On Thursday, May 21, Apple’s stock took another nosedive, and it’s clear that facts and logic weren’t behind this not-so-anomalous event.

You see, everything should be coming up roses over at Apple Inc. Industry analysts claim to have data showing that iPod sales are up, despite expectations to the contrary, that Mac sales are through the roof and the iPhone sold out ahead of schedule because of the unprecedented demand.

Despite that, Wall Street seems to live on a constantly wavering tightrope, and the vaguest intimation that something is wrong is sufficient to send a stock tumbling. In this case, it was a rumor that the 3G version of the iPhone, widely expected to be announced on June 9 at the WWDC and available shortly thereafter, would be delayed for up to 30 days for some unknown reason.

As a result, billions of dollars were shed from Apple’s market value, at least for that one day. However, there was absolutely no foundation whatever to this rumor.

It was all a fantasy.

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

We know that Mac users stand little or no chance of being infected with malware, at least with Mac OS X so far. In the days of the Classic Mac OS, there were several dozen viruses of various levels of severity, but few that would cause anywhere near the havoc of a typical Windows outbreak.

However, with Apple now gaining huge chunks of market share, and working hard to promote its default browser, Safari, on the Windows platform, you have to wonder whether that’s a safe move or if there’s potential trouble afoot.

Now it’s fair to say that the ActiveX feature of Internet Explorer is the real culprit for many online infections. Although there are still some misguided souls who program their sites to use Microsoft’s proprietary technology, a growing number of Webmasters appreciate the fact that Internet Explorer is not the beginning and end of the Internet and there are superior options. As Microsoft’s browser share dips below 75%, you can readily see that a company can ill-afford to restrict the also-rans from their content.

I mean, would you want to block 25% of your potential customers because they drove a Chevrolet rather than a Ford?

Into this mix comes Safari, and since the Windows version was finalized, Apple has used a controversial bit of stealth marketing to get people to download a copy. Although it is also offered separately, one fine day, Safari appeared along with the regularly scheduled QuickTime and iTunes updates, using the Windows version of Apple’s Software Update. Since the option to download Safari was already checked for you, I suppose it was natural to assume it was really part of the package.

After an outcry from some critics, including the CEO of Mozilla, which develops Firefox, Apple relented somewhat, and consigned Safari to a specially-crafted “New” category in Software Update. Of course, it was still selected, which means that you’d have to make the tiny effort to uncheck the Safari download not to take it as part of the package. Apple realizes that few Mac and Windows users read those things, so they weren’t losing much in making this concession.

As a Windows browser, Safari is actually quite good. It’s speedy and reasonably stable, although it continues to mimic various elements of the Mac user interface. I suppose it serves Windows users right, though. After all, how many Windows to Mac ports over the years played the same trick on us? The first attempt to deliver a Mac version of WordPerfect years ago failed, because it was not sufficiently Mac-like, and Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit has received an ear-full of complaints when they don’t follow Mac conventions as well as they should.

Now as to Safari: Since it’s not saddled with ActiveX or the interdependencies to the Windows operating system that are found in Microsoft’s applications, it should fare reasonably well. Yes, Apple has to fix security leaks from time to time, but so far at least, they’re not being exploited in the wild. That augers well for Safari, except for one missing piece.

Phishing protection!

You see, other browsers will warn you if you attempt to login to a site that appears to be fraudulent. Safari has no such feature, and shouldn’t that be a major shortcoming?

Well, let’s not forget that the online criminals who engage in phishing scams are using social engineering to entice you to visit a site and give up your personal bank account and/or credit card information. They send you emails hoping to make you believe that they really come from PayPal, Wells Fargo Bank or some other well-known financial institution, letters that say you must click a link to enter a site to fix some sort of security problem.

Now I’m sure all of you know not to fall for such scams. You just ignore the message, and if you’re concerned, you contact your financial institution to confirm that your account hasn’t been compromised. So you shouldn’t need your browser to inform you that a site your visiting may be bogus. Or at least that’s what I believe, although I can’t say that I have the stats on hand of just how many innocent people have their identities compromised by such nefarious activities.

At the same time, it wouldn’t hurt for Apple to have such a feature added to Safari. I doubt that the engineering work would really be so onerous that such a capability has to await another full browser or operating system upgrade.

In the meantime, if you are concerned you might find yourself an unwary victim, you might just configure your Mac or PC to use OpenDNS instead of whatever DNS system your ISP uses now. DNS, short for Domain Name System, is simply a set of computer servers that convert your Web access request from, say, www.apple.com, to the corresponding IP number.

OpenDNS does it better, having a huge cache and a set of servers across the U.S. and in several other countries for redundancy. They also manage PhishTank, the best-known service for monitoring phishing exploits, and that’s part of the package when you use OpenDNS, which is, by the way, free.

So whatever fears you might have about Internet security, certainly Safari shouldn’t be doing anything to keep you from staying safe in your online pursuits.

Do you want to buy an  iPhone right now? Well, good luck, because they’re hard to come by. A quick look at Apple’s online store, where they were once plentiful, returns a “Currently Unavailable” response.

So when will it be available or have we seen the last of the original iPhones?

Well, it’s not as if you can’t get one, because you can still find them at some Apple’s retail outlets or an AT&T factory-owned store, which which excludes authorized third-party dealers apparently. However, the real question is what went wrong? Wouldn’t Apple want to have iPhones for sale up till the very day its successor is released?

So did something go awry with Apple’s best-laid plans? Did they run out of iPhones prematurely due to production issues, or did they simply misjudge demand?

You might think the latter, because the iPhone has been a far greater success than anyone originally expected, or so it seems. At one point, Apple seemed overly optimistic when they envisioned a total of 10 million sales by the end of 2008. Now industry analysts are suggesting that the their early predictions about Apple’s sales were, well, a little conservative, and that iPhones, iPods and, of course, Macs, were moving off the shelves on far greater numbers than originally expected.

Take, for example, the recent report that 66% of the desktops and note-books above $1,000 sold in the U.S. retail market are Macs. Indeed, the sole advantages of such giant PC makers as Dell and HP are in the enterprise or the lower price categories where fewer profits are to be earned. The latter is a playground where, except for Apple’s stealth entry, the Mac mini, you can’t find any Macs these days.

If you do want to buy a new Mac, you can usually find the model you want, be it from Apple or another dealer. iPods are available in abundance as well, As for the iPhone sure Apple would certainly want to sell out of older iPhones when the new model appears — and that’s expected in a few weeks, maybe less — running out of stock a month ahead of schedule was probably not part of the plan.

Indeed, it may well be that Apple’s usually pinpoint production plans were, like the industry analyst estimates of expected sales, far too conservative. There were no production shortfalls, failed parts or anything of that sort. They just ran out of stock.

With higher demand, this won’t impact Apple’s financials for the current quarter in the least, except perhaps for the regret over not building more iPhones to meet the remaining demand. Oh well, I suppose iPhone 2.0 will remedy that, and there’s already a published report that some 25% of potential buyers are holding off for the next model.

That happens to be a good thing, because, if there was ample product on the store shelves, Apple might have ended up with a surplus of unsold units when the upgrade appeared. That could result in a sell-off at reduced prices to clear inventory, and that never looks good on a financial report.

In saying that, just what is the potential for the next iPhone, now that hundreds of millions of additional potential customers will be able to buy them and use them with wireless carriers in their own countries?

Apple’s ten million figure now comes across as an overly conservative estimate, assuming they can churn out enough of the things fast enough to meet not just the pent-up demand but the expected demand that will arise once the new iPhone appears.

I suppose you could say Apple screwed up here, but in a good way. On the other hand, what of the people who can’t get the iPhones they want now? Well, as I said, if you are prepared to do a little canvassing of Apple and AT&T stores, this shouldn’t be a serious problem. You stand a fairly good chance of finding an 8GB or 16GB model in stock. You aren’t forced to rush off and acquire a BlackBerry or similar device as a substitute.

If you can be patient a while longer — and I don’t see that the need is urgent except for a business whose purchasing department is under a rigid deadline — you will be rewarded not just with a new iPhone with potential online speeds much greater than the current model, but you might pay a lower price as well.

You see, it also appears that wireless carriers may soon be able to give you the same sort of discount they give for other phones if you opt for the standard two-year contract. In other words, they’ll subsidize the purchase of an iPhone to get your business, and that could mean a savings of up to $200 per unit.

Now it’s getting tempting.

We’ll know a lot more, of course, when Steve Jobs takes the WWDC keynote stage come June 9, 2008. Oh, and WWDC just happens to be sold out this year, the first time that’s ever happened.

It’s very clear that the words Mac and cheap don’t align very well. Although you can buy a fair number of note-books for hundreds less, the cheapest MacBook remains $1,099. A refurbished model, or one bought through Apple’s educational channels, can save you a modest sum, but that’s the best you can do if you prefer a Mac.

The same holds true for desktops. The Mac mini, at $599 and $799, is a forgotten stepchild that seldom receives updates, and never gets any real promotion. The symbol of the Apple computer in the Mac versus PC ad is the iMac, which starts at $1,199.

In contrast, there are entry-level PC desktops that sell for less than $200, as I’ll explain in more detail later in this article.

When you combine these factors, you can well believe the long-standing claim by some ill-informed tech and business pundits that Macs are overpriced compared to the competition, but that’s because they’re too lazy to look below the surface and do a modicum of research.

As I’ve long maintained, consumer Macs are priced very close to PCs that are similarly equipped — and the latter is the key. In some cases, the Mac may cost more, and in other cases it’s somewhat cheaper. As you move up the product line the Mac advantage grows larger. I still see Dell workstations selling for a grand more than Mac Pros with the same basic features. Since the Mac Pro can run Windows as well or better than any dedicated PC workstation, Apple’s value equation is enhanced.

Not playing in the low-profit segment of the PC market has its benefits. Everything Apple builds is profitable, and its real market share, if you compare the Mac to PCs above $1,000, is reportedly in the higher double digits. Overall, in April, Apple’s U.S. retail sales, as reported by the NPD Group, increased 50% over last year’s, compared to a 17% average for the rest of the PC market. This is a trend that just won’t stop.

Even more interesting, industry analysts now suggest that even iPod sales have seen an unexpected boost this quarter, after a period of flattening sales.

So the larger question is whether there’s any upside to building cheap Macs, using yesterday’s parts and perhaps eliminating such features as built-in Web cams, AirPort and Bluetooth to keep costs down. That, and providing the cheapest version of Windows, or omitting Windows altogether, explains why a PC can sell for much less, but you still aren’t getting a better buy for your money.

Now in all fairness, it may well be that Apple is giving you some features you don’t need. Not everyone requires a Web cam, for example. I know I rarely use the one in my MacBook Pro. In fact, the few times I have used it were to communicate via video with my son. Otherwise, it sits there and does nothing, but the purchase price was the same. I can also see where businesses don’t see a need for that extravagance, since it may only encourage employees to goof off on the company’s time. But Apple won’t build bare bones Macs for anyone.

Indeed, I expect that you could probably buy one of those Everex Gbook note-books from Wal-Mart at $379 and get a perfectly respectable computer for your money.

So what does it offer?

According to the specs at Wal-Mart’s site, this particular note-book has a 15.4-inch screen, a 1.5GHz VIA processor, 512MB of RAM, a 60GB hard drive, a CD/DVD combo drive and built-in Wi-Fi.

But this isn’t a Window’s computer. It actually runs the gOS version 2 operating system, which is a Linux derivative. Yes, a consumer-level PC running Linux, and it also includes the OpenOffice software suite, which is a pretty capable free Office alternative. You can, by the way, get OpenOffice for your Mac if you strive for a Microsoft-free environment.

Combine OpenOffice with the fact that the Everex note-book likely includes Firefox as the bundled browser and you have a computer that may indeed be a reasonably usable product that will serve nicely for basic Internet, email and office tasks. In fact, if you stay within its limitations, you may never have to learn Linux or be forced to confront any of its well known user-hostile aspects.

Now I know nothing of how Everex stands when it comes to product reliability, nor much about its performance on the long haul, though it seems to offer quite a bit for the money. It’s also possible that it’ll self-destruct in a few months, and repairs, despite the one-year warranty, may not be worth the bother.

By the way, if you prefer a desktop, Everex offers a $199 model with similar specs, except that the hard drive expands to 80GB and there’s no installed Wi-Fi option.

As to VIA: That Taiwan-based chip maker is reportedly trying to move its processors into the mainstream, the better to compete with AMD and Intel. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see how their plans work out.

Again, I’m not pushing these computers as a superior choice to a genuine Mac, or even as serviceable computers in the overall marketplace. The specs sound decent, period. But no mainstream manufacturer could deliver a credible competitor and making a profit on such products can be extremely difficult. It may well be that Wal-Mart is offering those deals strictly as loss-leaders to get you into the store, hoping you’ll stock up on clothing and groceries and other items to make up for the missing profits.

As far as I’m concerned, I still think there are things Apple can do to better compete in the low-cost segment of the PC market. But you’ll never see a $399 Mac, at least not in the foreseeable future.