The Empire Strikes Back. Again.

Ten per cent maximum - absolute maximum - of the market does not an evil empire make. Photo / Supplied

I still find it ironic and amusing that some people react to Apple as the evil empire. Ten per cent maximum of the market does not an evil empire make - and I acknowledge that figure is hotly disputed; it would probably be the absolute maximum, if it were so.

For years, us Mac users were pariahs to the larger world of those beige box users running Windows - now we're supposed to be members of an oppressive hegemony.

It's simply ridiculous, just as it's ridiculous to brand Apple as some kind of evil monopoly. Even at present rates of growth, it would be a long, long time before Apple hit the 90 per cent-plus figure Microsoft enjoyed for Windows.

But I guess it's exactly that. It's Apple's growth that's really scaring people.

One computing category has definitely suffered directly from Apple. I remember a half-year ago, in this blog, people commented that netbooks were great, and that Apple could never challenge their usefulness and growth or make a decent version. An Apple offering simply wouldn't cut it.

Then the iPad came out. It's not even a 'netbook', really. It's something else.

Regardless, it looks like the iPad has had a cooling effect on the netbook sector. ASUS CEO Jerry Shen, speaking at an investors' conference last week, said his company has lowered its Q3 targets - but Q3 is the traditional biggest-sellling period for netbooks due, mostly, to students looking for low-cost, portable computing.

Shen remained committed to the Eee PC line but then reassured investors that ASUS would compete with Apple in the tablet space with its 'Eee Pad', which will now have Android, Windows 7 and Windows Embedded Compact 7 variants. (Got to love that name for an operating system! WEC7, anyone?)

The first Eee Pads don't start ship until December, giving Apple eight months to get well ahead.

Well ahead? Oh, too late. Apple has already outsold ASUS' combined spring and summer shipments because 3.27 million iPads have shipped worldwide. This number is expected to grow - Apple faces seven-to-ten-day shipping delays and retail shortages, despite having significantly increased production. (One reason is much greater than expected adoption by the elderly. Go Apple!)

Of course, it may just mean netbook demand is plateauing as the platform matures, but may also reflect a growing dissatisfaction with the category compared to slick tablets like the iPad, reckons Electronista.

And despite all that the anti-iPhone 4 rhetoric, it's still selling by the container load. Just try and get your hands on one. I've only even seen one, myself.

That represents satisfied iPhone 4 customers, surely?

For Macs, Apple has managed to further widen the gap in the quality of its over-the-phone technical support. For first half of 2010, Apple has a 21 per cent lead in overall satisfaction with help versus its nearest rival, HP, and an even wider lead over Dell.

Meanwhile, back-to-school sales of computers are slowing for vendors all over the northern hemisphere.

Except for Apple.

UBS analyst Maynard Um reported last week that checks at stores and with staff showed that most stores were only seeing a 'mild' bump in sales from students, while the heavy traffic was at Apple retail stores where the iPhone 4 and iPad were responsible for lineups. The new, more powerful iMacs, which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, are also seeing strong demand.

Retailers over here still say they can basically sell any Macs they can get their hands on.

Maynard Um anticipated a drop in PC sales, reckoning on 9.7 per cent for the whole industry, versus the usual 12 per cent for this season.

In five years, Apple has switched places with Dell as the student laptop of choice. Seventy per cent of incoming US university freshman students are showing up with Macs. That's up 10 per cent-15 per cent year-on-year.

This was reported by Fortune (aka CNN Money).

Apple is expected to be the only computer builder targeting home users that succeeds - most of Windows' success is expected from enterprise.

So what's the reaction? The usual.

Microsoft posted a new web page filled with comparisons. The company believes Windows PCs are better for having fun, simplicity, working hard, sharing, compatibility and choice.

Sure. If you have the time to work out problems and you want to save a hundred or two, and you don't mind anti-virus software and updates, get a boring box with Windows on it. No problems there.

If you'd rather have something that looks attractive, is easy to use, doesn't get viruses, can run Windows anyway and is much more powerful than you'd think at first glance, full of premium software, and that can run Office anyway; there's an alternative which also has a good eco rating.

And by the way, most files on Macs are compatible with most files on PCs. That would not have been true 15 years ago. Microsoft, get over it.

You pays yer money ...

Talking about money, Dell's offerings are well-priced, aren't they? In its latest campaign, Dell goes for a side-by-side comparison of the price of Apple computers to its own.

Comparing the Dell Studio 15 with the MacBook Pro 15-inch, Dell makes the claim to offer its machine at US$950 per pop, while Apple charges US$2199 for its offering.

But the Dell ships with a 1.73GHz chip (2.93GHz Turbo Mode). Apple's has 2.66GHz chip. And Dell pits its lowest-end machine up against the top-priced Apple variant in its Apples for Apples campaign. It's good for a laugh, if you know anything about anything.

But it's not just hardware makers - software giant Adobe is having a go, too. Adobe's CEO Shantanu Narayen, speaking to the Telegraph, said "We believe in open systems. We believe in the power of the internet and in customers making choices and I think a lot of the controversy was about *their decision at that point," Narayen said. "They've made their choice. We've made ours and we've moved on." (*Apple.)

This sounds ridiculous to me. For I have a long memory. Adobe used to have the only real publishing font technology in the world. So Apple teamed up with Microsoft to release TrueType, which was cross platform. It was also significantly cheaper. Adobe's directors were apoplectic. So were the guys on the ground. I was once almost frogmarched from an Auckland Adobe vending prepress house for mentioning a magazine might have a TrueType font in it!

Adobe is still miffed that Apple won't support Flash in iOS. I can see both sides - Adobe has invested a lot in Flash. But HTML is faster and shows video transitions better. It's higher resolution and scalable.

Adobe also sits on the HTML5 board (it's Open Source) so the benefits are clear to Adobe - but it has a Flash investment to guard. Security is one area where Adobe's Flash is ahead, but some developers moan that its buggy, slow and inconsistent. So maybe Flash is already in the pan.

We'll just have to wait and see what comes from all this - it wouldn't surprise me if Adobe engineers already sit down with Apple engineers and talk about a Flash version that works for iOS, just as Adobe DreamWeaver is already totally effective at coding HTML5.

Meanwhile, more and more people are switching to Apple Macs. If you're one of them, and you'd like to see some of the power underneath that deceptively simple Apple interface, check out the CreativeTech offerings on Saturday 11th September at AUT. The whole day is geared to appeal to 'mom and dad' Apple users, those new to Mac, kids, musicians - and switchers.

- Mark Webster mac-nz.com