Hey, are you satisfied? Because apparently the odds are pretty good that you are. See, you're tuned into an Apple-flavored online soap opera right now, and unless you're here because you're looking for good prices on "applet urns" (our condolences on the passing and subsequent cremation of your favorite Java applet if you are), that strongly implies that you're a user of Apple's products and/or services. And if you're an Apple customer, a recent study by the University of Michigan shows that you're probably more satisfied than purchasers of any other computers out there. (Yes, we know that probably comes as a great shock. Try not to swallow your tongue.)

Obviously we hardly need a university study to tell us that Mac users are a generally satisfied lot; dissatisfied customers rarely, for example, tattoo corporate logos into their flesh. Still, it's nice to have that satisfaction quantified on occasion, and faithful viewer Andy Van Buren forwarded us an IDG News article which reports that, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, "customer satisfaction with the PC industry has rebounded as vendors have renewed their focus on support and made PC technology easier to set up and use"-- but of all the vendors profiled, "Apple was the only company that received high marks for both quality and support." In fact, Apple's overall score was 81 out of 100, which doesn't sound all that hot to us, but we're assured that it's the highest score that any vendor received. By comparison, Dell came in second place with a 79 (Mike Dell is ascending the clock tower stairs with a rifle as we speak), and Hewlett-Packard and Compaq brands both scored below average (71 and 69 respectively).

Personally, though, we find the most interesting-- and surprising-- stat to emerge from this study to be a fact pointed out by MacMinute: Apple "has advanced from a position of being last in the personal computer industry in customer satisfaction (1998, ACSI score 69) to the top industry position today (ACSI score 81, a 17 percent improvement)." Professor Claes Fornell, the director of the ASCI, is impressed: "I don't think we have ever seen a company go from last to first in the ACSI." And while we're all for meteoric improvement, we just have to say-- 69?! We don't recall Apple being particularly horrendous in 2002, and certainly not scary enough to score a 69. After all, that's a Compaq score, ya know?

Well, there was that eMac problem with the screens, we suppose. And those iMacs with messed-up logos. And we seem to recall hearing something about a PowerBook that drugged its owner, surgically harvested both of his kidneys, and left him lying in an ice-filled hotel bathtub with a phone and a note to call 911. Whatever-- we're just glad that, these days, Apple's back on top of the customer satisfaction game. Fornell says it's because of Apple's "focus on innovation and improving tech support." We figure it's more because of the free pizza with every Mac purchase, but that's just a hunch; we suppose it could be the free beer, instead.