When Apple announced the first drop in iPhone sales since the gadget first premiered in 2007, you would have thought the company was in deep trouble. Predictably, the stock price dropped, even though Apple remained highly profitable, and had total revenues to die for. It didn’t help that sales for the iPad continued to fall and Mac sales were relatively flat.

I won’t dwell on the fact that Amazon, a Wall Street darling, seldom delivers large profits and has had many years of red ink. Tesla? Don’t get me started! Apple lives in a universe all its own, it seems, and it must deliver endless growth for the rest of time or risk being declared irrelevant. It must answer to a higher standard.

Now if it were 20 years ago, the critics might have had a point. In the previous year, the then-beleaguered company acquired NeXT, Inc., a firm founded by Steve Jobs, which had delivered a working industrial strength operating system. Apple couldn’t build one of their own, despite trying for several years, and thus went shopping in a fairly public way for someone else’s.

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Do you remember what they said about the iPhone 7? It would be a boring upgrade, mostly because it would look the same as the iPhone 6s. So how could it offer anything significant? But it’s not that a rectangle with circular corners comprises all the functionality of a smartphone, obviously. Apple could have, I suppose, made some big changes in the look of the new model, put nothing different inside, and gotten great reviews.

But what about making it water-resistant? What about the improved camera, faster performance and all the other changes? Minor? Compared to any previous iPhone?

Supposedly the “real” changes will happen with the rumored 10th anniversary iPhone 8 this fall. It will receive all softs of changes that would make it the biggest update ever. So if you don’t need a new smartphone, I suppose, perhaps hold on for another year and buy a more expensive iPhone with great new features.

That was then, this is now.

Apple’s critics are now suggesting that the rumored changes for the next iPhone are nothing special either. An edge-to-edge OLED display? Wireless charging, 3D sensors? These are some of the rumored enhancements, along with using more glass rather than aluminum? Isn’t that going to be the upgrade to die for?

Well, maybe not, because the critics are now reminding us of the obvious. Other smartphones already feature edge-to-edge OLED screens, wireless charging, 3D, etc. Such features have been around for a while, so if Apple adds them too, they would be late to the party. It’s not innovation to copy what Samsung and other companies are doing.

Of course, there are a few assumptions implicit in the skepticism. Some point to the claim that the OLED displays would be “high resolution,” which has little meaning since existing iPhone displays are “Retina” capable. After a certain number of pixels, you can’t separate them at a normal viewing distance, even though a number of Android handsets have even more pixels for bragging rights.

Forgotten is that you need a more powerful graphics processor to move the extra pixels you cannot see, which can slow down performance. Sure enough, many Android handsets, even those boasting specs beyond that of an iPhone, do not match Apple’s gadget in the real world.

But they may indeed seem sharper because Android evidently handles text in a fashion closer to the Windows ClearType scheme, meaning sharper edges. This was an argument voiced long ago against the Mac, since Apple uses a smoothing technology that makes text more readable, even if it seems less sharp under high magnification. So reviewers of Android gear, who aren’t paying attention, will mention the impression of a sharper image as if it is the result of having more pixels. It’s  not.

The real OLED advantages may include a wider viewing angle, deeper blacks and no doubt more power efficiencies. These are differences you can see, and Apple is expected to deliver a product with more accurate color. Existing gear from Samsung and others offer artificially rich color in addition to the too-sharp text.

But what about the wireless charging? Apple has patented some methods, but that doesn’t guarantee that any of them will appear soon in a retail product. As it is, existing wireless charging technology — which is definitely nothing new with any smartphone maker — involves placing the device on top of a charging plate of some sort. Is this is more efficient than just plugging it into something with a cable? After all, the charging plate or strip itself has to be connected to something via a cable, so where’s the benefit?

Now if Apple could perfect a true wireless charging technology where the iPhone doesn’t have to touch anything, without unfortunate side effects, that might be something worth touting. While some will disagree, I could care less about the sort of wireless charging that’s already being used.

Rather than debate unannounced features in an unannounced product, isn’t it interesting to see how some elements of the media are contradicting themselves. First they attack the changes in the iPhone 7, most of which they knew nothing about until Apple announced them, while touting the alleged advantages of the next year’s model.

But now that the rumors of the 2017 iPhone have gained more intensity, it’s being denigrated as being saddled with features that other handset makers have had for years. Apple just can’t win.

If the iPhone 8 is what they say it is, nothing Apple can do will satisfy the critics. The OLED display may be far and away better than anyone else’s, and it won’t matter. They had OLED first. The possible use of wireless charging won’t matter, because other companies have done that too. It won’t matter if Apple finds a better way.

Now those who have followed Apple for any length of time will realize it’s not always first with a new feature. It’s more about taking that feature, making sure it’s perfected, and then putting an Apple slant on it. That is something not easily explained to the “specs first” crowd.

But now you see how an inkling of how the next iPhone will be regarded. So wait for an iPhone 8s or iPhone 9 instead. You can keep waiting and some people will never be satisfied.

Typical of Apple’s iOS releases, users of iPhones and iPads upgrade in droves, with hundreds of millions running the upgrade within just a few months. So according to data from the App Store that’s available to developers, as of February 20, Apple reports that 79% of these devices have been upgraded to iOS 10 so far.

In contrast, the iOS 9 adoption rate hit 77% over roughly the same period. But what’s most important about its successor is that tens of millions of devices aren’t supported. There will always be a residue of gear that cannot upgrade, which makes the numbers even more impressive.

So iOS 10 requires an iPhone 5 or later, an iPad mini 2 or later, and an iPad 4th generation or later. Obviously all iPad Airs and Pros, more recent products, are eligible for the update.

A third-party web tracking company, Mixpanel Trends, lists the adoption rate at 88%, but that might be pushing it.

Now as iOS updates go, I haven’t read as many complaints about this release, although there have been regular maintenance updates to fix this, that and the other thing. There were positive changes to Maps, Messages and Siri, and other enhancements that made it a more useful upgrade for many.

What this does, year after year, is demonstrate the value of Apple’s control of its own platform. It means that wireless carriers cannot intercept or delay the update process. They cannot stuff your iPhone with junkware. It’s the sort of control Apple insisted on from the very first day the iPhone went on sale, and it took awhile, and unexpected success, for the carriers to get the message and agree to a no-touch policy with these smartphones.

In contrast, all those smartphones from Samsung and other manufacturers can be customized — or messed up — by both handset makers and carriers. You cannot even be assured of getting the latest and greatest version of Android, and I won’t mention any other mobile OS since they have been reduced to insignificance.

So in contrast, the most popular Android OS right now is Android 5 Lollipop, released in the fall of 2015, which has an estimated adoption rate of 29.93%, according to Mixpanel Trends. The second most popular is Android 4.4 KitKat, released in 2014, with a market share of 14.99%. Most OS versions are consigned to the “Other” category, with Android Nougat installed on a mere 1.2% of active Android gear, according to other web metrics. That is absolutely pathetic.

Supposedly, security updates can be sent separately along with Google Play store releases, which is meant to lessen the problems resulting from running older operating systems. Imagine that you can buy a brand new Android smartphone, the latest and greatest, and have no assurance it runs the latest Android OS, or that you will ever be able to upgrade during its entire lifetime. Or if you are, you must wait for manufacturers to first test it with their own bloatware, and send it on to the carrier who does the same. If and when both occur, you may be lucky to receive your update.

Getting macOS Sierra’s adoption rate is not quite as easy. They are usually compared to the entire PC market, rather than Macs in general, but I’ll go with that.

So according to web metrics for January from Net Applications, Sierra had a 2.75% share of the global PC market. It’s predecessor, El Capitan had a 1.73% share of the market.

The more interesting statistic is Windows adoption. So Windows 10, released in July of 2015, has a 25.3% share. That means that most PCs are using older operating systems. So Windows 7, released in the summer of 2009, is still on 47.25% of the PCs currently in use. Windows 8.1 has 6.9%. Windows XP, released in 2001, not long after the very first release version of OS X appeared, is installed on 9.17% of the PCs still being used.

That is troublesome, since it presents all sorts of security issues that makes these computers absolutely dangerous to run, unless they are kept in a very restricted environment. But you’ll still find them at business offices, believe it or not, despite the fact that Microsoft stopped supporting XP years ago.

Worse, when you total those numbers, it means more computers are running XP than all Macs currently in use. That is troubling!

In any case, Apple clearly has found the way to encourage its users to upgrade their operating systems within months of release. By the time iOS 11 and Sierra’s successors are out, very few eligible devices will not be using these operating systems. Over that time, Apple will have released a number of updates to make iOS 10 and macOS Sierra more reliable, with a selection of fascinating new features.

By far the most interesting one, by the way, is the switch to the new Apple File System (APFS), which is currently included with iOS 10.3 betas. It is faster, more secure, with features that are expected to provide the base for Apple to begin its next phase of OS innovation. macOS Sierra includes a beta version of APFS, which, for various reasons, is really only for developers and not yet meant for general use, so it’s not installed. I expect it will go into general release with Sierra’s successor.

Apple didn’t deliver as many product updates in 2016 as many expected. While there were new iPhones, with the surprising release of an iPhone SE to meet demand for a small handset, the Mac didn’t get a whole lot of love. The MacBook got a minor spring refresh, although the fall introduction of the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar was certainly a major upgrade as Macs go nowadays.

It was enough for some to suggest that Macs are getting short shrift at Apple. Despite the fact that the product brings in over $20 billion in annual revenues, it almost seems insignificant compared to the iPhone. Or at least that’s the theory, that Apple cares about its most popular product, but gives the rest of the lineup mostly tepid support. Then again, the Apple Watch Series 2 was a fairly significant upgrade, with faster performance, a GPS, not to mention being waterproof.

But based on that promise from Tim Cook about a promising roadmap for Mac desktops, the main question is when that’s going to happen? Will it be, as implied in the use of a plural, “desktops,” that more than one model will be involved? Will it all happen at once, or will the product updates be spread out over the year?

More to the point, will those Mac updates be significant enough to merit media events? In the past, it’s been hit or miss. A minor refresh, such as fitting a model with an updated processor, graphics and similar updates, will usually merit little more than a press release. I suspect that’ll happen for most Mac upgrades this year, with the spring bringing updates for the iMac now that Intel’s Kaby Lake processors are shipping in quad-core form. If the Mac mini receives an update, it’ll also be announced with a press release. Both may gain the new USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports and graphics powerful enough to handle at least one 5K display; probably two with the 27-inch iMac.

The big question is the Mac Pro. If Apple opts to deliver an update, after over three years of silence, will it just be a parts refresh or something more significant? The extent of that change — if it happens — will dictate how much promotion it’ll receive from Apple. But honestly I’ve been hoping for more. I think the fancy trash can shape, without the previous model’s internal expansion options, was a misfire. It was a case of form supplanting function, and I wonder how many pro users agree. Sure, having lots of external ports still leaves a fair amount of flexibility, but it generates a wiring mess of the first degree.

As to Mac notebooks, the MacBook may get a spring refresh, and the MacBook Pro will get one this fall. Neither will merit a special press event, unless shoehorned into another session. I would  hope for lower prices, but it may take another year for the latter to become cheaper.

That takes us to the growing number of stories that the iPad is due for some extra attention this year, as Apple renews its commitment to tablets.

According to a Japan-based site devoted to things Apple, Mac Okatara, the new iPads, plus some extra configurations for the iPhone SE, and the iPhone 7, will be announced at a media event some time in March. The site supposedly has contacts in the Asian supply chain and is known for fairly accurate predictions. So the report should be taken seriously, which is why it’s getting lots of coverage in the tech media.

So the upgrades will reportedly cover the existing 7.9-inch, 9.7-inch and 12.9-inch models. There will supposedly be a new configuration, with a 10.5-inch edge-to-edge display that will have virtually no screen bezel. If that’s the case, it will be roughly the same size (and likely weight) as the standard, 9.7-inch iPad. No doubt the price will be higher, and I really wonder whether it’s worth the bother. Sure, having a slightly larger display may mean something, but I can’t see where it’ll work any better than other models, except, no doubt, for having faster parts.

Some reports suggest there will be no upgrades to the iPad mini 4, which was first released in September 2015. If true, it may be that the smallest iPad continues to lose sales to the largest iPhone, and may vanish after another year or so of inaction. But it’s clear that major changes have to be made to the other iPads in light of three years of falling sales.

Other announcements reportedly will include an iPhone SE with 128GB storage, but otherwise no changes, and red versions of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. But I wonder whether Apple might choose the occasion to upgrade the iPhone SE parts. The current model, with prices starting at $399, inherits many of its components from the iPhone 6s, but placed in an iPhone 5s case. So doesn’t it deserve an update, or would Apple just cut the price another $50? Indeed, that might be the best approach, since it might attract some potential Android switchers who find the existing iPhones too expensive, and aren’t happy with larger handsets.

Then again, if Apple is going to have an early spring media event, why not also include the Mac, if updates are due? Just asking.