Since I posted my observations about that boring vignette that passes for a Microsoft commercial, featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld, some of you have responded with your own comments. Most, I think, agreed with me that it was a yawner that seriously failed to deliver on its promise, which was to get you to adopt Windows Vista. Or at least that’s what I suppose it was there to do.

Others remarked that Microsoft simply wanted to increase the Windows comfort zone, comparing it to an old shoe that you’re used to and aren’t apt to replace, except, perhaps, with a newer shoe from the same maker.

Well, I suppose there’s some inherent wisdom in that approach, but I think it mainly signifies the mindset of Microsoft’s executives. You see, I have come to believe that, if someone succeeded in inventing a time machine, Steve Ballmer and the rest of his crew would want to travel back to the mid-1990s, when the world’s largest software company could truly claim ownership of the phrase “king of the world.”

Consider the climate in those days, and let’s not talk about anything necessarily political. You see, Microsoft could do no wrong. With the release of Windows 95, their ragged, supremely buggy Mac OS imitation truly came of age. People actually waited on long lines to buy a copy, in much the same fashion as they did when Apple released Leopard last October, and when the iPhone 3G arrived in early July of this year.

At the same time, a lot of people got frustrated with Apple, which frittered away its R&D dollars blowing at windmills rather than releasing a compelling upgrade to the aging Mac operating system. Even the hardware, although it took advantage of the most powerful chips of its day — the fledgling PowerPC platform — had some serious design issues. Products didn’t always appear on time, and when they did, they arrived in highly flawed condition.

Here’s an example: Anyone who attempted to install memory into a Power Mac 8100/80 or any of its brethren, had to endure a lengthy process of unplugging cable assemblies and removing the logic board. At any point in the process, you risked bloodied fingers or even damaging the box.

No, I can’t say that I ever encountered either problem, although I performed that installation procedure several dozen times. I also understand that, when Apple released the Power Mac 9600, which had a very simple method of disassembling the minitower for RAM upgrades, the product person who introduced it confirmed to me that the people who designed the previous version were “no longer with Apple.”

He paused as he received a loud round of applause.

When Steve Jobs returned, the very first product with his stamp on it was the iMac, but don’t get me started about the RAM installation scheme for that model. It was quite as intimidating as those older Mac minitowers. Indeed, the Mac mini is another example of gross negligence of the simple elegance and upgrade elements that most Macs possess.

In any case, despite Apple’s current issues and occasional glitches, in the 1990s, a lot of people felt the company was on its last legs, a relic of the 1970s and 1980s that would soon be supplanted by real PCs. Even developers got frustrated and abandoned Mac users in a flood of increasing intensity.

Microsoft considers that to be the good old days, before antitrust actions halted their momentum, before the iPod, before Mac OS X, and Apple’s incredible resurgence.

Indeed, in those days, then-CEO Bill Gates was regarded as the tech visionary of the ages, endlessly speculating on tech inventions that, in the end, seldom came to pass. Or if they did, were generally buggy and lacked many of the promised features. In retrospect, he was more of a salesman than computer guru, and a lot of people fell for his incessant promotion.

To be sure, Gates is to be commended for giving away billions of dollars in various charitable enterprises, but in those days, it was all about amassing wealth, and in that he succeeded incredibly well.

So Microsoft somehow figures that having Gates in those new commercials will remind you of the days when they were both respected and feared by all of their competitors.

But where does Jerry Seinfeld fit into the picture? Well, Seinfeld was the star of a popular TV sitcom, a show “about nothing,” they say, but it received great ratings and sustained itself on the NBC network from 1989 to 1998. Indeed, they retired the show before lower ratings would force cancellation. There’s something about quitting while you’re ahead.

Today, Gates is quit his full-time job at Microsoft and Seinfeld, while still well-known, concentrates mostly on standup comedy and occasional TV guest spots and specials.

As part of Microsoft’s $300 million campaign to polish off Windows Vista, maybe the scene of Gates and Seinfeld on a shoe store is nothing more than an ode to happier times. Well, happier for Microsoft that is. Thank heavens the cable company hasn’t found a way to deactivate the fast-forward button on my DVR box.

In talking with our Special Correspondent, David Biedny for this week’s episode of The Tech Night Owl LIVE, he presented a well-reasoned rant about a significant feature lacking in Apple hardware. Worse, this particular item can be found on competing music players, cell phones and PCs.

What am I talking about? Well, on the iPod and iPhone, a removable memory card. For Macs, a built-in card reader, so you don’t need an adaptor if you use different types for your digital cameras, camcorders and other gear with removable storage cards.

Now Consumer Reports, a publication that is only partly successful in handling personal computer reviews, always dings Apple for not including this feature. While I have considered this to be a needless extravagance in the past, I can see the wisdom behind it, and it’s cheap enough not to seriously damage Apple’s profit margins. After all, isn’t the Mac, as David says, “a media savvy computer”?

When it comes to removable media for a music player or mobile phone, Apple wants to sell you elegantly sealed boxes; well mostly. You can, for example, eject the SIM card on an iPhone, but that’s a necessity, since you may have to perform that swap if the card becomes defective or you switch numbers and/or carriers.

I suppose you can envision Steve Jobs — and his penchant for seamless perfection on such gear — being forced kicking and screaming into accepting the removable SIM card slot. But Jobs, or his design team, stopped there. You still can’t remove the battery either on those devices.

Either way, I think Apple is missing the boat here, as much as I’m sensitive to the design considerations that may limit the methods they can use to allow for popping out internal parts in an easy fashion. Of course, with over 73% of the music player market, it’s not as if Apple has any immediate threats to its dominance, and the product improvements come at a fairly steady pace.

As far as the iPhone is concerned, I rather suspect the technology is still a work in progress, witness the shaky rollout of the version 2.0 software. One hopes that the 2.1 update, due by the end of the week, will fix the most serious ills and enhance performance as promised. Early reports on the iPod touch 2.1 firmware are extremely promising, by the way.

Obviously Apple isn’t going to rejigger its products on my say-so, or on the basis of a few hundred or a few thousand customers clamoring for one feature or another. They have to be convinced it’s essential.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s not a problem. But, I can see where being able to eject a media card may be important to some of you, particularly when it comes to being able to swap playlists, photos and other content on the road, when you don’t have ready access to the computer that hosts the copy of iTunes that contains all this data.

When it comes to product configuration, Apple has made great strides towards miniaturization, so I’d think that a swappable card, rather than a hard wired one, will entail extra costs and perhaps cause them to enlarge the product slightly. Or find other ways to make things smaller.

However, I am fully confident in Apple’s abilities to handle this sort of thing.

As to the matter of battery swaps, I think that is the more critical issue for the iPhone. However well they lengthen the time the thing runs between charges, there will come a point where you may not have ready access to some sort of recharging method before you run out of juice.

What do you do then? Do you keep a spare iPhone around in case the first runs dry? Does Apple expect you to swap the SIM card in the field when necessary?

Yes, I know there are external adapters for your iPod that will provide many hours of additional current for the long flight or mountain climbing expedition. But that’s just a clumsy workaround for Apple’s lack of foresight.

Some of you might remind me that there are ways for you to remove the battery all by yourself, assuming you possess the proper tools, patience, and good manual dexterity. But that’s an extremely awkward and potentially hazardous solution. While it may upset Apple’s fashion sensibilities, being able to easily replace the iPhone’s battery is something that ought to be seriously considered for the next version.

I’m sure the case can be redesigned so it is nearly as smooth and free of seams as it is now, yet still allow for you to press a tiny internal button with a paper clip, for example, that will open the case and let you slide out the battery.

Sure third party battery replacement services may not appreciate such a development. On the other hand, there’s nothing to prevent them from selling you batteries that are equal or better than the ones Apple provides at a lower price. After all, if they bust your iPhone by mistake, they owe you a new one.

Or does anyone really care about any of this stuff?

If you bought a 160GB iPod Classic last year, pay attention! You now have a “classic” in more ways than one, because Apple has discontinued the higher-capacity model in its Fall 2008 iPod lineup. Instead, the largest Classic, at $249, has a mere 120GB of storage space.

Of course, it’s not that most owners ever come close to filling that capacity, so I suppose it’s no big deal. What’s more, as Steve Jobs says, not too many people bought the “thick” version, the one costing $100 more, so I suppose the higher capacity “thin” version is a suitable compromise. That is, unless you have a large collection of videos, and there will be more of those available now that NBC and Apple have kissed and made up. So get ready to download Heroes and all your other favorite NBC TV shows, assuming you have any favorites on that network.

The star of the show, however, was the new iPod nano, which went from fat to ultra-thin in its latest update. But that’s not a retro step, because the new model, now available in nine colors, inherits the accelerometer from the iPhone and the iPod touch. This allows you to use Cover Flow to flip through album artwork, and to watch videos in widescreen mode. Were I to get a nano, I’d probably dig the “shake and shuffle” feature, which switches to another song at random if you shake the device — no, don’t throw it, just shake it!

All this joy is priced at $149 for the 8GB version and $199 for the 16GB version.

The iPod touch came for a minor touch up in terms of design and a lower price. But the strangest aspect about the product is not the slightly curved rear-end, but Apple’s decision to toss grammatical conventions out the window again, in the tradition of “Think Different.”

So are you ready for “The funnest iPod ever?”

I’ll let that phrase lie there for the time being, as if adding a speaker and dropping the price somewhat is going to make the late 2008 edition of the iPod touch than the model it replaces. So now the 8GB model is $229, 16GB comes for $299 and the 32GB variant is $399.

Funnest? I didn’t think so.

iTunes 8 also made its debut, sporting a new “Genius” feature that’s supposed to help you build better playlists and rediscover the tunes you may have overlooked. That is if you choose to turn over the selection chores to the software, and I have a mixed opinion about such things. Besides, it will probably take a while for Genius to check larger libraries and come to any relevant conclusions about them. No jokes please!

In addition, you’ll be able to download HD movies direct from iTunes, without having to buy an Apple TV, a product that was off the radar for this particular event.

The most intriguing aspect of this week’s press presentation, however, is not what they released, but what they didn’t release and didn’t talk about.

Take iPhone 2.1. It is now available for the iPod touch, but won’t be released to iPhone users until Friday. The most significant feature is fewer dropped calls, so I suppose that means, if true, that those lawsuits against Apple and AT&T may have somewhat less significance. That assumes that 3G connections speed up too, and that is still largely the province of the network. Also, Apple promises to enhance battery life, improve application stability, and to speed up backups in iTunes.

Once the download is here, I’ll definitely upgrade my iPhone 3G and take it through the areas that have chronic dead spots in this neighborhood and see if things have really improved.

As to what Apple didn’t talk about, consider everything that isn’t necessarily music related. Take that major product transition Apple dropped broad hints about at last month’s financial analyst meeting. I don’t think a less-expensive iPod touch fits into that category, nor the revised iPod nano. Instead, we have been left hanging once again.

Indeed, the drop in Apple’s stock price clearly demonstrates that Apple delivered at the low-end of expectations and Wall Street wasn’t terribly impressed.

Where, for example, are those widely-expected updates to the MacBook and MacBook Pro? What sort of surprises will Apple deliver with the new models? Will they both sport built-in iPhone-style LCD displays instead of trackpads? What about a tablet Mac, or does anyone really care about such things?

What, in fact, constitutes a major product transition anyway?

However, it is always possible there will be yet another Apple event, possibly later this month, to fulfill the promise of some cutting-edge product designs.

At least there will be less speculation about the state of Steve Jobs health, though. He came out and assured the audience of journalists and analysts that “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” As expected, he was greeted by a round of applause. He was, however, still quite thin.

And the session was fairly short, clocking in at around an hour, including the musical presentation from Jack Johnson. And there was nothing whatever about “one more thing.”

So Mrs. Steinberg comes to me the other day and starts talking about a new ad campaign featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. “What was supposed to be about?” she wondered. The puzzled expression on her face was obvious from across the room.

Now Barbara doesn’t ordinarily talk about such matters. To her, they are strictly fodder for the fast-forward button on our cable company DVR. In this case, though, she was understandably surprised to see Gates pretending to be straight man to a famous comedian.

Understand that she doesn’t follow the tech industry all that much. It’s not really on her radar, despite her husband’s extensive experience at the game. But clearly this particular TV spot struck a chord, but not the kind Microsoft would like.

You see, other than the Windows logo and a brief blurb on the screen, there’s nothing in the first message, shot in a shoe store setting, to really indicate that this is part of Microsoft’s $300 million campaign to redeem the tattered reputation of Windows Vista. For a brief moment, I even thought they were trying to sell me a pair of shoes. Then I recalled the motto of Seinfeld’s popular TV show of the last decade, “a show about nothing.” So that’s it! Microsoft filmed a commercial about nothing.

Certainly, Microsoft has reason to want to give this train wreck some sales traction. After all, the next version of Windows, dubbed “7,” is not expected until 2010 if then. More to the point, the core components will just built upon Vista, which means another bloated operating system that exacts an extremely large amount of system resources.

The situation seems dire, although hundreds of millions of Windows Vista PCs have been sold since the operating system was released in January of 2007. In fact, Microsoft regularly touts the great sales, ignoring the unpleasant news that many businesses choose to stick with Windows XP. To add insult to injury, the enterprise seems, in large part, to be downgrading their new PCs. Imagine if that happened with new Mac owners, who wanted to ditch Leopard and install Tiger?

It appears to me, though, that Apple seems to be going about this the wrong way. You see, humorous ads, successful or otherwise, tend to appeal to consumers and not the enterprise, which is where Microsoft possesses a the largest portion of its industry dominance. Regular people who want to buy a new PC will seldom inquire about the operating system, unless, of course, they want to buy a Mac. Even then, they’ll likely choose it on the basis of its name and looks rather than the underlying software that drives it.

Apple understands this market. The Mac versus PC ads are sharply focused and their intent is very clear. You have two comic actors who portray the Mac as hip, the PC as stodgy. They are also dressed accordingly, to drive the point home even further. These short skits quickly grab your attention, and you never have a moment’s doubt what they’re selling. You don’t need a brief slide of a Mac at the spot’s conclusion to do anything but reinforce your initial impression.

In contrast, that first Microsoft ad is 90 seconds in length, and thus not apt to appear very often on network TV, where 30 seconds is usually more than sufficient. If there’s a message, it’s so subtle that it’ll be lost of most viewers; in other words, it’s an abject failure.

In Microsoft’s defense, maybe this is all part of some sort of series arc, where the totality of a number of these ads will supposedly convey their message about Windows Vista. That requires a sense of continuity, and the expectation that the audience will absorb all of it in the proper sequence.

Perhaps I’m getting this all wrong. Maybe there is a subliminal message that Barbara failed to grasp. If that’s the case, she’s not alone. I don’t get it either, nor do any of the tech pundits whose columns I’ve read in recent days. Well, maybe the Windows fanboys can somehow comprehend this disaster-in-the-making.

What’s probably most unfortunate about this whole silly exercise is that Microsoft very likely believes that somehow bringing back a TV sitcom star from the 1990s will appeal to their target audience. Or maybe they are stuck in the 1990s, believing they can somehow sell today’s products with yesterday’s marketing schemes.

This is not to say that the campaign is doomed to failure. Quite possibly the sheer novelty of having Bill Gates as an on-air spokesperson will attract the curious. But auto accidents attract the curious too, and that doesn’t impact the sale of new products in any way that seems to make sense, although perhaps more people are somehow encouraged to wear seat belts as a result.

Right now, though, it does seem that this new Windows marketing campaign will join the Microsoft Zune as just another failed marketing effort on the part of the world’s largest software company. However, they’re still laughing all the way to the bank, so maybe it doesn’t really matter.