I suppose Mozilla CEO John Lilly had a point when he said that Apple’s stealth Safari install process for Windows was “wrong.” After all, Safari isn’t just being pushed to folks who had previously installed Apple’s browser, but to anyone who had previously installed iTunes or just QuickTime.

The question, of course, is just how Apple should have promoted its browser upgrade to Windows users. Right now, they are third-best as far as market share is concerned, way behind Mozilla’s Firefox, let alone Microsoft Internet Explorer.

When it comes to gaining market share, Firefox benefits from several years of viral marketing, where millions of users, looking for a safer, faster alternative to Internet Explorer, have embraced Firefox as their preferred alternative. Basically on the Windows platform, Microsoft’s home-brewed browser has the same structure as Safari on a Mac. It is generally installed along with any operating system update, as part of the process. You don’t have to seek it out online first.

So where does that place Apple? Certainly, their target isn’t Firefox so much as Internet Explorer, which is clearly vulnerable. Despite the fact that MSIE is part of Windows Vista, and is pushed out in the latest updates to XP, it’s still hemorrhaging market share. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but clearly it’s seen better days. Maybe Internet Explorer 8 — which holds out the promise of superior fidelity with Web standards — will do better, but that is by no means a certainty.

Understand that nobody is being forced to download Safari, let alone install it. Although the Install box is checked, they just have to uncheck that option when they see Software Update’s window appear on a Windows PC. And if they do opt to accept Safari, it’s not as if the system will be bogged down with background daemons stealing CPU cycles or taking over their PCs. They can just ignore it, or run Safari a time or two and see if it’s quite as blazing fast as Apple claims. If so, they gain from having another first-class browser to choose from. If not, uninstall and be done with it.

Yes, I suppose Apple might be a tad too aggressive in pushing Safari downloads in this fashion, taking advantage of their presence on the Windows desktop because of iTunes and QuickTime. But I can see their point in invading Microsoft’s turf in this fashion. It’s not as if Microsoft isn’t up to pulling a few fast ones on its user base. Consider how they foisted the Windows Genuine Advantage update, which was nothing more than a scheme to have your PC phone home at regular interviews in a wrong-headed attempt to control software piracy.

Besides, does anyone really want to steal Windows anymore anyway? I thought power users these days were more inclined to want to induce Mac OS X to run on their white box PCs. But what do I know?

As far as I’m concerned, I’m not down on Apple for pulling this stunt. At best, they’ll gain a few points in market share for Safari, which is actually a good thing. Maybe they’ll get a few letters of complaint about what they did, from folks who believe they are taking advantage of the fact that most PC users simply accept what the download screens offer without using critical faculties to decide if it’s something they really need.

But what about Safari? Are Windows users really getting some value from it? Well, if you’re accustomed to Microsoft’s user interface, Safari might be a bit of a put-off, since it looks noticeably Mac-like even on another platform. Text display, preference panels and so forth and so on closely match the Mac version. Then again, how many Mac ports managed to look like Windows invaders so maybe they deserve something in return?

As far as the promise of greater performance is concerned, true Safari is incredibly swift. It launches faster than Internet Explorer, renders faster and more accurately (at least on sites that aren’t dependent on custom Internet Explorer hooks) and appears to be quite stable.

Any frequent Internet surfer ought to be overjoyed at having another browser alternative on the Windows platform. As MSIE’s share erodes, it will force more and more Webmasters to make their sites more compatible with industry standards. That way most everyone can get a good user experience and not be forced to conform to a Microsoft-driven proprietary standard.

I rather suspect that Apple’s attempts to boost Safari come at a great time. Safari for the iPhone, for example, has a majority share among mobile phone surfers, though in that category it’s also one of the very few usable browsers. For the most part, the Internet experience on a cell phone is miserable.

In the end, Apple clearly has more courage than Microsoft these days. I mean, when Apple came out with Safari, Microsoft abandoned the Mac version of IE and cut and run. If they think they have such a great browser, why not try to compete in Apple’s sandbox and see how they do? In fact, why not deliver a new Mac version of their media player, supporting their current DRM, if they think it’s so great? Of course, it hasn’t done so well on their native platform, so maybe Microsoft sees no sense in trying.

Perhaps it’s the Virgo in me, but I resent hearing incorrect information, and I don’t like it when I make a mistake either. Thanks to the Internet, though, I can fix errors on my sites in a jiffy. I wish others were as devoted to accuracy.

So I occasionally write a commentary that corrects common misconceptions, particularly in the Mac universe. It’s not that it really makes much of a difference, I suppose, since the folks who continue to repeat the falsehoods seem to otherwise go essentially unchallenged.

But I’m going to persevere, since even changing a few minds — even one — ought to represent progress. Maybe those alleged pundits might even try something new, which is to do a little research before they repeat the same old nonsense by rote.

For example, there was a story the other day suggesting that Apple’s cut of the iPhone software sales, which amounts to 30% out of each dollar spent on software, is excessive. Greedy Apple just wants to gouge those poor developers and keep them from making a fair profit from their work.

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

A lot can happen in a few weeks. It wasn’t so long ago that some of you — helped along by a few tech pundits with a conspiratorial bent — were absolutely convinced that the only way you could backup your data wirelessly with Time Machine would be to purchase a Time Capsule. This product, which combines the gigabit AirPort Extreme base station with a 500GB or 1TB “server-grade” hard drive, was introduced at the Macworld Expo in January.

When Leopard’s Time Machine was first announced, one of its promised features was, Air Disk, a wireless backup capability. This would be a boon to those of you who have Mac note-books at your home or office, and don’t want to tether yourself to a wired connection when backup time approached. Surely the MacBook Air, where “wired” is an afterthought, would benefit.

Unfortunately, Air Disk vanished without explanation. Yes, their legalese makes it quite clear that Apple is free to change, add or remove features at its discretion. I felt at the time that wireless backups were removed from Leopard because the feature just hadn’t come together quickly enough to make the initial release. Maybe it would return later.

But with Time Capsule shipping last month, and no change in the 10.5.2 update, I suppose you had to wonder whether the skeptics were right after all. But if this was Apple’s game plan all along — to force you to buy an extra appliance to get wireless backups — it would be a stupid move on their part. Besides, how did Time Capsule actually differ from AirPort Extreme — other than the presence of an internal hard drive and power supply — to allow the feature to appear in the former, and remain absent in the latter.

In the past week, Apple has tantalized us about a possible solution.

Last week, there was the AirPort Utility 5.3.1 update that, alas, didn’t bring us Air Disk. Then, on Wednesday, a pair of updates appeared in your Software Update preference pane that looked mighty hopeful. First came Apple Time Machine and AirPort Updater 1.0, and the promise of “compatibility improvements for using Time Machine with Time Capsule, as well as AirPort driver fixes.”

The second download, The Time Capsule, AirPort Extreme and AirPort Express Base Station with 802.11n Firmware 7.3.1 updates, “include bug fixes. AirPort Extreme Base Station with 802.11n* Firmware 7.3.1 also includes security fixes.”

All right, not a word about adding wireless TIme Machine backups either. However, once lots of Mac users got into the act, the evidence was clear. This was it! Apple finally made good on its long-forgotten promise to allow you to run Air Disk with 802.11n AirPort Extreme and AirPort Express base stations. Better late than never.

Unfortunately, Apple’s penchant for corporate secrecy again hurt their image. They could have sent out a press release about the pending update early on and that would be it. Even better, Steve Jobs might have added a few words about it during his Macworld Expo keynote: “We know you’ve been eagerly waiting for wireless backups with Time Machine. I want to assure you that we we have an update in the works for the latest generation of AirPort Extremes, but it may take a couple of months to finish. So just be patient.”

End of story, end of conspiracy theories.

But it didn’t happen, and this is yet another example of where Apple’s paranoia can end up being its own worst enemy. Sure, we know that event marketing has served them well. Rather than restrict major product announcements to a Macworld or WWDC, almost every Tuesday morning you look for the signs that something’s afoot at Apple. Is the online store down? Are the rumor mills rampant with news that an existing product has been declared “end of life,” or that a new part number and set of product specs “accidentally” appeared on a European site?

This isn’t to say that it always happens on Tuesday. The 802.11n version of AirPort Express, for example, debuted this past Monday. Or maybe Apple just likes to change its strategy every so often to keep us from becoming too complacent.

But the whole episode does reinforce my view that, in the end, Apple usually does the right thing for its customers. Sometimes you feel — as with the iPhone SDK — that they have to be dragged kicking and screaming to reach the proper solution. But even then I think such a plan was already under development even before the iPhone debuted and they were just looking for the proper and safe way to implement a way for developers to officially develop iPhone and iPod touch software. Maybe the negotiations with Microsoft to license ActiveSync technology took longer than expected. Microsoft, after all, even with a large check dangling in front of them, can hardly be expected to act quickly. They have far too many layers of bureaucracy.

In the end, though, I think Apple would do better to open the curtains just a little wider from time to time, because the lack of a timely statement or explanation can easily lead to negative conclusions.

As Apple’s stock remained down in the dumps, more over the general state of the economy than any particular problem with the company, the latest survey from NPD Group shows that sales of new Macs are on a roll. According to published reports, Apple has garnered a 14% share of the U.S. retail market, up from a mere 9% last year.

What’s most interesting in this survey is not just the fact that Apple is outpacing the PC industry by a huge margin. Contrary to the belief that sales of desktop Macs were down in the dumps, this product segment actually showed a 64% unit growth over last year, compared to 20% for the entire industry. Note-book growth, possibly fueled by high demand for the new MacBook AIr, reached 67%, compared to 11% for the rest of the industry.

Then again, who wants to buy one of those ugly PC note-books when you can get a Mac, right?

What’s more interesting is that Apple is also getting a quarter of the total revenue. This is largely due to the fact that they don’t play in the cheap PC space, where profits are slim or non-existent. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Macs are expensive, and I continue to dispute the claims that Apple has BMW-pricing compared to Ford-pricing for the rest of the industry.

If you actually compare the standard equipment on any Mac, at any price category, with a comparably-built PC from any first-line manufacturer, Apple is highly competitive. Sometimes the Mac costs a little more, sometimes less. In the workstation category, price out a Dell Precision Workstation with Intel’s new Xeon “Harpertown” processors and then put the same options on a Mac Pro. You’ll be amazed!

Now if Apple would price RAM upgrades more realistically, and reduce the costs of their displays, they’d fare even better. I just don’t see why they haven’t upgraded their displays in several years, and continue to price the products above equal or superior models from Dell and other companies.

Before I go on, though, I should point out that the NPD survey only covers retail sales. They don’t include online, although Apple’s results in that space most likely aren’t too shabby either.

As to the rest of the planet, Apple is still stuck in the low single digits, apparently, but that doesn’t mean you won’t see higher figures there too when this quarter’s financials are revealed next month.

When it comes to the rest of Apple’s product line, though, the jury is apparently still out. Analysts are claiming that iPod sales are going to be flat or slightly below last year. Possibly, though the reduction in the price of the basic iPod shuffle and the introduction of a new model with more Flash memory might help. The iPhone may be doing quite well, however, with other published reports claiming that the 16GB version is a little hard to come by. Indeed, Apple’s online store is quoting a 5-7 day wait for that model. So suggestions that iPhone sales might be lagging seem a tad premature, or maybe just plain wrong.

In light of this development, I wonder when Michael Dell might take back his statement of a decade ago that Apple should just go out of business and send refunds to its stockholders. In light of Dell’s own problems selling product and delivering quality support these days, maybe the reverse is true.

However, I’m not really down on Dell. Yes, I think their current TV commercials, where some no-named band does a perfectly awful imitation of a bad Beatles song, are downright annoying. But you see, Dell has some good stuff in its product portfolio, particularly when it comes to displays. I’ve worked with both their 24-inch and 30-inch models, and they provide superb pictures. In fact, I’m using the latter now with my Mac Pro, and couldn’t be happier, except for the fact that Dell now has a newer, better version — and I’m awaiting the promised review sample.

So where does Apple go from here? Are they soon going to beat the big box movers, which include Dell and HP? Not likely anytime soon. You see, those companies sell a lot of product to the enterprise market, a place where Apple has made only faltering steps.

On the other hand, now that the iPhone will soon be a genuine player in that segment, how long will it take for the Mac to follow?

Indeed, what will Apple’s product portfolio and market share be like in, say, 2010? And does Microsoft have something to fear? You bet they do.