Meanwhile, analysts at Gartner, meanwhile, had Apple's year-over-year growth at 23%, and also put it in fifth place, behind Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Acer and Toshiba. Apple's new position is down one from the same quarter in 2008. As noted by Computerworld, the 40,000-Mac difference between the two research companies' numbers was enough for Apple to outperform the U.S. computer industry average by IDC's account, but come in under the average gain in Gartner's calculations. But even with fourth quarter gains three to four times greater than those in the third quarter, Apple's sales increases couldn't match the numbers of HP, which boosted its unit sales by 45%, and Toshiba, which grew its sales by 71%. the article adds.

"The U.S. market last quarter continued to be very price driven," according to Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa. "If a company is not in the low-priced market, it's absolutely difficult for it to increase market share. And Apple did not do as well as others in share because of its prices."

According to Kitagawa, the growth in U.S. PC sales was driven largely by low-priced notebooks and netbooks. So he thinks that Apple needs to enter this arena.

Apple won't. The closest it will come will be the rumored iPad/iTablet/iSlate. Neither will Apple release dirt cheap Macs. The company has repeatedly said it wasn't interested in releasing junk or the cheapest systems around. That's not going to change. Especially since Apple is, so far, maneuvering a tough economic climate just fine.

When people think of Apple, they think of quality. Like it or not, quality costs. Apple offers the best, most user-friendly computing experience around. And despite what some folks would like you to believe, Macs are the safest, most secure, computers. And quality is worth paying for.