In theory, respectable newspapers devote a small amount of space to correct errors. When it’s an online news outlet, posts can be easily modified, and, when appropriate, the nature of the correction would be highlighted or explained in an addendum to the post.Unfortunately, there are far too many members of the press these days who, out of laziness, a blatant disregard for facts or for reasons unknown, choose to repeat the same falsehoods over and over again. You can correct them day and night, and it will make no difference.

Once they write the words the first time, they become immutable. They cannot be changed, ever, and to hell with the facts.

Now I have written rants from time to time about the unfair coverage Apple often gets from certain elements of the media. But I don’t want to take the paranoid point of view, that the press is out to get Apple and/or Steve Jobs. It’s just that some have certain agendas that may simply stem from a desire to get higher circulations or hint counts. They might even regard a few paragraphs of pithy, if totally incorrect, comments as having some sort of entertainment value. One of the worst offenders in the entertainment arena is John Dvorak, and he’s not entertaining — at least to me.

Sure, you might get a few yucks from a clever turn of phrase, but tech journalism isn’t akin to writing for a sitcom, or maybe some of these writers produce movie and TV scripts part time. Being out of work for now, till the Writer’s Guild strike is settled, they forgot how to separate facts from fiction.

Well, I’m not entirely serious about that, but I do have my suspicions from time to time. At least Apple is no longer the beleaguered company, although I still think some pundits who gave up that catch phrase are still tempted to invoke it again at the slightest inkling that something Apple is doing isn’t entirely successful.

Story continued in this week’s Tech Night Owl Newsletter.

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One of the biggest dangers of the pre-Expo feeding frenzy that surrounds Apple Inc. more and more these days is that it’s nearly impossible for the company to fulfill the financial community’s hopes and dreams.

No matter what the company does, some people way just say it’s just not enough. Now last year was an exception, because, with the unveiling of the iPhone, Apple introduced a whole new platform, or at least new for the company. The looks and interface were striking enough to impress both analysts and regular folk alike, and that contributed to the unexpectedly high sales figures out of the starting gate and throughout the rest of the year.

Sure, there are a few less truthful tech writers who claimed that Apple cut the price by some $200 because sales hadn’t met internal expectations, but that’s clearly untrue since the magic one million sales figure was reached just a few days later. And those alleged journalists still haven’t apologized for their gross misstatements, which is quite typical.

Already there are claims that Apple may not have met expectations for Mac sales during the December quarter, although preliminary reports indicate they are up 30% over last year. That, may I remind you, is way ahead of the industry average.

I suppose they want Apple to always walk on water, and if they end up taking a boat instead, something is wrong in Cupertino and the stock market price must tank appropriately.

Now it’s perfectly true that the shaky state of the U.S. economy, partly the result of problems with sub-prime mortgages and insanely high oil prices, is enough to cause the bear market. So perhaps the drop in Apple’s stock price from its historic high of $200 was to be expected regardless of the outcome of the Steve Jobs keynote. There was, perhaps, little Apple could do to pop up its stock price.

Of course next week, when they reveal their actual quarterly financials, you may see the stock reverberate appropriately, depending on the nature of the information. Apple had an optimistic guidance, and Wall Street has added to the figures, so it may be a blowout quarter regardless. How much of a blowout is anyone’s guess, and only Apple knows for sure right now. If it’s perceived as not quite enough, well, the stock price will remain stagnant or renew a downward trend.

Or maybe it’ll just happen for no reason at all.

In fairness to Apple, too much romanticism and expectation is invested in the company. If every single new product isn’t an absolute home run, well, they are losing their mojo. At least that’s the theory.

However, it’s a theory seems absurd on its face. Whether the products are perceived as classy or dull isn’t as important as how they actually sell. Certainly the Cube was thought of as something trend-setting because of its unusual shape and carefully delineated molded plastics. But it was overpriced and sales were mediocre.

It’s not that Steve Jobs won’t admit when a product isn’t succeeding. Take the Apple TV, which had a tepid reception in 2007. He got his crew to reinvigorate the gadget with new software and the ability to mate with a TV and let you buy and rent movies and music without the need of a PC. To drive the point home, they are making the new features available as a free update for existing users and also cut the price by $70.

Then again, most anything Apple produces can be controversial. The iPhone was faulted because there was no initial support for third-party software, a status quo that’ll be remedied next month. Now the MacBook Air is being faulted because it has a sealed battery, limited peripheral ports and no internal optical drive, let alone Ethernet.

The question that should be asked about Apple’s thin and light notebook, however, is whether it’s suited to the market for which it is designed, and that’s probably the committed road warrior, plus folks who just want to make a fashion statement. A product of this sort requires certain design tradeoffs. By providing external support for an optical drive and wired networking, Apple is allowing you to have it both ways but still have something that’s slim and light.

The real concern, though, is whether such a thin design is breakable in the field. After all, notebook computers are guaranteed a rough life. How will the delicate-looking MacBook Air sustain daily use and abuse. I have no idea, but it doesn’t hurt to buy an extended warranty with any notebook.

Personally, I think that Wall Street ought to be pleased that Apple is moving along nicely, thank you. What do you readers think?

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When you depart from a Steve Jobs keynote, it’s usually hard to keep from smiling, and the same holds true, in large part, when you watch the QuickTime playback stream, although you aren’t sharing the “reality distortion field” experience with thousands of fellow Mac users and tech pundits.

Either way, you will probably come down to Earth soon enough, though, and then you begin to pick apart the nagging elements of the keynote and the new products that don’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. Sure, you might understand the reasoning behind the decisions, but that doesn’t necessarily make it right.

Take the MacBook Air — please! I can see where it may be fun to have a mostly-functional notebook computer that’ll fit comfortably into a manila envelope and all. It’s also nice to know that Apple has discovered “green,” and this ultra-thin gadget is appropriately recyclable and all.

However, I am not completely enamored with the way it all turned out. All right, I can understand why Apple ditched the built-in optical drive, Ethernet and FireWire. You can replace the first two, separately, with external USB add-ons. But the battery? Maybe — just maybe — it makes sense to have it sealed up in an iPod or an iPhone. I’m not thoroughly convinced of that either, but I’ll accept the argument that the sleek looks might suffer. But a notebook computer? If you’re designing a product for the committed road warrior, what about the concept of having a second battery in your carrying bag?

Sure, five hours battery life, assuming the Air actually fulfills that promise, is pretty decent and all. But what are you to do when it runs out of power? Do you look for an available power outlet, or get a power converter for your car, so you can charge it via the lighter socket?

I’m particularly concerned about such matters because, early on, I had to get a replacement battery for my first-generation 17-inch MacBook Pro. The original unit would die after an hour of use, even though it was supposedly fully charged. Popping in a replacement took 30 seconds. With a MacBook Air, if I had a defective battery, the whole computer would have to be returned to Apple and, according to the current claims about such matters, I’d have to wait five business days for it to be fixed and returned.

What do I do in the meantime? Postpone the business trip, rent or borrow another computer? Does Apple have any accommodation for the possibility of a defective battery? What say you, Steve?

Maybe I’m just nit-picking, but bear with me. You see, I’m only getting started.

Let’s take a look at the iTunes movie rental feature. Right now, I use Netflix. I pay a fixed amount every month and I can keep up to three DVDs at a time for as long as I want, and as they are returned, I get new ones. Other plans range from one to four DVDs. I can start watching a flick on a Monday, and finish on a Friday. There’s no danger of the disc automatically self-destructing, and no late fees.

While Apple isn’t unique in this regard, when you download a rental movie, you have 30 days to start watching, but only 24 hours once you click the play button. You may want to check a few seconds of the movie out of paranoia just to see if the file came through uncorrupted. But the clock has already started ticking, and there are 24 hours remaining before the file is vanquished.

Sure, you can just rent it all over again, but that would get unreasonably expensive and it’s certainly inconvenient.

In fairness to Apple, they had to make concessions to get all the major movie studios on board, and this egregious DRM scheme is standard operating procedure. Sure, Steve put a friendly spin on his ability to corral the studios to make deals with Apple, but at what cost?

Now nobody forces you to rent a movie from iTunes now or ever, and I can see where most of you will have little difficulty completing the movie within the 24-hour timeframe.

I do wonder, though, why the film industry is so paranoid about online sales and rentals. DVD sales are flattening and, in some instances, declining. They should take advantage of new revenue streams, but why cripple the product so severely? If the thing doesn’t take off, even in Apple’s hands, where does the blame lie?

Do I have to tell you?

The other concern is minor. Time Capsule is a sensible way to package a Wi-Fi router and a backup drive in a single box. The price is sensible too, assuming these are truly high-grade mechanisms. However, I wonder if this signals the restoration of the promised Leopard feature to be able to backup via Time Machine to a drive by way of a wireless connection. That capability was pulled at the last minute before 10.5 was released, but you clearly need it for Time Capsule to function. No, I don’t want to subscribe to the conspiracy theory that wireless backups of this sort will be limited to this single device. I’d prefer to think there’s a Leopard update in the wings that’ll address this shortcoming.

Now it’s your turn, gentle reader, to tell me what irritated you about Apple’s new product announcements and, of course, what you really liked? Do you plan to buy a MacBook Air?

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