A big part of the recent debate over Apple pricing and that alleged Apple Tax is whether Apple is forcing you to pay for loads of options that you don’t want. This is certainly the most significant argument about the whole issue, because even if a comparably equipped Mac and PC are similar in price, it doesn’t matter if Apple isn’t building the computer that best suits your personal requirements.

This is one of the reasons why I suggested a possible business configuration. Now it’s clear to me that it’s far cheaper for Apple to supply Bluetooth and Wi-Fi preinstalled on the logic boards, and the extra money you pay is probably not a large figure. If you had to buy specialty daughter cards to get these features, Apple would have to design and test separate components along with an interface that allowed them to connect properly. It would mean that the majority of people who want one or both would end up paying more for their new Macs.

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There is an unfortunate impression, no doubt one that Microsoft strives hard to convey, that the Mac OS and Windows are just two fairly comparable ways of doing the same thing, only the Mac OS is prettier. That may be why the arrival of the Aero eye candy on Windows Vista and 7 were both greeted with such enthusiasm by Windows fandom. After all, now they could claim to possess the same fancy visual effects offered on a Mac.

Unfortunately imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but it doesn’t mean that the knock off is anywhere near as good as the original, or even close. But this isn’t a Windows bashing session. It’s a reality session. You see, I’d very much like to see Windows compete in terms of quality with the Mac OS. Healthy competition is good for the soul, and especially for the customers. Unfortunately, here’s where Microsoft falls down on the job big time.

You see, holding a vast majority of the operating system market doesn’t mean Microsoft builds the best product. If you used that logic, such as it is, McDonalds would have the finest food on the planet since it’s the most popular restaurant.

Microsoft’s usual excuse when they deliver junk is to promise something akin to “don’t worry, we’ll get it right next year.” If that’s true, why did they release an inferior product in the first place? Why not wait until they were able to deliver the real thing? Do they truly expect customers to simply accept more mediocrity when there are better alternatives available?

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All right, a new report from the NPD Group says that 48% of the retail dollars spent on personal computers in the U.S. now goes to Apple. However, that doesn’t add up to a 48%% market share by any means, because of the price of admission. But, folks, I still maintain there is no Apple Tax.

So how does Apple gain such a huge percentage of the money? Well, obviously, the average price of a Mac is way higher than the average price of a PC. Without going into the numbers specifically, the answer why is obvious: Apple won’t play in the cheap PC playground, because they don’t think it’s worth it.

You have to wonder just what Apple is thinking here and why it’s not going for the jugular in the alleged battle to the death with Microsoft, but the answers are crystal clear. Despite the fact that such industry giants as Dell and HP sell way more units than Apple, the latter makes higher profits and has loads of cash in the bank. So who can argue with that?

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It’s sometimes hard to believe that AT&T was once this huge telecommunications conglomerate that encompassed the entire length and breadth of the U.S. before an antitrust action separated Big Bell into Baby Bells. Well, mergers and acquisitions have fattened what was left of AT&T and Verizon, and left smaller players on the fringes. Qwest, another Baby Bell, continues to struggle to justify its existence.

However, AT&T and Verizon Wireless have mostly kept their hands off each other when it comes to advertising. Verizon stresses its network quality, where AT&T has the iPhone, and there’s always “an app for that” to buttress their claims of superiority.

More recently, Verizon has decided to go for the jugular and is attacking AT&T as the result of its well-known network shortcomings. So you know that Verizon has a much larger 3G network footprint when it comes to square miles of coverage, whereas they actually reach around 20% more people overall. However, their recent “there’s a map for that” campaign leaves the AT&T coverage map mostly blank, conveying the misleading impression that the competition has no coverage whatever in most of the country.

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