In a recent survey among Ft. Lauderdale computer services, Apple scored highly in the reliability, tech support, and repair categories.

This is an opinion survey and not necessarily scientific. But a third-party computer repair company also puts Apple in the top spot in terms of reliability among major manufacturers.

What are the companies measured by?

The company doing the research has created what it calls a reliability index for each manufacturer, based on the percentage of service calls for each manufacturer's products made to Ft. Lauderdale computer repair firms compared to the average market share for each manufacturer.

Through various analyses using this method, Apple routinely finished in the top spot, with the percentage of computer repair calls hovering around one of its market share (independently estimated around 5 percent).

It should be noted that these are only the results of one third-party Fort Lauderdale computer repair company's survey.

Data may be largely incomplete. It does not take into account, for one example, the possibility that an individual with a new computer or one that's still under warranty would contact AppleCare first.

This makes it difficult to tell if there are more repairs needed as a whole on Apples, or simply as reported by one organizations.

In short, it means good things for Apple users, but it hardly answers the PC-Mac debate conclusively.

Even if not under warranty, knowledgeable tech-savvy people or local Fort Lauderdale computer repair centers may be enlisted.

Like any make and model you may still encounter problems with repairs, security problems and programming bugs on Apple products.

Essentially, survey results may say Apple has great overall reliability, and that by and large could be true. But take with a grain of salt any data that serves merely as a subset of the reliability question as a whole.