All right, I have your attention. But I’m perfectly serious. You see, I like to get a new notebook every two years or so, which is sufficient time for the older model to seem laggard compared to the latest and greatest hardware.

So it would seem that 2008 is the right year for me to begin to do some window shopping, and not for a Windows notebook I might add. Aside from cost considerations, I have to consider what works best for my particular situation, including the features I need and the ones I can sacrifice.

Long ago, a Mac notebook had a screen of less than 10 inches, and that was a huge impediment to my workflow, particularly since my desktop Macs usually have the largest displays I can afford or acquire for extended evaluation. It’s so easy to become accustomed to a huge expanse of desktop space, and it can get quite claustrophobic when the screen real estate is reduced.

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You recall that Mac versus PC commercial, where it’s announced just how many Windows viruses were in the wild at the time, followed by the pronouncement, “but not on the Mac.”

Of course, you could subject that statement to several interpretations, such as the fact that Apple wasn’t claiming there weren’t any viruses on the Mac, just not so high a figure. Yes, I realize the statement is a little fuzzy in its meaning, and you could have a different — and equally valid — interpretation.

Another claim is that the Mac is akin to a toaster oven or perhaps a refrigerator, meaning it’s an appliance. Of course toaster ovens burn up and refrigerators go bad over time. So this is not the promise of perfection, and the claim that a Mac “just works” may also be overwrought.

Now I don’t know how many of you came to the Mac after working on Windows, or whether you must delve in multiple platforms as part of your work routine. Regardless, I wonder whether Apple’s constant claim that Macs are perfect and Windows is the pits might just be stretching the truth a little too far.

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One thing I know is that there will definitely be a successor to the original iPhone some time this year. That much came from the lips of the AT&T’s CEO, and hasn’t been disputed by Apple, although they won’t comment any further, of course.

Version 2.0 of the iPhone, expected by the summer, will apparently feature support for the faster 3G Internet networking standard, as opposed to the often poky Edge. This will mean a far more fluid, responsive online experience when you’re out of range of an available Wi-Fi base station.

Now some of you have wondered why Apple didn’t include 3G support right from the starting gate. But, no, it’s not a deep and dark conspiracy to deprive you of a significant feature, or get you to buy a new iPhone a year later. Steve Jobs has already said that the 3G chipsets available when the iPhone was designed drew too much power, meaning battery life would suffer severely. That would imply that, if it’s going to be added later this year, there is hardware available now that sips less power, or the tradeoff won’t be so significant.

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From time to time, Steve Jobs has said that certain product features were added because of lots of customer requests. Notice he never mentions the press as being the source of such changes, but wouldn’t that still make sense?

Wouldn’t you think that long-time journalists who have covered the technology industry for years ought to have some semblance of an understanding of what features might be salable and significant and what features simply won’t work in the real world?

Maybe, maybe not. I’m kind of leaning towards the latter, and I don’t regard myself as an example of the typical Mac user, for example, that Apple ought to listen to. Having been exposed to all this gear for so many years, I’m probably more of an elitist — make that a financially-poor elitist — and my tastes don’t necessarily reflect the mass market.

So let’s look over the years, particularly during the time when Apple was an allegedly beleaguered company, and what the pundits were telling the company to do. And, worse, when Apple actually listened to them once upon a time.

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