It’s nice to know that the Apple Watch reportedly hit record sales in the December quarter. It was a banner year, says CEO Tim Cook, except that we can only infer actual sales by looking at the total numbers in the “Other” category in Apple’s financials. From the very beginning, Apple opted not to let us in on actual Apple Watch sales.

Now it’s that industry analysts can’t make a few educated guesses, and maybe they are right that Apple sold an estimated 5.2 million of them during the holiday quarter. Those numbers are somewhat lower than Macs, but Apple is evidently way ahead in market share. After buying out Pebble, a smartwatch pioneer, Fitbit still has to lay off 6% of its work force due to soft sales during the December quarter. Sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Gear smartwatches are collapsing.

So maybe the market isn’t huge, but Apple owns it. It almost reminds me of digital music players, where the under-appreciated iPod took on all comers and won. The real question is where the smartwatch market is going and what Apple intends to do to take us there. Sales of over five million units in a single quarter is nothing to be embarrassed about, but there has to be a long-range plan that we know nothing about.

In the meantime, I understand why people might be skeptical of what Cook has to say about the Apple Watch since he won’t reveal the actual numbers. Sure, maybe it’s partly to spook the competition, but as I said, it should be possible for outsiders to look at Apple’s financials, maybe consult some dealer surveys, and get a pretty close indication of how well it’s doing.

The suggestion by some that it’s a failure doesn’t wash. Right now it appears the rest of the market is failing.

But even when the news is bad, Cook is good at putting a positive spin on a situation. Take the iPad, where sales dipped to 13.1 million units in the holiday quarter. The iPad continues to dominate a shrinking market, and it’s not that it will go to zero in a few years. Cook says there are “exciting things coming on the iPad.” I wouldn’t dispute what he says, and it may well be that it’s not just making it thinner and lighter, and maybe adding an extra display size to the product mix.

Exciting things? How?

Well, some tech pundits suggest that the iPad ought to be able to run macOS apps, because iOS doesn’t really do much to exploit its capabilities. For many, the iPad is still just a big iPhone without the telephone, and the iPhone 7 Plus phablet may be all the tablet many need. Remember that its percentage of total iPhone sales increased during the last quarter, causing constrained supplies.

But what if Apple could make it possible to run Mac apps on an iPad? Remember, that iOS is fundamentally a fork of macOS. It’s a portable operating system that can be made to run on different processors, so I suppose it’s possible to run at least some Mac apps in an emulation mode without much of a slowdown. Just remember the Rosetta app that, for several years, allowed you to run PowerPC apps on an Intel Mac without much of a performance hit.

Of course, an app written for a mouse-driven OS without a touchscreen may be a curious mix on an iPad, but Apple might find ways for it adapt somehow. Remember that some Chromebooks can also run Android apps, so this sort of thing is not an original concept.

The real question is, however, Apple’s long game for the Mac. Now that the ability to use an ARM processor and an iOS-derivative on a MacBook Pro for the Touch Bar and Touch ID has succeeded, where does Apple take this concept? As I reported in yesterday’s column, a Bloomberg report suggested that the Power Nap feature would be an ideal candidate for similar treatment. It would make a Mac run more efficiently, particularly during idle modes, or anywhere that low-level functionality can be diverted from Intel silicon.

Is it even possible that Apple might run more and more of the macOS on ARM, and only keep Intel around for compatibility and the ability to run virtual machines? That would be a costly solution, having to pay for two processors, although Apple can supposedly make A-series chips real cheaply. One estimate I saw priced the A10 Fusion processor at $26.90. Compare that to the hundreds of dollars Apple has to pay Intel for its hardware. While the A10’s cost is not insignificant, Apple earns enough from the sale of Macs to roll it in without a huge hit. I would also suspect that Apple will continue to find ways to make these chips more cheaply over time, yet still improve performance to the level of a high-end Mac desktop.

Intel has to be real scared, but Apple’s goal appears to be directed towards making its gear do things the competition just can’t match. Or can only approximate with difficulty.

Now it’s reasonable to be skeptical of what Tim Cook says, just as you should be skeptical of any pronouncement from a corporate executive. But Apple is definitely doing some fascinating things with its custom technology. Whatever you think of the Touch Bar, the way it’s implemented, with a second processor and operating system, has to make the PC competition envious beyond belief.

As Intel gets later and later in releasing processor upgrades that offer only slight performance boosts from previous processors, the impact on Macs is obvious. New models are late not so much because Apple doesn’t care about Macs, but because of Intel’s roadmap. Sometimes Apple sticks with the previous year’s parts, which incites the critics. Regardless, benchmarks may be just a few percent better than the pervious model.

Indeed, it may take a few years before a Mac offers a significant performance upgrade compared to older gear. So why upgrade? It does appear that folks are sticking with their vintage hardware longer and longer. Indeed, even though Mac sales were up slightly in the last quarter year-over-year, Apple says more than half of the units sold went to Windows switchers. That would appear to mean that most Mac users are content with what they have.

The theory goes that Apple could do another processor switch. They’ve done it twice already; Intel replaced the PowerPC in 2006. Since Apple has managed to improve its custom ARM silicon to roughly match the speed of many Intel notebooks, how well would they do if they attempted to go all out on producing parts that worked on traditional notebooks and desktops, where power requirements are less restrictive?

Of course, a processor switch of that sort, while certainly doable, would have tradeoffs. By using Intel processors, Macs can run Windows natively in Boot Camp, and with most of the performance of a PC via a virtual machine. That is a significant sales pitch for Macs, since they can run both macOS and Windows with great performance. If Apple went to ARM, they’d have to run Intel operating systems in emulation, which would mean a potentially significant performance hit. Do you remember the days of the PowerPC?

I’m not dwelling on forcing developers to switch. Apple already delivers Xcode developer tools that build apps for both Intel and ARM hardware, so changing over may not be near as difficult as it was in previous processor switches.

By and large, however, putting developers and Mac users through such a migration probably wouldn’t make sense at this point. Apple works hard enough just keeping Mac sales relatively flat, and the cost of a migration probably isn’t justified. It’s not the same as the PowerPC, where development pretty much stalled. Intel is still actively improving its processors, even if the pace of those improvements isn’t what some would like.

At the same time, Apple’s skills with exclusive ARM silicon means they can do things that PC companies can’t do with a single processor. The Late 2016 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar features two operating systems and both intel and ARM parts.

So it uses a standard Intel Core chip, the same ones many PC makers use. But the Touch Bar and Touch ID fingerprint sensor is operated by an ARM chip apparently derived from the Apple Watch, the T1, and an operating system apparently derived from watchOS.

Now there’s a published report in Bloomberg that Apple is working on adding more Mac features to the ARM hardware, thus taking some of the load off Intel. If this story is true — and Apple is certainly not going to confirm the news unless there’s a product to announce — the new ARM processor will be known as the T310.

The T310 would reportedly be used to control a Mac’s Power Nap feature, a sleep mode on steroids. While the Mac is in low-power mode, software updates are downloaded, iCloud data is synced, email is downloaded, and other functions are handled without waking the Mac or putting a load on the Intel hardware.

So if there’s less load on the Intel hardware, battery life could be extended some, at least when the computer is idle. Very likely other hardware functions could also be passed on to the more efficient ARM processors and OS, which may maximize performance potential in some respects. I suppose there are other advantages that hardware designers could let us in on.

Now I don’t pretend to have the full picture of how this dual-processor/OS setup would work in practice. The Touch Bar may be just the first step of a long-range plan that would add extra functions in a way that couldn’t be realized near as well with Intel hardware alone. Since Apple develops its own chips and mobile OS, PC makers would have no way to compete except in a clumsy fashion. It’s not that Dell, HP or Lenovo are likely to consider building their own custom processors. It’s not that they couldn’t hire the expertise to do so. Perhaps they could poach a few Apple processor designers to get started, although it would have to be done in a way that doesn’t infringe on Apple’s many A-series chip patents.

Even if it could be accomplished, it would take years to deliver shipping products. Maybe Microsoft would try, but it’s efforts at mobile hardware with ARM silicon have been total failures. The rest of the PC industry consists of companies that build me-too hardware based on generic components. But if the Bloomberg story is true, Apple may be taking the Mac into uncharted waters in a way that vindicates its ongoing commitment to the platform..

When it comes to Wall Street estimates of Apple’s quarterly results, it can be a lose-lose situation. Regardless of how the results actually end up, there’s going to be a complaint from someone that Apple failed at delivering the goods somewhere or other, and thus is in deep trouble.

In the run-up to the official announcement, Apple’s guidance was between $76 and $78 billion. Wall Street’s estimates were within that range, except for one that projected $80 billion. But there was also an extra week of sales, 14 weeks compared to 13 weeks, so that might somehow be factored into the numbers in a less-favorable way.

The real numbers were somewhat better than expected, with revenue of $78.4 billion. Earnings per share were $3.36, and total net profit was $17.9 billion. This compares to $75.9 billion and a slightly higher profit of $18.4 billon, or $3.28 per diluted share, in the December 2015 quarter. Some of the critics might attack the lower profits, and the fact that gross margins declined slightly from 40.1 percent to 38.5 percent.

Of course most companies would be envious of either result, but this is Apple after all.

In any case, 78.3 million iPhones were sold, compared to 74.8 million last year, setting a record. But the key indicator here is that the iPhone 7 Plus was unexpectedly popular and supplies were constrained throughout the quarter. This means they might have sold more if enough stocks were available. Average sale price (ASP) thus increased to $695, also a record.

Now the ASP is particularly notable in light of a recent article citing one uninformed analyst’s contention that the ASP would go down, because an alleged unexpected number of people decided to buy an iPhone 6s or an iPhone 6s Plus. It’s clear now how this really turned out.

As expected, the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar evidently led a slight Mac sales increase, from 5.3 million units in the year-ago quarter to 5.4 million units. This is in keeping with industry surveys of sales in the PC industry. Compare the modest increase to the “resilient” Microsoft Surface, where revenue declined by 2%. That was supposed to be good news according to some who want to find favorable indicators in anything Microsoft announces.

But there was something else. Microsoft claims a record number of switchers from the Mac platform, although the actual numbers weren’t revealed. During Apple’s quarterly conference call with financial analysts, it was announced that the majority of Mac buyers were Windows switchers. That means more than 2.7 million units, which is far above what the entire Surface lineup delivered for Microsoft.

Forgetting Microsoft’s spin on the situation, Apple’s numbers appear to indicate that there’s still lots of potential in the Mac platform. It also appears to show that more and more Mac users are hanging onto their existing computers, or maybe they are waiting for Apple to deliver even more credible updates for other models.

If it’s true that Apple hasn’t been giving much attention to Macs, perhaps it means the platform is prospering despite the inattention. Don’t forget that Apple’s Mac profits are higher than other PC companies.

Now about the iPad: Although it appeared, during the September quarter, that the sales declines were flattening, the trend didn’t continue in the December quarter. Total sales were 13.1 million, compared to 16.1 million in the year-ago quarter. It’s also true that there was only one iPad refresh last year, the 9.7-inch iPad Pro in the spring. And it’s not as if Apple put in a whole lot of energy to market tablets.

Contrary to early reports of lower Apple Watch sales, record revenue was reported for the December quarter. Unfortunately, Apple hides the specifics deep within the Other category, so industry analysts can only make guesses. But even a tiny increase over last year would be a record, and since Apple did not update the expensive Edition model, it’s even more encouraging.

Once again, Services were a shining light, coming in at $7.17 billon, an 18 percent increase over the year-ago quarter, where revenue totaled $6.05 billion.

It also appears that a quarter of higher sales isn’t a one-off by any means. For the current quarter, Apple predicts it will earn between $51.5 billion and $53.5 billion. This compares to sales of $50.6 billion in the March 2016 quarter. But the skeptics will remind us that Apple’s revenue in the comparable 2015 quarter was $58 billion.

But the trend still appears to are quite favorable, so Apple has plenty to crow about.

For this year, I’m hoping there will be lots of good news from the Mac front. I’m also wondering how the iPad will be dealt with, and whether Apple will make aggressive moves to restart sales, perhaps with new models and maybe lower prices to encourage people to upgrade.

The iPhone? Well, the iPhone 7 family has been regarded as an interim model despite higher sales than its predecessor. So as the year progresses, attention will no doubt focus on a possible 10th anniversary model where extra goodies are expected. This may include an edge-to-edge OLED display, or maybe a wrap-around display although I fail to see its value. Wireless charging? It would be nice if Apple could deliver a scheme that’s better than just putting the thing on a tray, which is a pretty old fashioned concept after all these years.

When I interviewed CNET’s “Audiophiliac,” Steve Guttenberg, on last weekend’s episode of The Tech Night Owl LIVE, he mentioned the potential end of FM radio in Europe. It’s already history in Norway, but the chances that it’ll go away in the U.S. are probably on the low side of zero. Still, terrestrial radio appears to be losing the war what with the growth of satellite radio, Internet radio, streaming music and other mediums that compete for your listening pleasure.

I say that as the host of two syndicated radio shows that are featured on several dozen AM and FM stations. It’s in my vested interest for them to live long and prosper.

But these old fashioned radio formats are highly flawed. Unless you’ve got a strong signal, AM reception may be noisy, or vary in quality. A benefit of AM, however, is long distance reception. At night, when the signals reflect off the ionosphere (skywave or skip propagation), you can sometimes hear stations that are up to thousands of miles away. I remember dx-ing radio when I was young. After the sun went down, I’d sweep through the dial and hear stations at my home in Brooklyn, NY from as far away as Chicago and Atlanta. It was real fun.

In my early days as a radio broadcaster, I worked in small towns in the south and midwest, but would pay close attention to the music that debuted onn the big city stations in New York, Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul and elsewhere.

With the growth of FM, most music left AM and its lower quality audio and was largely replaced by talk. FM delivers clean, crisp sound mostly free of hiss within its useful range. But FM has its disadvantages too. Beyond 30 or 40 miles, or when being reflected off large buildings, an FM signal may be static-ridden.

While it doesn’t extend the range of AM and FM, HD Radio embeds digital signals onto the transmissions. When it works, the AM signal comes close to FM in listening quality. FM approaches a CD. Even better, an FM station may broadcast multiple signals, so in addition to HD1, the main signal, there may be an HD2 and an HD3. Station owners sometimes create separate channels, or just include content from their AM outlets. In the Phoenix area, it’s a bit of both.

Now HD Radio is not something you can simply add with a cheap adaptor. Your radio, car or home, must be equipped with the feature. Many recent autos have HD. After-market auto receivers may have them too. When it comes to the home, most of the offerings are restricted to FM tuners and receivers. There are a few table top and portable radios available if you look, but the selection is limited.

Unfortunately, the folks at iBiquity, who license the technology, do not seem to have invested much in promotion. You know it’s in your car if HD is mentioned in the specs. Home radios that include HD mostly list it in the model name or specs without explanation. It’s the sort of feature that exists under the radar, and that’s unfortunate.

Yes, HD Radio has its limits. If the signal isn’t strong enough to sync to the digital band, you may be limited to the regular signal. It usually takes five or 10 seconds for the radio to switch over, and if signal quality dips or is marginal, the digital carrier may be lost. Consumer Reports magazine, when reviewing car radios with HD Radio, has complained of its knack to switch in an out, depending on signal quality. The magazine suggests you avoid HD when you buy a car, but that’s preposterous. It’s either there or it isn’t, and it’s usually not a separate line item on the custom order slip. Normally it’s switched on automatically, but some car infotainment systems may have an option somewhere to switch it off if you’re not satisfied with its reception.

Now when it comes to a portable radio, I’ve actually been using one that works far better than it has the right to. Thanks to Rick at iBiquity, I recently received a SPARC SHD-TX2, a small $79.95 radio that packs a surprising punch. Thanks to a speaker with a passive radiator, its audio quality, though mono, approaches some boom boxes. Bass has a surprising thump, yet it’s only 6.2 inches wide and weighs 1.1 pounds. AM and FM reception is quite good, and it can also be configured with digital presets and Emergency Alerts.

When she’s working around our home, Barbara has been listening to a yellow Sony boom box that we originally bought for our son, Grayson, back in the mid-1990s. It still works pretty well, but goes through six “C” cell batteries far too quickly.

So I handed her the SPARC. She listened to it for a moment, and pronounced the audio quality better than that old Sony. We haven’t had it long enough to check battery life — it uses three “AA”  batteries — but she’s happy to replace her old box with something much lighter and easier to carry, at least as long as Rick lets us hold onto it.

Despite it’s shortcomings, I’m sold on HD Radio, and this little radio is a pretty cheap way to take advantage of the technology in your home. I just wish iBiquity — or its broadcaster partners — would make more of an effort to let people in the U.S. know that the format exists, and what it can do to enhance your listening pleasure.