We all know that Apple receives its share of legal actions to defend itself against. Some are related to possible use of a patent without permission, or treating customers badly. There’s even a long-standing lawsuit from some Mac dealers who felt their businesses suffered big time because Apple favored its own retail outlets.

More recently, people are upset because Apple dared to reduce the iPhone’s price by $200 after less than three months, and that it’s tied to AT&T. So they are involved in a class-action lawsuit that, if the past is a guide, will gain nothing more than a coupon for the consumers and a big payday for the lawyers. And that assumes the action will even succeed, which is doubtful. I mean, after all, wireless carriers and phone makers have been tying you in knots with contracts for years, so what makes the iPhone’s situation any different?

The answer is, of course, that it’s Apple Inc., and they seem to function by a different set of rules and regulations, or at least that’s what some people seem to think.

If you try to look at this situation in a reasonably fair fashion, you will find a strange disconnect between the complaints against Apple and how they might be applied to other big players in the tech business.

Take the integration of the iPod and iTunes. Now, as you know, this is a matter that has been under investigation by individual European nations and even the European Union, which no doubt is now celebrating its huge victories over Microsoft.

Now wouldn’t it be nice to be able to use iTunes without an iPod, and have it sync content with other music players out there, such as the Microsoft Zune.

What about allowing the iPod to mate in a relatively seamless fashion with the Zune Marketplace.

Wait a minute? Isn’t it also true that Microsoft doesn’t support any third party players in the Zune space? Even players that support Microsoft’s own PlaysForSure DRM scheme can’t get onboard. Forget about the iPod. So why aren’t more people complaining? Why haven’t we heard about class action lawsuits to open up Napster and Zune and other music stores so they work with the iPod?

Worse, why is there no Mac version of the latest Windows Media Player technology or any of its other music products. If you use a Mac and want to use a Zune, or any other music player that supports one of Microsoft’s technologies, you have to buy a copy of Windows, and use Apple’s Boot Camp, Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion.

Sure they just want to sell product, but Microsoft is clearly discriminating against Mac users, who comprise millions and millions of the members of the personal computer universe.

This being the case, since the U.S. Department of Justice clearly isn’t interested, why isn’t the European Union demanding that Microsoft do something about it? They nailed the company on other antitrust issues, so why not Mac compatibility?

For that matter, if Microsoft is promising compatibility with the Windows version of Office when it delivers Mac Office 2008, shouldn’t they also be compelled to offer full support for Visual Basic for Applications? Is it fair for Mac users to be left behind? After all, there are cross-platform environments that use documents that contain macros absolutely required to perform certain tasks. Whether it’s an Excel spreadsheet or a Word document, what do they expect Mac users to do, other than stick with older versions of Office?

Now consider all those folks who seem adept at suing Apple for the vertical integration of their products, exclusion of third parties and other grave offenses. Without commenting on the worth of those legal actions, why isn’t Microsoft getting the very same treatment for the things it does that exclude Apple?

Sure, you can tell me that there’s no way you’ll ever allow a Zune in your home, or even a music player from Creative or one of the other makers of products that support Microsoft’s DRM. So bet it. That’s for you to decide, and I won’t argue with matters of preference.

For the same reasons, let’s remember that the iPod works on Windows, and there is a version of iTunes on that platform that is, for all intents and purposes, a near-duplicate of the Mac edition. Apple has invaded Microsoft’s turf with iTunes, QuickTime and now even the Safari Web browser.

But Microsoft has dropped development of Windows Media Player for the Mac, and has simply licensed older WMV codecs for use in the Flip4Mac products, which include a free player utility that integrates with QuickTime. A lot of multimedia content remains unsupported, and it’s an open question how much more technology Microsoft will pass on.

Forget about Internet Explorer, which is being battered and bruised big time even on the Windows platform. Certainly, if Microsoft wanted to enforce some more of its own standards, the opportunity has passed. Mac users only use the old version of Internet Explorer fitfully these days, since it doesn’t work very well, except on a handful of sites that won’t render in other browsers.

Basically, fair is fair. The people who complain about Apple ought to make similar complaints to Microsoft, but is anyone listening?

Years ago, Mac users had to feel like outsiders. We were a bunch of eccentrics who had money to burn, and chose to spend it on an overpriced, underpowered computer that was just too pretty to take seriously. In those days, even using a mouse was a certain sign of insanity.

It didn’t help that most computer stores didn’t have Macs, and getting software was a hit or miss proposition unless you checked the mail order catalogs.

But we all knew that Macs were the cream of the crop when it came to personal computers, and pitied all those DOS and Windows users who had to labor in a painful environment, oblivious to the joys of having things “just work.”

Of course, Macs never just worked, although they came mighty close from time to time. The basic setup process was almost joyful compared to getting something up and running on the PC. When problems occurred, they usually were solvable without calling in an IT department to get you out of hot water.

When Apple went through its mid-life crisis in the 1990s, you read that the company was beleaguered, only you didn’t believe a word of it. After all, the Mac OS was upgraded regularly, even if the changes were mostly cosmetic, and there was always a new Mac to rave about. How could Apple possibly do wrong?

I didn’t realize until after Steve Jobs took the reins of the company he co-founded just how bad things were, but it didn’t matter anymore. From here on, it was onward and upward, and I was perfectly content with that chip on my shoulder, confident that my choice of a computer was right and the majority of PC users out there were sadly misinformed. Soon they would realize just how misinformed.

As Mac sales began to soar, way ahead of the average growth in the PC industry, most of you had to feel vindicated that you were right all along. More and more Windows were getting the message that they’ve been had by Microsoft, and it was time to ditch that horrible platform, come up for air, and embrace a computer that really empowers you to get some work done.

In all this, however, the comments I see here and on other blogs and message boards shows a few unfortunate tendencies on the part of some Mac users to wear their preferences on both sleeves. If a fellow Mac person dares to criticize something that Apple or a third party is doing, they must be Windows users in disguise, or just people trolling for an argument.

Now some of that might be true. A few of the comments posted here appear to come from people who are just making up stories, or coming to outrageous conclusions simply to get attention. They deliver a nonsensical attack on an Apple product, then explain why Windows might be the way and the truth, or just threaten to switch to the PC at the earliest opportunity, because Apple has somehow deserted them.

Without commenting specifically on any individual post, I have to remind you that Apple is, like Microsoft, a profit-making multinational corporation that exists primarily to make a profit, provide gainful employment for its employees, and big gains for its stockholders. If that happens to coincide with your desire to have a cool product that does lots of great things with elegance, so be it.

In fact, I’ve little doubt that Steve Jobs still has a bit of that counter-culture belief buried in his subconscious somewhere, where he does want to change the world in some fashion. If that happens to coincide with selling more product at the same time, of course, so be it.

As far as loyal Mac users are concerned, you really don’t want to be classified as “fanboys” or “fangirls” or “fanpeople,” or whatever. It’s not a case of always Apple, right or wrong. This is not a political or cultural movement, but a company that builds retail products.

That means that you have to expect Apple to do stupid things, just as regular people do stupid things. Indeed, let’s not forget the Cube, that tiny, underpowered, overpriced Mac that I suggested belonged in a museum when it first came out. Actually, I was just paraphrasing a comment from an old Indiana Jones movie, but I did find that model a visual delight, but something less than practical. That feeling was reinforced whenever my wife tried to clean it with a dust cloth and, as her hand passed over the touch-sensitive power button, it would suddenly turn on by mistake.

I recall when Jobs heatedly denied rumors that it would be discontinued during a press briefing, which merely confirms my feeling that the Cube was, in part, a personal indulgence, and he had difficulty coming to the grips that it had not been near as successful as he hoped. Well, CEOs with his record of success are entitled to an occasional indulgence, and I’m not talking about that personal jet plane either.

By the way, the Cube was officially discontinued just a few weeks later. Jobs finally had to accept reality.

The key here is that you might feel resentful if Apple is criticized, whether that criticism is on the mark, or all or mostly incorrect. But you really shouldn’t take it as a personal affront, however much you love your Macs, iPods and the iPhone. In the end, people have all sorts of preferences, and, right or wrong, they are entitled to buy what they want, even if you disagree strongly with their decisions.

Just be happy that Apple is no longer condemned to the dustbin of failed companies, and appears likely to live long and prosper and continue to shake up the technology world.

When I wrote a Mac War Stories column some years back, I didn’t expect to receive too many responses. Yet a lot of you have had problems with your Macs over the years. When you factor in Apple’s own extended repair programs, which cover some note-books and desktops, you began to wonder whether quality control had gone down the tubes.

However, year after year, Apple rates tops in customer support and product reliability in such disparate publications as Consumer Reports and PC Magazine. What is surprising is that these sources aren’t necessarily in Apple’s camp. In fact, you’d think they have more than a few axes to grind about Macs. Yes, even Consumer Reports, which apparently has an editorial stance that is more Windows-friendly than it should be, considering the magazine’s pretense of incorruptibility.

In these cases, as in other reports of this sort, the published data is based strictly on reader surveys. In other words, people like you and me report our experiences with Macs, from getting help from Apple, to how often our computers need service. All of this raw data goes into the stat machine — or Excel spreadsheet — and it all comes up smelling roses for Apple.

So what’s really at work here? Is it true that Apple simply makes builds better hardware and is nicer to customers needing a helping hand?

In part, I’m sure that’s true. But you also have to look at the sort of troubles a Mac user might encounter compared to a Windows user. When it comes to hardware, though, things are more similar than different. The Mac and the PC these days use the very same processors, similar graphics chips, hard drives, RAM, support components and so on and so forth. Indeed, they are quite often assembled in the very sample manufacturing establishments in Asia.

So how could the Mac be more reliable than the PC?

Well, it may be that Apple insists on a higher level of quality control for its products. That’s not the sort of information independent analysts can glean, simply because they aren’t going to be allowed to enter those plants and see what’s going on. So we really don’t know how building a MacBook Pro differs from a typical Dell or HP note-book.

But I’ll grant that maybe that’s the actual situation, although Consumer Reports these days reports the reliability of note-book computers as essentially the same among the major brands, with differences of only a point or two that could just be statistical anomalies. In desktops, Apple reigns supreme by a fair margin.

As to needing technical support, that becomes a different matter. My particular experience with Apple has been somewhat mixed. Most of the time I do get a proper answer without being drawn through a long tunnel and through the maze of different levels of support. But sometimes the system fails me, at least for a while.

Although I am high on Dell’s displays — which I regard as better performers than Apple’s current line — my lone encounter with their technical support wasn’t terribly helpful. This occurred prior to the time that Dell flirted with outsourced support, which can be a bad deal for any company. However, the first person I talked to may have been a trainee, since he seemed to be reading from a script rather than listening to my questions about the proper Internet configuration for an ailing desktop.

After a few moments of this, I stopped the technician, and tried to spur him on to a higher level of information, but he’d go back to his script, oblivious to my presence. Finally, I sharpened my tone and requested a supervisor, but while listening to the horrible music presentation on the phone, I figured out the solution for myself and promptly hung up.

Now Dell supposedly has learned from all these bad experiences and is spending a bundle on beefing up its customer support. It’s too early to tell whether the situation has improved any, as they still haven’t fared much better in those surveys, but I hope that Michael Dell, restored to the CEO spot in the company he founded, is getting the message that the market is far more competitive than it used to be.

However, the particular configuration issue I encountered, involving forcing a DHCP refresh to free a stuck address, simply doesn’t happen under Mac OS X. It also appears that later versions of Windows, and this machine had a version older than XP, are far more forgiving in such situations.

More to the point, Windows users simply require more support. Sometimes it’s a malware issue, such as spyware, or a virus, which causes grief for a PC user. Radio ads touting online support services talk of driver installation woes, and similar matters that should be relatively simple, but become nightmares in a Windows environment.

So one real reason why Apple’s technical support is superior to any PC company is simply because there are fewer problems to solve on the Mac, and a lot of the issues can be easily solved by the user, without calling for help.

If Apple had to support Windows, too, maybe they’d be no better than other computer makers. Thank heavens they don’t, of course. But PC users, who will no doubt complain loudly over this article, will still find reason to dispute this argument.

There’s a lot to be said about Apple’s famous marketing machine. They have managed to grab the world’s attention big-time, with a laser-like focus on the company’s important products and other announcements.

On the other hand, you have to wonder whether or not they are beginning to lose their mojo, because of recent glaring missteps. While nobody’s perfect — even if Steve Jobs would probably like us to believe otherwise — there have been a few important strategic miscalculations that Apple ought to have foreseen.

Take the recent $200 price drop for the iPhone. Overall, it was a clever move. Despite the wrongheaded claims by some tech pundits and financial analysts, the iPhone was selling quite well when the 8GB version still cost $599. Indeed, Apple was just days from attaining its real goal of selling one million before the end of September.

Yes, I know that Fox business commentator Neil Cavuto and others had the wrong idea that Apple somehow expected to reach that number in a single weekend.

But consider the attitude Steve Jobs took when the new price was first revealed during the introduction of a upgraded family of iPods. He casually brushed it off as something early adopters should expect. It’s the way things are, and you just have to live with it.

Now you and I understand that $200 is chump change for Steve, since he’s a billionaire. But he supposedly has his hands on the pulse of Apple’s customers, so he should have realized a firestorm would erupt. Sure, his apology the following day seemed honest and heartfelt, and the writing style was awkward enough to have likely emerged from his own hands, rather than Apple’s corporate spin-meisters. But it was so unnecessary.

Had Apple thought this move through a little more carefully, it would have emerged as a positive event, and the rebate program would have been part of the initial story. Instead, Apple ended up playing catchup with incensed customers and a press just aching for bad news and appropriately-lurid headlines.

You see, today, the press is all tabloid, regardless of the size of the printed page, or even whether the content is restricted to online presentation.

Then there’s the iPhone 1.1.1 upgrade. Again, Apple spun it as a potential catastrophe, early on. If you’ve unlocked the iPhone, forget about it. Your fun-filled gadget would undergo a tragic metamorphosis into an iBrick. Shame on you for daring to jailbreak an iPhone!

I’m not saying that warnings are a bad idea. Certainly customers need to be made fully aware of the consequences if they attempt to hack their phones to add new features, or make it work with unsupported wireless carriers.

What Apple might have done — and I don’t presume to be a marketing guru or to know anything about marketing at all — would have been to take a more proactive and less-negative stance on this issue.

They could have made a bigger deal of the positive features of the update, including improved volume capability. Then put out an FAQ for people who have unlocked the phone. Maybe they should have been considerable enough to offer a tool of some sort to revert the phone to factory condition, assuming that the firmware update couldn’t accomplish that task.

Next, tell the public they are free to do what they want, but they have to understand that making unsupported changes has consequences, but Apple would be happy to help then get their phones to function normally again with an enhanced restore application. Even though they might have voided the warranty, be nice and fix the phones anyway. Announce that they are going to do this just one time, and, in the future, if your phone is rendered inoperable by an unsupported thirty-party hack, it’s your problem.

That’s the beginning and end of it.

After that, I don’t think there would be too many complaints. I would also submit that the folks who develop hacks of one sort or another must take on a little responsibility too. When they build jailbreaking utilities, they need to also offer the capability of restoring the phone to factory issue ahead of installing an Apple update, or before you take the phone to your dealer for warranty service.

Could they be held legally responsible otherwise? That’s an intriguing question that would likely depend on the sort of user licenses they post with their software. However, I’d think it would be a good idea, at the very least, to have those things reviewed by lawyers just in case.

However, would anyone really sue an iPhone hacker because of a damaged phone? Would it make any difference, since most of these hackers are individuals or small companies who couldn’t afford to defend themselves or pay damages anyway.

Better to sue Apple. They have deep pockets, but they also use some of their cash to hire smart attorneys who know how to defend the company against such lawsuits.

As far as Apple is concerned, I think they’ve overcome the consequences of the bad PR moves of recent weeks. But the public isn’t always so forgiving, so next time they do something that may have unfavorable consequences for at least some customers, they ought to find a better way to handle the situation.

Remember, Apple, the vultures are circling and they’re hunting for blood.