Not that you can’t buy an iPhone almost anywhere in the world already. But those unlocked iPhones are unauthorized -- purchased primarily in the United States for resale in places with demand but no supply.

In its past several earnings conference calls, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer has described this worldwide “grey market” not as a problem for Apple but as an opportunity, a demonstration of extraordinary demand for the product.

While Apple makes a profit from iPhones that end up in the grey market, it would make more by selling them to customers in those countries via a cellular partner along with a service contract.

Perhaps that’s why we’re seeing such a large number of countries on Apple’s iPhone schedule – the longer it takes Apple to set up its international iPhone distribution network, the more money it loses from the lucrative revenue-sharing deals it makes with the carriers.Depending upon how the iPhone is priced, grey markets may continue to thrive in many places. But a legitimate iPhone should take back the bulk of sales in most countries.

So just who is getting the iPhone this year? Canada made the list when Rogers Communications announced its deal with Apple last week.

On Tuesday U.K. -based Vodafone – the world’s largest mobile carrier – said it would be selling the iPhone in 10 countries by the end of 2008.

And yesterday America Movil SAB, Latin America’s largest wireless carrier with 37 percent of the market, announced plans to “bring the iPhone to its Latin American operations,” which includes 15 countries and Puerto Rico.

Expect the list to keep growing, as reports of several unconfirmed deals also surfaced this week. Yesterday the Swiss newspaper Le Matin said that mobile carrier Swisscom had forged a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Switzerland this summer.

And France Telecom CFO Gervais Pellissier hinted during a conference call that his company, owner of the Orange network, is in talks with Apple to sell the iPhone in countries besides France. Two prime suspects are Spain and Poland, but Pellissier said the discussions extend to more than just two countries.
On top of all that Apple also announced that in Italy, Vodafone will not have exclusive rights to the iPhone, breaking its policy of one country, one carrier. Vodafone will share the privilege with Telcom Italia TIM. Some suspect the Australia deal also may not be exclusive, but that is not yet confirmed.

But the Italy situation alone marks a major shift in strategy for Apple. Here we have proof that -- at least with the iPhone -- Apple is willing to break with its traditional stubbornness and pursue whatever business model works best in a given situation.

What we don’t know is how much (if any) shared revenue Apple will get in a country with multiple carriers. Until now, Apple had used the exclusivity as a bargaining chip to obtain a percentage of revenue from the service contracts.

We also don’t know if this new willingness to experiment means Apple itself will start selling unlocked versions of the iPhone, at least in countries where Apple considers it practical.

What we do know is that Apple’s global iPhone strategy has kicked in to high gear. The countries lined up so far constitute a huge chunk of the worldwide market, which should accelerate sales substantially.

And then factor in the impact of the 3G iPhone everyone expects Apple to announce next month. Whoa.

So says Consumer Reports in its annual computer-buying extravaganza (June issue). The latest data continues the trend, as it has the past few years, of overall praise for Apple’s line of Mac laptops and desktops an in particular for its customer support.

On tech support issues, Apple stands out. Its reader score for laptops is 83 out of 100 (meaning it solved the problem 83 percent of the time), well ahead of Lenovo’s 66 and Dell’s 60.

Apple beats its rivals by an even greater degree in the desktop category. Its score of 81 percent led the field by an embarrassingly large margin; second-place Dell (56 percent) trailed by 25 points, just ahead of Gateway (54 percent).

Not that Consumer Reports has been chugging Steve Jobs’ Kool-Aid. As it has done often, CR criticized Apple for its brief 90 days of free tech support compared with a year for most other PC makers.

Because of that, as well as the above-average service Apple customers get with paid support plans, the magazine advises Mac buyers purchase an AppleCare plan.

Consumer Reports also points out, however, that all Mac owners can get free tech support at the Genius Bar in Apple’s retail stores, which CR says solved problems an impressive 90 percent of the time. But the customer is responsible for the cost of any required repairs.

However, the CR piece misleads a bit when it describes the Genius Bar as “walk-in support.” Yes, you can walk in to any Apple Store with a Mac problem but you can’t consult with a Mac Genius unless you’ve made a reservation.

The only truly bad news for Apple appears in the main article, in the “Brand Repair history” survey chart. While Apple’s desktops boast the fewest repairs – 12 percent versus 17 percent for its closest PC competitors – Apple’s laptops sit at the bottom of their category.

According to the CR survey, 23 percent of Mac laptops required repair or had a serious problem. While that’s not so far from Lenovo’s category leading 20 percent, Apple should take note that the quality control of its laptop line could stand improvement.

Elsewhere in the main article, in which CR makes its general recommendations, both Mac laptops and desktops earn high marks.

In the 15.4-inch “workhorse” laptop category, the MacBook Pro was the magazine’s top choice: “The Apple weighed the least and had the best battery life among the 15-inch models.”

The beefier 17-inch MacBook Pro earned top honors in the “Best Desktop replacement category despite its much higher price relative to its competition (it costs $1,000 more than the next cheapest laptop in that category – a Sony Vaio VGN-AR770).

Meanwhile the newest member of the MacBook family, the MacBook Air, managed to take second in the “Best Lightweight laptops” category on the strength of its exceptionally low weight (3 pounds), strong battery life and slim form factor. The CR editors apparently decided those characteristics trumped the Air’s higher price and missing features (no CD/DVD drive or Ethernet port).

Here’s how CR assesses the Air: “This somewhat pricey, ultra-thin ultra-portable won’t replace your everyday laptop, but the generous keyboard, touchpad technology, and small size make it worth considering. The compromises are in performance and ease of loading and unloading data.”

On the desktop side, the Mac appears absent at first, but it turns out Consumer Reports has added a third Apple-inspired category: all-in-ones.

CR says the best inexpensive all-in-one is the 20-inch iMac (“excellent performance and good ergonomics”) -- and that was before last week’s processor upgrade. Going from a 2.0 gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo to a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, the 20-inch iMac represents an even better value now.

The 24-inch iMac was ranked behind the HP TouchSmart IQ775 (who comes up with these names?), but that model’s processor upgrade to a 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo from 2.4 GHz enhances its value quite a bit, too.

Curiously, the Mac Pro got no mention in the “high-end” desktop category, perhaps because it’s not aimed at ordinary consumers but rather video and graphics professionals.

Overall, this year’s CR report card looks as more favorably upon the Mac than ever. That’s the sort of positive reinforcement that could encourage more potential Windows users to switch in the months ahead, maintaining the Mac’s market share growth momentum.

That brings us back to the questions people were asking when Psystar’s sudden appearance two weeks ago first sent the Mac blogosphere into a frenzy: does buying from Psystar make sense?

At first it may seem that way. What’s not to love about a $399 computer that runs Mac OS X? Oh, let me count the ways….

Let’s begin with the price. You don’t get Leopard with a $399 Psystar “Open Computer,” that’s $155 extra. Now we’re up to $554.

You don’t get FireWire, either, which is standard on all Macs. You can add three FireWire ports for another $50, though. That puts you at $604.

Built-in wireless networking? It’s standard on the Mac Mini (which starts at $599) and iMac models, but an extra $90 on the Psystar. That raises the cost to $694.

How about the iLife suite, free with every Mac? Not on a Psystar. You’ll have to buy it for $79 if you want it.

And unlike the $1,199 20-inch iMac, Psystar clones don’t come with a monitor. Unless you have a spare monitor to attach, that’s another added expense. The Open Computer doesn’t even come with a mouse or keyboard (though neither does the Mini).

Suddenly that cheap clone isn’t quite as cheap as you thought.

To be fair, the Psystar has some beefier hardware than the Mac Mini: a faster CPU, twice the RAM and a much larger, faster hard drive. Specs like that help when it comes to performance, which is where the Psystar shines.

Two tech sites, Engadget and ZDNet, have already posted benchmarks on Psystar machines that arrived as ordered. The Open Computer performed about as well as a MacBook laptop in the Engadget tests.

The folks at ZDNet compared the Psystar to a Mac mini, the closest Apple equivalent. The Psystar beat the Mac mini in every hardware test ZDNet ran, although they added some options to both machines to make them comparably priced ($740 for the Psystar and $799 for the Mini).

But beyond the basic price-performance equation, potential Psystar customers need to consider the long-term consequences of owning hardware Apple has not blessed.

If you need technical support, you will need to get it from Psystar. Apple surely won’t get involved.

When it comes to system updates, forget it. Psystar has disabled the Software Update feature on its clones probably to prevent “bricking” in the event an Apple update disagrees with the unauthorized hardware.

And that just scratches the surface of the myriad compatibility problems one could encounter.

The Engadget review has a list of clone oddities, such as its outrageously loud fan and the inability of the Apple System Profiler to detect such things as the amount of RAM, the graphics card or the machine’s audio capabilities.

I would advise careful consideration to ordinary computer users who see Psystar as a way to obtain a Mac inexpensively. I don’t think the money saved is worth the potential headaches.

But for technophiles and hobbyists – the sort of people who think building a PC from scratch is fun – Psystar’s clones should be great. Such people can work around any technical limitations they encounter, and should understand all the risks up front.

And finally, there’s Apple itself. It has remained dead silent on the issue. Will it continue to look the other way or are its lawyers now huddling over the details of an impending lawsuit? Even if Psystar were on solid legal ground, a lawsuit from Apple would be no picnic.

Proceed with caution.

A report released today by Rockville, Md.-based ChangeWave Research on customers of the top two smart phones identifies what they like and don’t like about Apple’s iPhone and Research in Motion’s BlackBerry. The report data was drawn from a previous ChangeWave survey on smart phones conducted in March.

The results echo commonly accepted notions about the strengths and weaknesses of the rival communication devices, but also illustrate how a few changes to the iPhone – several of which are expected in June -- could make it far more attractive to many more customers.

The single most important feature to BlackBerry customers is overwhelmingly “e-mail access,” with 56 percent calling it the feature they like best. The second-most mentioned response, mentioned by just 7 percent of the respondents, was “size.”

The original iPhone software could not integrate well, if at all, with corporate e-mail systems. But Apple has an answer in the pipeline -- the iPhone 2.0 software due out in June. In one stroke Apple will neutralize the BlackBerry’s single biggest advantage.

Customers’ dislikes about the BlackBerry were more varied. They disliked the Internet browser (13 percent) most, followed by the keypad (11 percent) and application problems (10 percent).

The iPhone enjoys an edge in Web browsing, with its customized version of Mac OS X’s Safari. Instead of “application problems,” iPhone users complained their device “doesn’t support third party software” -- but again, Apple has targeted that issue with the impending release of the iPhone Software Development Kit.

The dissatisfaction with the BlackBerry’s keypad surprised me a little, as numerous critics have claimed the iPhone’s touch screen keyboard is harder to use. Yet 27 percent of iPhone users cited the touch screen interface as their favorite feature.

Not surprisingly, even more iPhone owners (36 percent) preferred its “integration of phone, iPod and Internet browser” functions in a single device. Those two features comprise the essence of the iPhone’s appeal.

The iPhone dislikes chart similarly contains no major surprises. The top two items involve AT&T, Apple’s designated cellular provider in the U.S. One in five iPhone owners (21 percent) said their biggest gripe is the slow speed of AT&T’s EDGE network, and nearly as many (17 percent) objected to the requirement to use AT&T.

If recent conjectures on the June arrival of a 3G iPhone prove true, Apple soon will have an alternative for those dissatisfied with AT&T’s network speed.

Citigroup analysts Richard Gardner and Yeechang Lee predicted in a research note last week that Apple CEO Steve Jobs will introduce the 3G iPhone in an as-yet-unannounced keynote address at the Worldwide Developers Conference (June 9-13).

A report yesterday on the DigiTimes Web site that Chinese-based FoxConn Electronics – which makes the current iPhone models – had landed orders for the next-generation model added more weight to the likelihood of the 3G iPhone. The first 3 million units supposedly are due to ship in June (fancy that!), with a total of 24 million to 25 million expected to ship through the model’s life cycle.

A 3G capability was the feature most cited by iPhone users (19 percent) in the ChangeWave survey when asked which new feature they’d like to see. Third party software (18 percent) followed close behind along with GPS (15 percent).

Talk about giving the people what they want. A 3G iPhone married to the iPhone 2.0 software will satisfy several customer desires in one swoop.

Only two significant impediments to iPhone sales appeared in the ChangeWave survey: price and the AT&T requirement.

Of those surveyed that said they planned to buy an iPhone but had not yet done so, 24 percent said they were waiting for the price to drop. Almost as many (22 percent) said they were waiting for the iPhone to become available on other service providers.

I have said often on this blog that Apple should sell an unlocked version of the iPhone at a higher price, and someday it probably will. But not in June.

So when Apple makes its numerous iPhone announcements in a little over a month, the only murky piece of the puzzle will be the product’s price -- a sticky issue ever since the startling $200 price drop last year just 10 weeks after its introduction.

American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu said in a note to clients last week he foresees a reduction in the price of the “old” 2.5G iPhone models to $349 and $299 when the 3G versions arrives. (The current prices are $499 for the 16 GB model and $399 for the 8 GB model.)

Matching the ChangeWave data with what we know of Apple’s plans, I see a strategy that squares extremely well with what current iPhone customers have asked for and what potential iPhone customers have been waiting for.

That goal of selling 10 million iPhones in 2008 looks more realistic every day, doesn’t it?

Though most of the reaction was positive, some expressed concern over whether Apple’s good fortunes will prove sustainable in a challenging U.S. economy. It strikes me Apple has just proved its powerful brand can keep drawing consumer’s cash even in a souring economy.

Apple could not have done much better in the March quarter, the best 2Q in company history. Revenue hit $7.51 billion, representing 43 percent growth year over year. Apple made a $1.05 billion profit, increasing its cash stash to $19.4 billion. Every operating segment did well, led by extraordinary growth in Mac sales.

Apple’s conservative guidance for the June quarter did generate some hand wringing among analysts, particularly the bit about Apple’s gross margins hovering around 33 percent.

I don’t see much of a problem here. Even if Apple just barely makes its numbers, the June quarter will be far from a disaster. Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said the company expects revenue of $7.2 billion – a 33 percent year over year increase. He estimates earnings per share at about $1.00, which translates to about $900 million in profits.

Of course, Apple always lowballs its guidance to make it easier to exceed the numbers.

In a MarketWatch story yesterday BMO Capital Markets analyst Keith Bachman pointed out that over the past three years Apple has predicted an 18 percent drop from 2Q earnings, but in fact reported gains averaging 10 percent in the June quarter.

If Apple follows this historical pattern, it will earn about $8.25 billion in revenue and $1.15 billion in profits. Not bad in a struggling economy.

Now let’s take a look at Apple’s 2Q report segment by segment:

The Mac: Three words: growth, growth, growth. Desktop sales were up 37 percent, powered by strong iMac sales and a refresh of the Mac Pro. Laptop sales were up 61 percent, helped by the new MacBook Air and a refresh of the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines. Apple shipped a total of 2.29 million Macs in the quarter, a prodigious 51 percent increase year over year.

Oppenheimer noted in his remarks that Mac sales grew 3.5 times faster than the overall PC market growth rate. He also said Apple’s U.S. education business increased 35 percent year over year, “its highest growth rate in any quarter in the last eight years.”

And the Mac’s strength extended beyond U.S. borders. Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook said sales in the Americas were up 52 percent year over year; in Europe up 48 percent; and in Japan up 47 percent.

Each of the past several quarters has set some sort of record for Mac sales. I see this trend continuing for quite some time.

The iPod: Sales of the iPod increased only 1 percent year over year to 10.6 million units. Many observers interpreted the small increase as a “maturation” of the MP3 player market and a sign that Apple can no longer expect much growth in this segment.

But mere units sales of iPods doesn’t tell the whole story. Revenue from the iPod increased 8 percent because many of those sold were more expensive iPod Touches. And let’s not forget the 1.7 million iPhones – they also serve as fancy iPods.

In any case, Apple has retained its market dominance in this space, holding 73 percent of the MP3 player market in the U.S.

Meanwhile, Oppenheimer said the iTunes Store holds 85 percent of the legal download market, hinting that rivals such as Amazon have not proven as formidable a threat as once feared.

The iPhone: On the one hand, the 1.7 million iPhones Apple sold exceeded the company’s expectations, leading to shortages in some areas. But unless the pace picks up significantly, Apple can’t meet its target of selling 10 million iPhones in 2008. At the 2Q rate, Apple would sell 6.8 million iPhones by year’s end.

With the iPhone 2.0 software due out in June – near the end of the next quarter – and widespread anticipation of a 3G iPhone in the same time frame, one would expect diminished iPhones sales in 3Q while customers await the new goodies.

Yet in his remarks Oppenheimer reiterated the 10-million iPhone goal for 2008. Apple rarely lets its expectations get too far out of line with reality, so I’m guessing it’s figuring on several factors to alter the equation.

The factors that could hamper sales in the coming quarter will accelerate them in the second half of the year. Beyond that, Apple will continue to introduce the iPhone into new international markets throughout 2008.

Will it be enough to hit 10 million units by December? Apple must think so.

Apple Retail: The performance of Apple’s retail stores has gotten scant mention, but this segment continues to amaze. Revenue from the stores grew 74 percent year over year. Sales of Macs in the stores rose 67 percent. Operating profit doubled.

Apple continues to expand the chain, adding four more stores for a total of 208, including 15 in the United Kingdom. Oppenheimer said Apple plans to open its first stores in Australia, China and Switzerland in the next few months. Overall, Apple expects to add 45 more stores in 2008.

Oppenheimer as usual noted that half of the stores’ computer sales were to customers “new to the Mac,” a statistic that makes more sense now that Mac sales are exploding.

After a series of crazy developments last week, including an address that changed several times within a few days and a credit card payment company that abruptly terminated its relationship with Psystar, many in the Mac blogosphere declared the upstart company a hoax.

But over the weekend and into Monday, defenders of Psystar attributed its troubles to poor planning. They argued the fledgling company failed to anticipate the huge demand for cheap Mac clones they faced when news of Psystar hit the Web 10 days ago.

For its part, Psystar posted reassuring messages on its Web site. A Friday item headlined “Store up and running, orders shipped” promised that orders placed in the first week at Psystar’s online store would start shipping this week.

Yesterday Psystar posted a message and photo trumpeting its new headquarters (independently verified by several news sites).

The ultimate proof will be when customers begin to receive their orders; I have yet to read of a Psystar machine successfully delivered, but the first shipments may not arrive for a few days.

I remain cautiously optimistic. Even if Psystar is legit, what it is doing – selling PC boxes capable of running the Mac operating system without Apple’s blessing – raises many other questions.

First, what can Apple do about it? What should Apple do about it? As many have pointed out, Apple’s EULA (End-user license agreement) specifically forbids running Mac OS X on anything but Apple’s own hardware.

One would assume Apple’s lawyers would drop the hammer on Psystar in short order. Yet Apple has yet to say or do anything regarding Psystar.

Apple’s EULA restrictions may well violate antitrust laws in both the United States and the European Union. These laws look unfavorably upon the “tying” of one product to another in such a way that the customer cannot use a competitor’s product. That’s how Microsoft got into trouble when it “bundled” its Internet Explorer browser with Windows a decade ago.

Apple could still prevail against Psystar, but victory would not be guaranteed. In the worst-case scenario (for Apple, at least) Mac clone making would be declared legal and more companies would start doing it.

Clone makers beyond Apple’s control could well take a significant chunk of the Mac hardware market. That’s what happened in the mid-90s when Apple licensed several Mac clone makers, and why Steve Jobs put a stop to it upon his return to the helm.

After fighting for years to make headway in the overall PC market, the last thing Apple needs is competition within the Mac market. On the other hand, Mac customers would almost surely benefit. In addition to less expensive Mac imitations, customers might see slightly lower prices on Apple machines.

But who would buy them?

A few devoted Mac users might abandon the Apple brand for a cheaper clone, but I suspect most would remain in the fold, particularly since those clones would not have Apple’s stamp of approval.

But switchers could be a very different story. Folks fresh from the Windows PC world might see Mac clones as an ideal compromise – a way to get the more user-friendly, less virus-plagued Mac operating system without paying top dollar for Apple’s offerings.

Psystar’s hardware designs don’t look as nice as Apple’s and could suffer from assorted compatibility issues, but they do cost much less. For many PC users, cost is king.

But Apple always has refused to play in the lower end of the PC market. “We can’t ship junk,” Jobs said at an iMac product unveiling last August.

Clone customers shopping for price could help boost the Mac’s overall share of the PC market, but the danger lies in clone makers selling mid-range and high-end machines more cheaply than Apple. If Apple loses those customers, it loses profits.

At this point, whether Psystar shuts its doors in two weeks or becomes merely the first of many Mac clone makers is less consequential than that the concept that a company could make Mac clones and get away with it.

Unauthorized clones, while not a major threat to Apple, could draw a little blood as a thorn in its hardware business.

Helped along by a 228-point rally on Wall Street today, AAPL picked up another $6.55 to close at $161.04, its first close over $160 since Jan. 18.

Concerns earlier this year about slowing iPhone and iPod sales spooked some investors into selling AAPL, but those investors forgot about the Mac. Even back in January when the stock was getting pummeled, both Apple and several of the analysts who follow the company predicted continuing growth in Mac sales.

Sure enough, when research firms Gartner and IDC released their first-quarter reports on PC market share, the Mac’s stellar showing stole the spotlight.

Gartner says Mac shipments increased 32.5 percent, from 762,000 to 1 million units, compared to the same quarter a year ago. According to Gartner Apple snared 6.6 percent of the U.S. PC market compared to 5.2 percent in the first quarter of 2007.

Compared with Gartner’s 2006 numbers, the Mac’s growth trend is even more dramatic. Apple had 4 percent of the market in the first quarter of 2006. Mac unit shipments are up 440,000 from the same period of 2006, a 77 percent increase.

Meanwhile IDC’s data shows Apple with a 6 percent share of the U.S. market in the first quarter, compared to 4.9 percent in 1Q 2007, with unit shipments growing 25.1 percent to 950,000.

It should be noted that Apple’s relative market share changes seasonally. For instance, back in the third quarter of 2007 Gartner reported Apple with 8.1 percent of the U.S. market. But the year-over year increase in units shipped grew at a similar pace, 37.2 percent.

The one consistent element to every research report on the PC market I’ve seen in the past year is that the number of Macs shipped keeps increasing year over year, as does its market share.

When Apple reports its first quarter earnings this coming Wednesday, we’ll find out the truth about iPod and iPhone sales (I suspect the concerns of January will prove unwarranted), and we should get confirmation on the Mac’s soaring numbers.

If it turns out Apple’s core businesses with the Mac, iPhone and Pod continued to do well despite reduced consumer spending and recession worries, expect to see AAPL continue its climb upward.

Jason Schwartz predicted today in a post on the Seeking Alpha site that AAPL could hit $300 in 2009 on Mac sales alone, but gives plenty of reasons why he thinks the company’s other businesses will thrive as well.

While $300 a share might sound crazy, Apple has a long history of transforming the improbable into reality. It wouldn’t surprise me.

Having read the Mike Himowitz column that appears in today’s Sun, I went on a hunt for more information about the company. Since I have been working unusually long hours this week I’ve gotten behind on my Apple news.

While I missed the initial flurry of excitement over the prospect of a company selling very inexpensive Mac clones – we’re talking $555 for a base model and $999 for the “OpenPro”-- a search on Google News uncovered a growing number or articles questioning the legitimacy of Psystar.

The Guardian’s Charles Arthur started it April 15 when he wrote of his investigation of the company. He found that the Web address had been registered in 2000 but that he could find no information on Psystar from then until this week.

Arthur called the Miami Better Business Bureau and Chamber of Commerce, neither of which had heard of Psystar.

When Arthur called the company, he struggled to get a human on the phone. The man he spoke with kept telling Arthur to send his questions to press@psystar.com.

Most suspicious of all, the physical address listed on Psystar’s Web site changed while Arthur was conducting his investigation. The next day, the address changed again.

Gizmodo readers in Miami picked up where Arthur left off and went to all the physical addresses that appeared on Psystar’s site. They found no evidence any such company had ever existed at any of the locations. One was a residence and one was a packing supply company that knew nothing of Psystar.

Anyone considering buying a computer from Psystar should put away their credit card until (and unless) the company puts to rest the doubts that have been raised. I can’t say I’m optimistic that it will.

Rather than discuss what one would expect – his possible use of high-end Macs equipped with Final Cut Pro and other high-end Apple video tools – Spence instead described how he and his colleagues depend on Apple’s consumer products.

In particular Spence said iChat is an integral part of his daily work, serving in multiple capacities.

“We use iChat religiously in our cutting rooms, as do most sound and picture editors and assistants,” Spence wrote in his e-mail. “Sometimes it is as short-range as a person in an intense screening or editorial meeting sending messages to someone just outside the door, or it can be as distant as across the globe.”

But I was surprised to learn that iChat is more than just a great communicator; it also can play a role in the production process, at least on some projects.

“On lower budget pictures we use iChat to record ADR [additional dialogue recording] from actors around the world,” Spence said.

“We sign on iChat, set up cameras, the director talks to the talent, they record the line... after each line the recordist simply drops it into the iChat window and we pull it down in Los Angeles. Lots of low-budget shows do this now and save up to $1,200 per hour. It isn’t super fast, but for a few lines it works great.”

Yet Spence has another use for iChat he considers the more vital than any other. In the middle of a five-month stay in London to work on the “Generation Kill” project, he is 5,500 miles away from his family in Santa Monica, Calif.

“I have regularly scheduled iSight conferences with my kids,” Spence said. His wife sets up her laptop at the breakfast table in Santa Monica, which coincides with his “tea time” in London.

“It makes all the difference in the world,” he said.

Furthermore, the iPhone’s market share increased 50 percent, from 6 to 9 percent, since a January survey.

ChangeWave, a Rockville, Md.-based research company, conducts periodic surveys from amongst the members of its “ChangeWave Alliance” on technology and business trends.

The results of this survey, focused on consumers, echoes the results from a similar ChangeWave survey on corporate smart phone purchasing taken in February. (See my blog entry on that here.)

The customer satisfaction chart shows Apple leading with a breathtaking 79 percent of owners saying they are “very satisfied,” handily beating Research in Motion’s (BlackBerry) 54 percent.

The market share numbers show Apple gaining, but mostly at the expense of Palm, which has declined from 23 percent when the iPhone went on sale in July of last year to 16 percent in the March survey.

Somewhat ominously for Apple, RIM’s market share has increased since the iPhone’s launch, from 38 percent last July to 42 percent in the most recent survey. Perhaps as Apple builds upon the iPhone's potential as a WiFi mobile platform, it will begin to eat into the BlackBerry's market share.

Nevertheless, Apple managed to pull into third place in the smart phone market in just nine months, disproving the negative predictions of the iPhone’s doubters last year.

Of those respondents who plan to buy a smart phone in the next 90 days, Apple scored its highest number yet – 35 percent plan to buy an iPhone, compared to 29 percent planning to buy a BlackBerry. That’s reversed from January, when 32 percent said they expected to buy a BlackBerry versus 23 percent for the iPhone.

ChangeWave attributes this dramatic shift partly to Apple’s announcement in January of the availability of the iPhone software development kit, which promises to greatly expand the iPhone’s capabilities relative to its competitors.

However, when asked this directly, only 10 percent of the respondents said the iPhone SDK announcement along with the iPhone road map and Enterprise beta program made them “more likely” to buy an iPhone in the future, with 79 percent saying none of that mattered.

One other noteworthy portion of the survey concerns cellular providers. In the chart showing future buying plans by provider, the iPhone appears to have had a dramatic impact on AT&T’s business.

Through 2006 AT&T’s numbers hovered in the mid-teens. But in January 2007 – when Steve Jobs announced Apple’s partnership with AT&T as the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in the United States – AT&T’s number jumped 43 percent. In the April survey, AT&T overtook Verizon, and has remained ahead in each survey since.

The number of people saying they planned to switch to AT&T hit a high of 30 percent in July 2007 – when the iPhone went on sale. In the current survey, AT&T holds a 6 percent lead over Verizon.

The draw of the iPhone could have provided an even bigger pop to AT&T’s numbers save for one problem – its customer satisfaction numbers seriously lag Verizon’s. Only 28 percent said they were “very satisfied” with AT&T compared with 42 percent for Verizon.

Looking at it another way, one wonders how many iPhones Apple could have sold had it been possible to sign Verizon as its exclusive partner.

Simon, of course, is the renowned creator of the acclaimed HBO television series
“The Wire,” which ended its five-year run March 9. Simon was a police reporter at The Sun during the mid-1980s and early 1990s, which inspired his first TV series, “Homicide: Life on the Street.”

I e-mailed Simon about his Mac use. Though he has a PC at home, Simon replied that because he travels a lot and has a relatively hectic work schedule, the Mac is his primary computer, used for “most of my work.”

However, “The Wire” was produced mostly with Avid video products according to Karen L. Thorson, the show’s producer (though Macs were used by many on the post-production staff for non-video support tasks).

In the photo, Simon is working on dialogue for next project, “Generation Kill,” a new miniseries based on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The seven-hour miniseries is scheduled to air on HBO in July. I haven’t gotten word on whether this show will be produced using Apple products, only this promising clue: the guy in charge of post-production has a .Mac e-mail address.

Note to flamers: I realize this isn’t news, but though some Mac fans would get a kick out of it.

The sensationalist attack starts with the article’s title: “The Pusher of Cupertino.” The author, James Daley (who apparently works for The Independent newspaper of the U.K., though the piece appears on the MacNewsWorld Web site), goes on to speculate that Apple sabotages its iPods with software updates with the intent of disabling them.

His sources for this very serious accusation are the unfortunate iPod experiences of his wife and the anecdotal stories of friends and people on unnamed Internet forums. No facts, figures or studies, despite his claim of a “growing body of evidence.”

Daley even admits in his first sentence that “there’s no solid evidence that Apple deliberately kills iPods through software updates,” but the entire piece is predicated on the assumed truth of that allegation.

He is upset because his two-year-old iPod has started to malfunction. His wife has had several iPods, including a 30 GB fifth-generation model that went south.

Meanwhile, her iPod Nano still works fine despite being over two years old because, Daley implies, it has never been synced with a computer. According to his theory, syncing iPods exposes them to the deadly software updates.

Oddly enough, Daley says that despite his suspicions about Apple, he will almost certainly buy another iPod because he “loves” it. But he again faults Apple. The allure of the iPod has seduced him beyond reason: “Even though I know I should take my business elsewhere, it’s an addiction.”

Another 30 GB iPod his wife bought “never-used” almost immediately began having issues. “Short of it being a defective unit, the only obvious explanation was that it was struggling to get to grips with the newer software,” Daley says. How could he be certain his wife simply didn’t receive a defective unit, a considerably more obvious explanation than his software sabotage theory?

I happen to have a 30 GB fifth-generation iPod that I bought in January 2006. I sync it with my Mac frequently. I install every software update. Yet it still works.

I’m not saying my experience proves anything, but neither does Daley’s. I can’t say with certainty Apple is not sabotaging iPods to get people to replace them with new ones. After all, the company did brick unlocked iPhones. But as a journalist I’d need solid proof before I’d accuse a company of this degree of wrongdoing.

Perhaps a significant percentage of iPods do fail after two years. But how many last three years? Or four?

For that matter, what’s the failure rate of competing MP3 players? Better than Apple’s? Worse? The same? Daley offers us no data, just unsubstantiated opinion.

I too have read complaints that iPods don’t last much longer than two years, but I haven’t seen any research that gives hard numbers on what customers can expect. And I certainly have never read any suggestions that Apple is deliberately killing iPods.

There’s usually nothing wrong with offering up some opinions based on anecdotal evidence. You want to complain about the shorter-than-expected life span of your iPods, fine.

But Daley is accusing Apple of a criminal act. I think that calls for stronger facts than his wife’s conspiracy theories, his friends’ problems and some rants he read in a few Internet forums.

I use the word “apparently” because Apple does not mention the issue in its explanation of the update’s benefits. Instead we get only a vague statement: “This update fixes several issues to improve the stability of Mac Pro (Early 2008) computers.”

Owners of the affected Mac Pros can obtain the fix by running Software Update. It shows up as “Mac Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.3.”

(I have blogged about this before, since I own an affected Mac Pro. Other owners concocted all manner of solutions, none of which worked consistently.)

On the main thread on Apple’s support site where this issue has been discussed, everyone who applied the update reported success in eliminating the reboot-on-wake problem. It’s only been a few days since Apple released the fix (March 27), but so far so good.

Users are still talking to each other because Apple has failed to clarify whether the update includes a fix for the reboot-on-wake issue (although it did lock the discussion thread Sunday to prevent further comments, if that means anything).

If Apple has fixed the problem, why not say so in the update’s documentation? Why leave users guessing?

For the past three months, Apple support has told many Mac Pro owners (me included) they knew nothing of widespread sleep issues. I suppose it would be bad form to admit you solved a problem that you previously refused to acknowledge.

I have never understood why Apple so often denies issues that affect thousands of users.

Sometimes if the issues are severe enough and generate significant Web chatter Apple will make amends publicly, as with the MacBook random shutdown and discolored palm rest incidents in 2006. Even then, affected customers were told only to “contact AppleCare for service.”

But in many cases, particularly problems that it can fix with a software or firmware update, Apple never admits anything.

Perhaps the company fears bad publicity would follow from admitting to its problems. After all, one of Apple’s Mac marketing angles is superior reliability over Windows PCs.

But you don’t retain the customer loyalty by jerking them around when things go wrong.

Apple might worry that owning up to its product flaws will damage its reputation for quality, and maybe it would a little, but that couldn’t be worse than the damage the denials are doing to the relationship with its customers.

Honesty, on the other hand, would build trust between the Apple and its customers. People are more likely to forgive problems with a product if the company that makes it resolves those problems quickly and fairly.

It’s virtually impossible to build technically sophisticated products such as those Apple makes without suffering a few mishaps here and there. Product flaws are not a sin, but ignoring them is.

Apple would be far better off coming clean whenever such issues arise. If a software update can rectify an issue, just tell us you’re aware of it and will have a fix out as soon as possible. If it’s a hardware problem, issue a recall – sooner rather than later.

Understand me, I’m thrilled that Apple has fixed my Mac Pro. I just wish Apple could be more candid with its loyal customers.

Is that asking too much?

The data on planned purchases among U.S. consumers and businesses shows Apple with steady numbers and those of its competitors, chiefly Dell and Hewlett-Packard, declining.

Rather than surveying the population at random, ChangeWave takes its samples from among its own 15,000-member “alliance.” It also conducts similar surveys at regular intervals, providing historical data for comparison.

Apple’s numbers are essentially flat from the last survey taken in January (see charts). The most encouraging news is that in the consumer segment, respondents saying they plan to buy a Mac are up more than 50 percent from the March 2007 survey.

Now compare those numbers with Dell’s numbers. Dell laptops are down 2 percent and desktops 4 percent with consumers (32 percent for desktops, 28 percent for laptops. As recently as January 2007, 44 percent of consumers were planning to get a Dell desktop and 34 percent a Dell laptop.

Planned business purchases have fallen to an all-time low (32 percent for laptops and 32 percent for desktops). At its peak in August 2005 Dell’s numbers were 45 percent for desktops and 40 percent for laptops.

HP’s numbers also showed an overall downward trend, particularly in the consumer space, where they’ve dropped from 27 percent for laptops and 28 percent for desktops last March to 19 percent for laptops and 18 percent for desktops in the just-released survey.

Assuming ChangeWave’s data is indicative of general buying patterns, Apple’s earnings should hold steady through the current challenging economic environment. And the Mac’s U.S. market share should continue to rise this year in the periodic IDC and Gartner reports.

Other findings in the ChangeWave survey:

Leopard rules, Vista drools: Of the corporate respondents using the Mac OS X Leopard operating system, 53 percents said they were “very satisfied” with it compared with 40 percent for Windows XP Pro and a sad 8 percent for Windows Vista Business. Linux beat both flavors of Windows with 44 percent.

The survey also asked corporations about their plans to adopt Vista. Only 18 percent said they were not planning to “slow adoption of Vista,” while 26 percent they were “somewhat likely” or “very likely” to slow adoption of Microsoft’s newest version of Windows. And a remarkable 43 percent said they had no plans to adopt Vista in the next 12 months.

If Apple successfully breaches the enterprise market with the iPhone, it might ponder pitching Macs to businesses. The sort of widespread rejection of Vista evident in the ChangeWave survey could encourage corporations to consider the Mac alternative just as consumers have.

Mac desktops surge: In the portion of the survey covering PCs purchased in the previous 90 days, Mac desktops showed stunning strength among consumers, with 21 percent saying they had bought a desktop Mac. Not only did Mac desktops gain 5 percentage points from January, the number tripled – yes, tripled – from March 2007. (The Mac laptop percentage among consumers dropped 1 point to 16 percent.)

And a bit of bad news: While most of the data in the ChangeWave survey is positive for Apple, I found one troubling anomaly. Alone among PC manufacturers, Apple’s numbers in the segment in which respondents report which brand of PC they purchased in the previous 90 days tend to be about half what they are in the planned purchases segment.

For example in the November survey, 29 percent of consumers said they’d buy a Mac laptop in the next 90 days but in the current survey only 16 percent did so. The desktop numbers are closer (29 percent planned, 21 percent bought), but it’s still a significant gap.

Such discrepancies don’t appear in the data on other PC manufacturers. Back in November 31 percent of consumers said they’d buy a Dell desktop in the next 90 days; in the current survey 28 percent said they did in fact buy a Dell desktop.

The laptop numbers are almost spot on: 28 percent said they planned to purchase a Dell laptop in November; in the current survey 27 percent said they did.

Apparently, potential Mac buyers are more likely to change their minds than potential buyers of other brands. But why?

Did they see ads for bottom-of-the-barrel PCs and conclude Macs cost too much? Are they Windows users fearful of making the switch? Or is it something else?

Whatever the cause, it would behoove Apple to invest some effort in figuring it out. Those lost customers translate to lost market share, lost revenue and lost profits.

My source is not a secret informant from deep inside one of the companies or a parts supplier in a distant nation – the sources of most Apple rumors. This information came up in a casual conversation with a salesman at a RadioShack store.

I had gone to get the batteries in my cordless phones replaced when I noticed the displays for the various cell phone providers, including one for AT&T. As the salesman was digging for my replacement batteries, I half-jokingly asked him when the store would be getting the iPhone.

To my surprise, he answered seriously. “They told us we were getting them in January,” he replied, “But we haven’t seen any yet.” He suggested he still expects to see iPhones in his RadioShack at some point.

True, this guy is at the bottom of the communication chain and could have been mistaken. But my sense was that the promise he had heard came from an authoritative source.

Since I’m already living on the edge today, let’s look at whether selling the iPhone at RadioShacks makes sense.

It’s not such a ridiculous notion. In addition to the existing relationship with AT&T, RadioShack currently sells Apple’s line of iPods.

As for incentives, RadioShack would love to offer the iPhone. It’s a sexy product of the sort RadioShack has in very short supply and would help generate traffic into the struggling chain’s stores. People coming to shop for an iPhone might buy some of that other odd electronic clutter you find there.

The more puzzling question is why Apple (or AT&T, for that matter) would feel the need to add RadioShack to the iPhone distribution channel.

It could be a simple numbers game. Apple sells the iPhone through its 170-plus U.S. Apple Stores, strategically located in high-end malls but not necessarily convenient for everyone. AT&T sells the iPhone through 1,800 of its retail locations.

But RadioShack has nearly 6,000 stores in the United States and 800 wireless phone kiosks. Putting RadioShack on the iPhone team would make it more convenient for more people to buy an iPhone (well, in the U.S. anyway).

Apple’s motive for partnering with RadioShack is its ambitious sales goals for the iPhone. The company’s objective is to sell 10 million iPhones in 2008; adding 6,800 locations could help a little.

That also would fit in with Apple’s aggressive iPhone marketing strategies. Recall the six months of hype before anyone could even buy the product. Recall the rollout just months later into the United Kingdom, Germany and France. Recall the recent release of the iPhone SDK to permit developers to write software for the iPhone.

And Apple’s move to give the iPhone corporate-compatible features to attract enterprise customers is almost shockingly out of character for a company that has for years willfully ignored business customers.

RadioShack selling iPhones? Crazier things have happened.