the original Titanium PowerBook, released several years ago. The MacBook is somewhat different from the original iBook, but not substantially so.

While the guts of these note-books might not change all that much, aside from using up-to-date parts, beveled edges and other case slimming efforts might have broad appeal. Certainly the difficult economic climate will make it hard to sell anything these days, unless a company can demonstrate its value and ultimate appeal to customers.

I don’t pretend to know how Apple will fare in the current quarter, but major redesigns for the MacBook and MacBook Pro and lower prices might help them get sales where just a simple refresh would have far less impact.

As far as the iMac is concerned, since the aluminum case is of recent design, I wouldn’t expect any significant change beyond the requisite speed bump and perhaps lower prices.

Of course that leaves room for a major new product introduction of some sort.

Would about, for example, an expandable desktop computer that would serve as the missing link between the Mac mini and the Mac Pro? That returns us to the concept of the headless iMac that I suggested long, long ago, or the “mythical midrange Mac minitower” that Macworld’s Dan Frakes envisions. Either way, it would be a Mac without a display, perhaps a direct descendent of the IIci, with room for an extra hard drive, more RAM, and perhaps a separate graphic card or two, along with an easy-upgrade case design.

Such a computer would surely be a compelling product for potential Windows switchers who are used to such designs and also loads of Mac users for whom the Mac Pro workstation is just overkill, and no doubt far too expensive for stretched budgets.

Other possibilities include major changes in the Mac mini line, perhaps merging its functions with that of the Apple TV to provide a souped up media center computer. Then again, the Mac mini probably remains in the lineup simply because it’s cheap to produce and seldom receives updates. The Apple TV remains a hobby, if you can believe Steve Jobs.

It’s also true that no computer maker has figured out how to handle the integration between the PC and the living room. If anyone can do it, it would probably be Apple, but that doesn’t mean you’ll see their answer this fall.

Apple has some news that, if confirmed, they can really crow about in their financial statements that are due for release later this month. But, at the end of the day, it probably won’t help their stock price.

Their troubles got worse last week, when a bogus report about Steve Jobs suffering a severe heart attack got posted on a citizen blog at CNN. In retrospect, such controversial stories should be vetted by one or more editors before being posted, but someone was apparently asleep at the wheel.

It was understandable to watch Apple’s already dipping stock price tank still further. After all, Steve Jobs and Apple are regarded as one and the same. The destinies are always tied together, and if anything happens to Jobs to impair his work at Apple, you just know that lots of people will feel that the glory days are over.

In practice, this is likely only partly true. Apple has thousands and thousands of employees developing and supporting their products. Without a number of brilliant executives, the vision of Steve Jobs cannot be carried out properly, however skilled he might be at whip-cracking. He is, after all, not an engineer or designer, although he is credited with that and other skills by many people.

Now it’s also true that Apple claims to have a succession plan in place should the worst occur, although they aren’t revealing what that might be. That, to me, is a boneheaded maneuver, because you can how easily billions of dollars of the company’s value can be lopped off simply by an unfounded rumor.

Worse, with serious concerns about the economy, despite the decision of Congress last week to approve that so-called bailout package, it doesn’t appear that Apple will get off easily for a while. Even a stellar financial report for the past quarter may not be enough to assuage doubts about the company’s ongoing success.

Indeed, as I observed Apple’s stock price declining, I was also reading a report that they have already succeeded in selling more than the promised 10 million iPhones so far this year. How did they come by that figure? Well, simply by examining the serial numbers of various units and applying a few known facts about the way Apple designs such data. It may just be a case of spreadsheet voodoo, of course, but there are other indications that iPhone 3G sales are way ahead of what the pundits expected.

There’s a report from the NPD Group that the iPhone 3G had a 17 percent share of the overall U.S. mobile handset market surveys taken from June through August. That’s the entire market, not just smartphones, and number one is the aging Motorola RAZR, which is often given away as a free premium by cell phone carriers to get you to sign up.

To make this information even more compelling, at one time Steve Jobs suggested that he’d be satisfied if the iPhone garnered just one percent of the global market. How well they really did won’t be known until the final figures are released.

Under normal circumstances, extremely positive news of this sort ought to be sufficient to send Apple’s stock skyrocketing. It would mean that, despite the ongoing concerns about the economy around the planet, Apple had managed to succeed beyond the wildest expectations of their severest critics.

So how can they prevail under these conditions?

Well I don’t pretend to be an expert on such matters, but if you have less disposable income to spend, you are going to look for something that delivers the most value. Yes, you can get smartphones for nearly nothing, but most provide a level of value equal to the purchase price.

That is just as true for the cheap PC. Yes, they can probably all handle the basics, such as email and Web browsing, with reasonable levels of performance. But as soon as you run into some sort of oddball behavior, such as the inability to get a peripheral to work, and you confront one of those typical Windows configuration nightmares, you wonder just how much your time is really worth. Wouldn’t you prefer to spend that time earning a living rather than coping with the eccentricities of a temperamental machine.

I don’t know about you, but the reason I use Macs is because I can usually get my work done without any distractions. Not that things are perfect by any means. We all know that Macs have their own share of problems from time to time. But for most people, they just work, and don’t you want the best tool for the job?

This isn’t to say that Apple is immune to possible economic catastrophes, or at least severe downturns. In fact, I fully expect Apple’s quarterly results to demonstrate great sales performance, but their guidance for the current quarter is going to be extremely conservative, despite the coming holiday season. Indeed, I expect the stock price may continue to drop for a while before it goes up, unless the overall flavor of the market undergoes some change.

But that’s as far as my predictions extend, and I always reserve the right to be wrong.