After this past summer’s iPhone frenzy, I suppose if you don’t see a story about this hot-selling gadget for more than a few days, you can speculate that the fever has died down. Or, perhaps more accurately, that people are too busy enjoying them to complain about them.

Certainly it was a raucous cat-and-mouse game for a while, as third parties developed schemes to unlock the phone and add the capability of installing extra software. As soon as they perfected the installation beyond power user status, Apple’s newest firmware upgrades would zap the software from the iPhone’s Flash drive, and force you to reinstall a newer version. That is, of course, when the update became available.

The conspiracy theories were extraordinary. Apple delivered that infamous 1.1.1 update strictly to render unlocked phones unusable, and thus the term iBrick was coined. So Apple confronted the very real possibility that it would have to declare war against millions of loyal customers or would-be customers.

We all know about those intrusive digital rights management processes from Microsoft, so had Apple become its own worst enemy?

Of course, when you look at the whole thing objectively, I think you’ll find blame on both sides of the fence. When Apple delivered that notorious phone-bricking update, they posted a clear warning about the consequences. If you decided to install the update anyway, you saw a screen prompt with a similar caution about the dire results. So if you still opted to run the installer anyway, what did you expect to happen?

Indeed, those who failed to heed the clearly-labeled warnings had only themselves to blame. Of course, that didn’t stop some from seeking aid through the courts for the allegedly unfair policies on the part of Apple and AT&T. Unfortunately, they seem to have forgotten that they don’t have to buy an iPhone if they don’t like the setup. Apple didn’t force them to make that purchase, nor did AT&T. And if you don’t like AT&T — and the latest issue of Consumer Reports still gives them very low marks for service quality and customer support — go buy another phone from another carrier.

The issue of locking in phones to specific carriers is another issue entirely. It’s certainly worth exploration and maybe addressing, but it’s not strictly an Apple and AT&T issue, OK?

In saying that, though, Apple should have been more proactive about setting things right. If people decided to defy the dictates of Steve Jobs and company, Apple could have established a program to restore the phones to pristine condition. Unless there was some sort of hardware modification involved — as there was with one particular unlocking technique I read about — it should be doable in software. Besides, since making unauthorized changes in the phone can void the warranty, Apple would have every right to charge you $79 or $99 (the figure commentator Andy Ihnatko cites) to get your phone restored. That would be an expensive object lesson, but at least your phone would operate once again.

If anything, I think Apple did commit a few missteps in their usually stellar public relations that began with that unexpected price cut in early September. Sure, they have a right to alter pricing whenever they want, and certainly it’s a common practice in the cell phone business. But Jobs didn’t need to issue that mea culpa the very next day, promising rebates and all for early adopters. That should have been part and parcel of the original announcement. Instead, Jobs ought to have have realized that taking a cavalier attitude about the whole thing just wouldn’t fly.

On the other hand, I think Apple’s approach towards allowing third-party software was appropriately cautious, even though it was widely misunderstood. Despite what some of you think, they never dismissed the possibility of allowing outsiders to develop software outside of the Web-based sandbox. From the very beginning, they talked about possible security concerns and the need to find a way that provided both flexibility and safety.

The announcement that an iPhone SDK would come out in February of next year was simply the realization of something they said from the very beginning. In fact, if you examine the various iPhone updates that have been released up to now, in addition to adding and improving features, Apple also closed security leaks.

As you probably know, those unofficial jailbreaking applications do their thing by exploiting a security lapse, in the same fashion as malware. Yes, they are beneficial in the sense that they provide software options Apple has yet to offer. But the technique of getting them to your iPhone is the same technique Internet criminals might use to assume control of your handset. It’s a dangerous thing, and such holes need to be shut down but good.

When Apple finally does release its official iPhone software solution, you can bet they will do everything possible to close even more leaks in the dam, to make your phone as secure as it can possibly be. What’s more, applications will be digitally signed for additional protection.

That won’t stop the critics from polluting the waters with false information and inferences. Some of them insist on portraying Apple as an evil entity that is as malicious as Microsoft, or even worse. At the same time, let’s not forget that the iPhone didn’t become so popular so quickly because Apple committed trickery to fool you into thinking it was a better product than other smartphones. That’s a decision you came to by yourself, reading the ads, the stories and the reviews.

Unlike Microsoft, Apple didn’t promise a product it couldn’t deliver, or deliver a product sans key features. Perhaps the only product delay of any significance on the part of Apple in recent years was Leopard, which still arrived with pretty much all of its features intact and then some. Oh right, there might be a very few minor things that changed, such as the ability of Time Machine to backup via Wi-Fi. But even that capability might be restored in a future system update.

Just remember that Apple isn’t your pal, even though most of you are devoted to their products. Apple Inc. is a multinational, profit-making corporation that exists to benefit their employees and stockholders. The fact that they do it with great products is just the icing on the cake, and it’s what kept them in business despite all the obstacles.

That’s something that Microsoft should learn, because its “make it just good enough” policy doesn’t quite fly as high as it used to.

Most of the news about Apple is extremely positive these days. Sales are up, market share is up, and, coming off a record quarter, the holiday season may beat analyst estimates big time.

Of course, we’ll all know come January, but speculation can be fun if not taken to excess.

Certainly, Leopard had a great launch weekend, with some two million copies sold, roughly twice as many as Tiger some 30 months earlier. Of course, in all fairness to the skeptics, the number of actual Mac users was far less in the spring of 2005. Apple wasn’t moving two million boxes a quarter then, not even half that.

I assume that hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of additional Leopard users have joined the club since then, in large part because of the sale of new Macs. So with a burgeoning base, you have to expect that problems will occur here and there. Certainly, the old adage in the tech industry that the first release of anything is apt to be buggy, must apply here as well. Indeed, the 10.5.1 update contained a fairly high amount of bug fixes, including a show-stopper that might cause lost or damaged data when you move a file from one partition to another via the Command-drag process.

That it came out so quickly after Leopard’s release makes it quite clear that Apple began work on 10.5.1 pretty much on the very day they declared the Golden Master or release version of Leopard.

Of course, that’s nothing new. All the point-one updates to Mac OS X have arrived within just a few weeks after the original release. In each case, there were complaints that Apple rushed the product to market, which is why fixes had to be released so quickly. And, when 10.5.1 saw the light of day, no doubt the next maintenance update was in full bloom somewhere deep in Apple’s code mines.

Based on your comments, which go largely uncensored except for language that may be a mite too frank, it’s clear that most of you are having a great experience with Leopard. I know I installed 10.5 on the very day it was released, and, a few days later, did some more installs for a local insurance agent. That, plus your comments and the remarks from some of my guests on The Tech Night Owl LIVE have shown that Leopard is, by and large, a winner in most respects.

At the same time, I am aware that there have been problems, stemming from the original installation. Unexpected crashes, some kernel panics, and so forth and so on. In some cases, these are clean installs, including erasing the drive before restoring files. I know I did that on my desktop Mac, largely because my main internal drive had been used and abused for months and it was time I started from scratch.

The theory has it that erasing your drive first ought to be sufficient to make your Leopard upgrade seamless, except for the usual early-release third-party conflicts. In the real world, that’s the way it worked for me, but there are still some reports of installations that went bad for no discernible reason. Now maybe it’s true that if we looked at those systems, there would be issues with peripherals and software added as part of the restore process. I’ll grant that.

For otherwise, why would some of you have perfectly awful experiences with Leopard, while others, and that number appears to be in the majority, sing the praises of Leopard to the skies?

Now first and foremost, I believe that these tales of woe are largely true, even that one from a certain tech columnist who apparently went way overboard in order to spread a little dirt to get a higher hit count. Sure, I suppose a few people make up stories simply to get their names or at least their tragic tall tales published in their favorite Mac troubleshooting resources.

So why does one person report absolute joy and another endless woe from the same operating system, using the same computers? What are the differences between the two? That may require a careful analysis of the various system and installation scenarios to see what went wrong.

Or maybe nothing went wrong after all. Perhaps all these troubles are simply due to sample-to-sample variations among the various pieces of equipment, plus uncertain interactions involving software installed on all these computers.

Then again — since I’ve been known to stretch the boundaries of reality on my other radio show — let me just suggest something a little outrageous: I often wonder why some people seem to embrace technology and enjoy their experiences thoroughly, while others are intimidated by the gear they own, and have experiences to match. Is it possible the folks who encounter constant irritations with technology subconsciously create the conditions that cause such annoyances to occur?

No, that’s just absurd. It just has to be the operating system, or the hardware, or some unfathomable combination of both. But sometimes I wonder…

Some tech pundits, such as John Dvorak, seem to exist solely to push the right buttons and get hits by writing sheer nonsense. They figure that, if you piss off enough people, they’ll respond by complaining and drawing more attention to their stuff.It may be a masochistic approach, but I think the real motive is greed. If they bring more traffic to their publishers, they can command more dollars for their work. Or just bask in the glow of their ill-gotten 15 minutes of fame.

A recent entrant into this questionable group is Oliver Rist, who writes for PC Magazine. In a column entitled, “Leopard is the New Vista and It’s Pissing Me Off,” he demonstrates quite clearly that there are few facts he can’t mangle, and lots of examples of sheer ignorance that make you wonder why that publication actually released this piece of sheer trash into the wild.

No I’m not about the say that Leopard is the perfect operating system. Lord knows that there’s no way any point-zero release will be trouble-free right out of the box. There will be conflicts with third-party software, and various degrees of flakiness.

Lest you forget, Tiger was somewhat ragged at the outset too. That’s perfectly understandable, and such issues usually diminish rapidly after a maintenance update or two.

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

One of the most telling jokes during the presentation of Leopard at Apple’s WWDC was that it was $129 for the “Basic” version and $129 for the “Ultimate” version. In stark contrast to Microsoft’s confusing lineup of Vista choices, Apple stayed with the program. One “client” version and one “server” version, basically. Yes, there’s a Leopard family pack that lets you legally install it on up to five Macs, but the software is the same, and the limited and unlimited versions of Leopard Server don’t scrimp on features either.

The reason Apple lampoons Microsoft is because Windows Vista’s marketing plan, such as it is, confuses almost everyone, including the company’s own product managers. As we speak, there’s a flap over a legal action folks have initiated against Microsoft charging deceitful tactics.

At issue is the “Vista Capable” branding label that appeared on many cheap PCs before Vista was released.

Only thing is, by “capable,” Microsoft means that the box in question can only run the “Basic” version of Vista, which lacks the fancy 3D Aero interface, scheduled backup capability, and various and sundry multimedia features when compared to the higher-end consumer version, dubbed Home Premium.

To make matters worse, there are also Business and Ultimate versions with additional features that command even higher price tags. If you’re already confused, I can’t blame you one bit. But go ahead and check out Microsoft’s site for the full comparison among these basic four versions. But let’s not forget the Enterprise version for larger businesses.

I won’t even begin to list the multiple user variations, because the mind is already boggling over the basic four, and I would also hope that what you get from the site is accurate and up-to-date. Oh, and by the way, the actual Vista DVD contains all the main versions, and your serial number determines which one is installed. To upgrade, you pay the appropriate fee and get a new license number from Microsoft.

There wasn’t that simple?

Now I can well understand if the student who works part-time at your local consumer electronics store isn’t quite clear about the distinctions between the various versions of Vista. That would make sense, unless someone forced them to memorize all this stuff, which is hardly likely.

At the heart of the legal action that’s in progress at U.S. District Court in Seattle is the claim that consumers were deceived when they bought those Vista Capable PCs, only to discover that they are saddled with Basic and, without costly hardware upgrades (which aren’t possible on note-books), they cannot take advantage of Vista’s most advanced features, including the highly-touted animated interface.

Microsoft’s defense has it that their ads on the Vista upgrade program made it quite clear precisely what the various labels meant, so consumers who were fooled only had themselves to blame.

Sure, that’s it. Blame the customer when something goes wrong. After all, Microsoft couldn’t possibly have botched their consumer information campaign — or could they?

Well it seems that Microsoft’s director of marketing, Mark Croft, made a boo-boo when he tried to explain what all this meant in a hearing on whether the case should attain class-action status. He said that the word capable “has an interpretation for many that, in the context of this program, a PC would be able to run any version of the Windows operating system.”

After Microsoft’s lawyers took a break to appropriately chastise their disobedient or confused witness, he came back to claim he misspoke, that he meant to say that “capable” meant that the PC was “able to run a version of Vista.” This didn’t necessarily mean all versions of Vista.

But the damage is already done, although I suppose it’s possible Microsoft’s high-priced legal team will be able to provide a sufficient level of convoluted arguments to explain away Croft’s blunder, or at least confuse the judge appropriately.

On the other hand, you have to wonder how a marketing executive charged with selling a product can’t even explain the meaning behind stickers placed on products that describe its upgrade capabilities. Unless Croft was suffering from some level of amnesia or was, perhaps, ill at the time of his testimony, it only goes to show that customers can become just as confused, if not more so. Notice, I didn’t say he was incompetent. That may be going too far.

This is, of course, a grave that Microsoft is only digging for itself when it tries to figure out just what it’s selling and what the terms and conditions are.

I am reminded of the convoluted efforts from Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer over the years to properly define their .Net framework development strategy. Yes, I know some of you use those tools and find them quite suited to your needs, but that doesn’t mean that Microsoft had a good handle on what the product actually was, and how it might benefit their customers.

Sure, I realize that .Net is a pretty sophisticated technology, and the average consumer shouldn’t be expected to understand the technical niceties. But, when they go to a store or order a new PC online, they should have a pretty fair idea of what they are getting before they break out the credit card or write a check.

It’s pretty clear that Windows Vista is a horrendous product to sell, simply because Microsoft gave little thought to a concept that Apple well understands, which is “keep it simple stupid!”

I understand that having a Home and Business version might make sense, in the fashion of the two versions of Windows XP. However, subdividing it into more product versions only dilutes the pitch.

Of course, Microsoft is probably between a rock and a hard place to some extent, simply because they built an operating system that millions and millions of PCs can’t run, or at least run efficiently with all features intact.

Compare that to Leopard. You can run it with great performance on millions of Macs that range from four to six years old. Sure, you might need more RAM, but most of the animated goodies will remain intact except, perhaps, on some very old hardware that lies at the very bottom of the compatibility list.

None of this means that a federal judge will grant class-action status in that action against Microsoft. Besides, even if the defendants win, at best they’ll receive some discount coupons or perhaps a rebate. But isn’t that the way these things always turn out?