Apple tops PC industry in consumer satisfaction

When it comes to consumer satisfaction from consumers, Apple remains atop the PC heap, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

Apple has slipped 1 percent during the past year, but maintained a 12 percent lead over Dell, one of the largest gaps between first and second place for any industry.

Dell's position remained the same, while Acer's Gateway brand rose 3 percent in consumer satisfaction. Hewlett-Packard inched up 1 percent and its Compaq division jumped 6 percent.

Overall consumer sentiment of the PC industry nudged up 1 percent after two years of declines, which had been attributed to user problems with the Windows Vista operating system. The uptick is tied to a decision by notebook makers to swap out Vista with the older Windows XP operating system, said David VanAmburg, managing director of the index, which is based on 10,000 random phone interviews and published by the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.

He called Apple's 1 percent drop statistical "noise" that did not mean any shifts in consumer attitudes about the Cupertino-based maker of Macintosh computers, which has enjoyed a large lead over the makers of Windows-based machines for six years. VanAmburg attributed Apple's long-running success to the quality of its products and the company's face-to-face interactions with customers through its retail stores.

Google continued to dominate in consumer satisfaction in the online search industry, gaining 3 percent to hold a 12 percentage point higher ranking than Yahoo.