Yes, I know Steve Jobs often says that this feature or another was added to a Mac or the Mac OS because customers asked for it. I would normally be inclined to agree with him, because Apple does offer ways for you to send your feedback on their products, and certainly the return of some features to Mac OS X can be attributed to requests. Take Labels for example, although it doesn’t work quite the same as it did with Mac OS 9.

On the other hand, sometimes you have to wonder whether such claims are just marketing spin. Take the new iMac, with the glossy screens. Now is Apple correct that most of you wanted it that way? Or did they get a really great price on glossy LCD panels and hoped to keep production costs down as much as possible?

Or did they just misjudge your reaction to such things?

Now it may be that they are measuring the proportion of glossy screens sold on the MacBook Pro, where you have an option of one or the other. That is quite conceivable, except that dealing with reflections on a note-book computer is decidedly different than dealing with them on your desktop. The note-book can be easily moved, but the 24-inch iMac may not be conveniently transported from one location to another, especially if it’s best suited to a desk that attracts plenty light and window illumination from the wrong direction.

This past week, I’ve been talking to guests for this week’s episode of The Tech Night Owl LIVE both on and off the air on the subject, and author Kirk McElhearn and Macworld’s Rob Griffiths didn’t seem terribly enthusiastic over the idea of a large flat panel display with a glossy screen. Now I suppose you can say that they aren’t your typical Mac users. Being exposed regularly to the latest and greatest Apple hardware, you might think of them as elitist, although both are just regular guys. But you have to take their opinions seriously regardless.

On the other hand, if customer acceptance of the new iMac suffers, and Apple blames it on their choice of glossy over matte, don’t be surprised if they tell you that customers really wanted a choice after all. I mean, it’s not as if they have to admit they made a mistake.

Then there’s that new wireless keyboard. Now in the past, an Apple Bluetooth keyboard simply mirrored the wired version, sans the wires. They both functioned in pretty much the same fashion, except for the fact that the wireless version, for obvious reasons, didn’t feature a pair of USB ports.

In switching to aluminum, Apple has two distinctly different versions. The wired edition has the standard numeric keypad and Page Up/Page Down keys. The wireless version, coming shortly, doesn’t. Why should that be? Don’t customers want their wireless keyboards to duplicate the version tethered by cables?

Of course, Apple hasn’t given us a reason, and let’s hope we’re not being confronted by the same logic that created the notorious hockey puck mouse that lived its infamous existence in an earlier generation iMac.

Now I suppose Apple could make some good excuses as to why the wireless keyboard ended up this way. First is that most people don’t use numeric keypads, and Page Up and Page Down are also alien visitors, so why not dispense with them? Second, a narrower keyboard would center nicely in your lap, and that might make a whole lot of sense, at least to them.

This doesn’t mean that Apple always ignores the wishes of Mac users. I rather suspect they listened to some of us when they designed iWork ’08, particularly the new version of their combo word processor and page layout application, Pages.

You see, a lot of word processors can read and write Microsoft Word files. But few, if any, support the critical Track Changes feature. That is a capability that allows writers and editors to keep tabs on the progression of a manuscript from the initial writing into final production. That’s why almost every publisher I know of demands a Word document.

Well, the new version of Pages fully supports Track Changes, in both directions. I tested it carefully with a large book manuscript and the translation was perfect. Rob Griffiths tells me that he used it just as successfully when he recently reviewed another iWork ’08 component, the Numbers spreadsheet application. He had high praise for Pages too, and I wonder if Microsoft is beginning to feel the pressure. Consider that iWork ’08 sells for a mere $79, and even the Student and Teachers version of Office will likely cost just about twice that.

Pressure indeed. And I fully suspect Apple didn’t add Track Changes just to have another feature to put on a bulleted list. They did it with specific goals in mind, and taking a few sales away from Office may indeed be one of them.

You know, when movie and TV producers want to depict the quintessential computer nerd, they usually present a character that bears more than a passing resemblance to Bill Gates. However, in the real world, Gates is more of a marketing genius than a programming genius. While he has certainly written some software in his time, his largest successes have come from supremely clever marketing. First, of course, to sell IBM an operating system, and then going out and buying it from another company at a much lower price.

You might call that the most famous shell game in recent history, although I’m sure the financial mavens in our audience will find others of similar or greater significance.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with being a good salesman. Certainly, Apple does quite well on that score, particularly in recent years. In fact, some have suggested that Apple these days is less about innovation and more about packaging and marketing.

The thing that benefited Microsoft most over the years, of course, is the fact that the tech and financial press hung on their every word with nary a critical comment. So when Microsoft announced a forthcoming advanced operating system technology known as Cairo that would trump anything available from the competition back in the early 1990s, they were believed. In fact, there are so few disclosures about the innovation that never was, you have to wonder whether Microsoft’s “Reality Distortion Field” remains more powerful than the one for which Steve Jobs has become famous.

Segue to the 21st century, where Gates is cutting back his participation in Microsoft, and is no longer the richest man in the world. That honor these days goes to Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire who owns the failing CompUSA chain, among other holdings.

More to the point, the PC makers don’t seem to exist in abject fear of Microsoft quite so much anymore, witness the fact that you can still order a computer with Windows XP rather than Vista. In addition, businesses are even more skeptical of Vista than they were of XP, and thus are putting off purchase decisions beyond testing for another year or two.

Let’s not forget the fact that you can also buy a new Dell PC, at least a few models, with Linux preloaded. This may not indicate anything more than just adding another option for power users, but it does show that Microsoft’s influence may be waning.

It’s almost as if you expect to get bad news from them these days. If Apple took roughly $100 in charges against millions of iPods, the headlines would blanket print and online news outlets around the world for days, and the stock price would take a huge tumble.

But when Microsoft does precisely that to fund repair of lots and lots of failing Xbox 360s, there’s hardly a second glance. After all, we all know Microsoft builds defective products more than occasionally, so this is nothing particularly new. Besides, with all the cash they’re sitting on, what’s a billion dollars anyway? Nothing to worry about, right?

I suppose I should have expected a lack of spit and polish during the period I was using Microsoft’s Wireless Laser Desktop for Mac keyboard and mouse combo. After a year or so, I noticed that the decals on some of the most used keys had worn off. Not too serious, but the accompanying mouse, though nicely designed, has a fatal flaw. You see, every few days, it just stopped working. This problem transcended multiple samples, driver updates, Mac OS updates and, in fact, two different computers.

What’s more, I can’t believe that other users of that product haven’t had similar problems, nor explain why it took several months to replace a few keytop decals that signify the sole difference between the Mac and Windows versions of these products.

Now in saying that, I have to tell you that I still have high praise for Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit. Within the constraints imposed on them by the company’s corporate culture and goals, they really do extremely good work. Yes, Office for the Mac may be as bloated as they come, but it also gets the job done in a smooth and relatively reliable fashion.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t threats on the horizon. Apple’s iWork ’08 has taken on more and more of the capabilities of Office and presented them with the appropriate level of pizazz and sex appeal. Pages, for example, fully supports Word’s Track Changes component through two-way translations, and that’s a feature required by editors and writers around the world. Meanwhile, Office for the Mac 2008 won’t arrive until after the first of the year. It may end up being a truly excellent suite, but Microsoft has to feel the pressure now.

They no longer rule the roost, despite the huge worldwide market share. For once, they might actually be forced to try harder.

You may think that I have some sort of grudge against Consumers Union and Consumer Reports magazine, since I rag on them so regularly. But the truth is that, for the most part, I respect their work. The magazine is, by and large, free of corruption, because it’s run by a non-profit organization that doesn’t accept outside advertising.

But that doesn’t mean editors and product testers don’t have their own agendas, and that’s clearly been the case with their Mac and PC coverage. Part of the problem may be over-simplification, the need to try to make often complicated technical information as understandable as possible to the general public. As a result, the differences between the Mac and Windows platforms are rarely defined in a meaningful way.

Take the September, 2007 issue, for example, which has extensive coverage on both ID theft and personal computers. There are lengthy features on both Internet threats and security software. After you read these articles, you’ll come to realize pretty quickly that most of the threats come strictly from Microsoft Windows, although Consumer Reports doesn’t really make that terribly clear unless you start to read between the lines.

Take the review of security software, for example. Only one of the companies included in the survey, Symantec, makes a Mac product. The other major provider of Mac malware protection software, Intego, isn’t represented, probably because they don’t have a large roster of Windows products.

So what should Mac users do about the state of affairs? Well, Consumer Reports isn’t clear about the fact that, as of this writing, no Mac OS X malware has been widely circulated, and most of the threats so far are in the potential or proof-of-concept category. The sole reason for installing virus protection software on your Mac, they admit, is to keep you from accidentally spreading an infection to your fellow Windows users. There’s also a smattering of that security-through-obscurity argument, that the Mac would be more susceptible to such threats if it had a larger market share. But with Apple tied for fourth in the U.S. retail market as of the most recent sales survey, I should think the Mac represents a large enough target for Internet vandals to have their way with us, if there was a chance their filth would quickly spread far and wide.

I dare say that if you were seriously considering whether to buy a Windows PC, a fast read of that Consumer Reports article should give you pause. Take a look at all the potential threats from which you have to be protected, such as viruses, spyware and all the rest. Consider, also, the drag on your system from installing such software. The magazine suggests that you need 1GB of RAM, minimum, to prevent system slowdowns because of all that preventive sludge that keeps Windows reasonably secure.

Add to that the fact that you have to make sure that your software is not only updated regularly, but that you spend an average of $50 per year to renew your security coverage. That’s like the insurance policy that never ends until you depart the mortal plane of existence.

I know some of you will remind me that there are definitely free alternatives to the commercial protection products, but not all of them are near as comprehensive. Besides, the average user is not going to find it easy to select the right applications that work properly together, and that’s the main audience of Consumer Reports.

Now this particular issue also contains reviews of new computers, with Apple’s products continuing to get high marks. But there’s nothing in the articles to explain what makes the Mac OS different from Windows other than that a Mac seems to carry a high retail price. Worse, the Windows PCs selected aren’t always competitive matches with the Macs, since they might lack key features, such as FireWire 800, gigabit Ethernet and other components that Apple makes standard issue. Such things often require the click of the Customize button on the PC, where the price may jump rapidly if you select too many checkboxes.

Oh, and by the way, there was also a brief review of the iPhone, where Consumer Reports concluded that call quality was “so-so.” How so? Not clear, not loud enough, what? To my way of thinking, the quality of the review itself was so-so.

However, the worst flaw is the one that Consumer Reports still refuses to address, and that is specifics on why the Mac and the PC are different. Now I realize that might be a tough call in a general interest consumer magazine, but a few paragraphs in a sidebar would help. Also, it would be nice if their product testers would do direct Mac and Windows comparisons to see which operating system is easier to master and to use for your day-to-day work.

But that might work against their agenda, particularly if that agenda favors Windows. Regardless of the reasoning, it means that, once again, Consumer Reports has failed to deliver a quality computer review, and I don’t see that situation changing anytime soon; that is, unless the magazine’s editors wake up and realize that the Mac and the PC really are different animals and attempt to explain to their readers why.

John Lennon’s solo catalog has been added to iTunes, with all songs available in the higher-resolution, DRM-free iTunes Plus format! Need we say any more?