If you believe what some financial and tech industry pundits are saying, Apple should have bought Tesla by now, maybe a wireless carrier, and, of late, Time Warner. Or maybe not the whole company, but the HBO premium cable service, assuming the company wants to unbundle.

Indeed, the people who have no access to Apple’s checkbook sometimes seem obsessed as to how the company should spend its money. There’s a never-ending list of companies that should be acquired, as if there’s a reason for any of it to happen. Except for Beats Electronics, which brought the core of what became Apple Music to it, most Apple acquisitions have been small technology companies that enhance its ability to design stuff. Consider PC Semi and other processor developers that allowed Apple to create A-series silicon, which is trouncing other companies that base their chips on ARM.

So what would come with Time Warner?

Well, in one of the more foolhardy acquisitions of 2000, AOL, then the largest online service in the country, acquired Time Warner; it didn’t take long for this deal to unravel. Time Warner brought content to the table in the form of such cable TV networks as HBO, Cinemax, CNN, TNT, and TBS, and Warner Bros., the motion picture company that has a huge repertoire of great movies and TV shows over the years, and also owns DC Comics and thus such properties as Batman, Superman and Supergirl.

Now in terms of entertainment value, that move would seem to make lots of sense. Some tech pundits suggest it would form the core of Apple’s subscription TV service, and thus give Apple a leg up on setting it up.

But why Time Warner? Why not Disney, which owns not just the ABC network, but LucasFilm, which owns the Star Wars franchise, and Marvel, which brings with it more blockbuster movie and comic book characters? Indeed, I venture to say that, when it comes to box office receipts and long-term potential, Disney has a leg up on Time Warner. More to the point, Apple has a direct connection since Steve Jobs was Disney’s largest shareholder.

Do you see where I’m going?

While it may seem superficially logical for Apple to buy an established entertainment company, how does that stand with the competition? Why would Disney get in bed with Apple if it owns Time Warner. What about Universal, or Viacom, which owns Paramount Pictures and thus Star Trek? Why would they be more tempted to make an agreement with Apple under these circumstances?

Does that make any sense?

I mean it’s one thing if Apple went the Netflix route and produced its own movies and TV shows. Clearly Netflix is still able to sign contracts with other entertainment companies for movie and TV show rights, and after all, its roster of original programming, however compelling, is relatively small. Besides, streaming TV doesn’t pit one program against another, since you can watch whatever you want, however often you want, whenever you want. Netflix still offers an audience of tens of millions of TV viewers — cord cutters and otherwise — that the entertainment companies want to reach.

Apple would too, but owning a key competitor would give pause to the plans of other companies. I can’t see where it would compel them to make deals to get a crack at the very same audience. Maybe it would, but Apple would do better just to try to come up with a package that’s compelling enough to get those agreements. As of the time I wrote this, Time Warner’s market cap was over $56 billion, which means Apple might have to invest half of its $200 billion cash reserve to take control. And that assumes a deal could be struck.

It really doesn’t make sense.

This is just another example of people who should know better attempting to make decisions for Apple, as if they are incompetent and can’t act on their own behalf. Wasting tens of billions to acquire a company that isn’t nearly as profitable as Apple, hoping to jumpstart a so-far moribund project, would be reason to question the judgement of Tim Cook and his team.

Now there’s nothing wrong with saying that “Apple should…” when it comes to a policy, a product, or a strategic move. To think Apple is perfect is foolish, and to think Apple will always make the right decision, is also foolish. There are plenty of examples where Apple released a product or service that didn’t do quite what it hoped. Just start with its checkered history of managing online services that started with eWorld and includes iCloud. Look at the ragged interface of the latest iTunes, now 15 years old, and consider the shaky launch of Apple Music with loads of glitches and a terribly busy interface.

Could Apple have released a subscription music service without Beats in its arsenal? Maybe the acquisition sped up development of the service, and those fancy headphones are no doubt reasonably profitable. Maybe the music industry bigwigs now working for Apple are going to do better in crafting new pacts with the entertainment industry. We’ll see.

I just don’t see where buying Time Warner will benefit Apple in any meaningful way, considering the possible cost of that acquisition. In the end, Apple would end up no better than AOL with a wasteful transaction. And, yes, I always stand ready to be proven wrong, but I just don’t get it.

Most of the time, when I receive a product for review, I’ll also receive a set of so-called reviewer’s notes from the manufacturer or publisher. They are designed to emphasize the salient points, and make a strong pitch for a positive review. If you follow the writeup in the order the company specifies, however, you’ll be basically validating their marketing plans.

I will read those notes when they’re available for background information, but not always at first. Instead, I’ll put myself in the place of what I believe to be a typical user, and try to discover a product or app’s worth on my own. I don’t want to be unduly influenced by a company’s PR department. I want to come to my own conclusions.

Now when a published review seems to echo a company’s talking points, that’s doing a disservice to the reader. A review shouldn’t be a promotional piece, although far too many seem to end up that way.

Just as bad is the pretend or preliminary review that presages an actual review but nonetheless reaches a final conclusion about what’s being tested. What this shows is that the writer has a built in bias that the actual experience isn’t likely to change regardless of the results of the actual product test.

There is also the product description puff piece that pretends to be a review because it lists or compares product specs. Some articles have elements of the foregoing.

One recent and blatant example comes from a major financial publications by a writer who evidently has a presence on several prestigious outlets. But it all goes downhill from there.

The title implies that the author is reviewing three tablets, the Apple iPad Pro, the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 and the Samsung Galaxy TabPro S. And leave it to Samsung to devise the most confusing product name of the three. But I wish that was the worst of the article, because the headline is deceptive. You see, it’s not actually a comparison review of three products, but a profile with a few opinions along with a promise that a review is on the way.

Are you with me so far?

So let’s begin with the end. To the author, “The Surface Pro 4 still reigns supreme for me.”

Is that the end? Well, the author is a fan of Windows 10 and the versatility of a traditional PC note-book rather than a device that’s based on a mobile OS — specifically the iPad Pro. In that case, maybe he should have focused the story on Mac note-books compared to Windows note-books, which is a more apt comparison. You see, even the Samsung runs Windows 10. There’s no Android tablet in the mix, and thus it’s an Apple/Oranges comparison.

What is doubly troubling is that the Surface Pro 4, the one that “reigns supreme,” has a pretty serious problem as a portable computer, since its battery life is evidently not much more than a third that of the iPad Pro. The author states that the Microsoft tablet/PC/whatever “lasted no longer than 3.5 hours after a full charge.” He tries to make excuses, that it’s drawing too much power in sleep mode, while a battery life test would involve running apps, not measuring how long the battery holds on while the unit is asleep. We are assured that “Microsoft is reportedly working on a fix.”

But for now, we have to take that on faith, just as we take on faith the impressions of raw performance that are evidently based on specs not actual benchmarks. I’d think a few Geekbench runs would have confirmed these perceptions. While we’re at it, nowhere in the article are the prices mentioned. If it was, you’d see that a fully outfitted Surface Pro 4 is actually quite a bit more expensive than the iPad Pro.

Something else not mentioned is the fact that, while you can buy the Apple and Microsoft tablets, the Galaxy TabPro S has just been launched, and hence you cannot actually buy one. Well, perhaps they sent a preproduction unit to the author who did this comparison. According to Samsung’s press release, it will actually go on sale in February.

But with what products does it compete anyway? Well, since it runs Windows 10, that would be Microsoft, not Apple. Indeed, the iPad Pro is the outlier here, and it’s not at all certain how it fits in a comparison with Windows-based 2-in-1 tablet note-books. Well, except for the fact that putting Apple in the mix is sure hit bait.

Thus I won’t bother to consider the lame comparisons of the Apple Pencil and the Microsoft stylus. It’s not worth the time and the frustration. Clearly the author believes that the Microsoft implement is better, pointing to an erase capability. But he fails to realize that simple app settings, such as in Notes for iOS, can change the Apple Pencil’s drawing capability to the ability to erase. That would require actually using it, and when you have an article based on assumptions and hopes and agendas, you can’t expect that a dose of reality would have any place.

Alas, this is what passes for tech reporting these days.

So the truth is out there. We know that Samsung’s sales and profits aren’t setting the tech world afire. Most of the sales are confined to low-end gear, and the flagship Galaxy smartphones are also-rans compared to iPhones. But the total numbers exceed the iPhone, so Apple still comes across, to some, as second best, at least until you start to look at profits, where Apple is currently earning 94% of the total.

If you’ve been following the stock market, you’ll also see that Apple’s stock price is in the doldrums, down over 20% over the past few months; it did climb 1.62% on Monday. While the market itself has been in a turmoil over concerns about the economic situation in China, Apple’s problems are buttressed by reports from the supply chain, not confirmed, that Apple cut back orders on iPhone parts. So this supposedly indicates iPhone sales are falling, even though the actual facts of the situation won’t be known for another couple of weeks, when Apple releases its quarterly financials.

For now it’s a quiet period.

But if Apple wasn’t around, would Samsung sell more of their expensive gear, or would more people choose the cheaper stuff? What about Windows 10 and BlackBerry handsets? Oh yes, BlackBerry is building gear compatible with Android, which strikes me as the ultimate example of surrender. If BlackBerry’s own platform — and physical keyboards — are so great, they should demonstrate market success, not retreat into supporting someone else’s app ecosystem.

If Apple wasn’t around, you’d be buying a PC rather than a Mac. Indeed, that almost happened in the mid-1990s, when Apple was only weeks away from running out of cash. That may not seem to be such a huge catastrophe for some people. But it would be for me and tens of millions of others who have made their livings on Macs in an highly productive fashion that is approached only with difficulty on the Windows platform.

Indeed, I recently read an article from someone who regularly updated his PC every 18 months by buying the best of the breed. After switching to a top-of-the-line iMac, and I presume it was the late 2013 5K version, the 18-month period approached, but he decided to keep his current computer since it could handle all the things he threw at it with aplomb.

I think of my own situation, where, in times of greater prosperity, I would buy Macs on a two-year cycle. Selling the old computer meant that the cost of the new one wouldn’t be so daunting. But I suddenly found myself looking at the refreshed Macs, and sticking with what I had for another year. Part of that was due to budget constraints, the other reason was more important. I didn’t see a productivity advantage sufficient to justify purchasing new gear.

Is there any PC maker who is doing much more than selling generic hardware as cheaply as possible? PC sales are down, Mac sales are up, if only slightly. Apple is at least investing money to improve the hardware. The controversial MacBook, introduced last year, may not be the fastest machine on the planet, but it’s faster than many high-end Mac note-books of a few years ago, and it’s not that they were necessarily underpowered.

Apple Watch? For some reason, despite the fact that sales reports are unofficial, confirmed to rough estimates by outsiders, it’s being perceived as a relative failure. This even though other smartwatch makers are doing no better. But if you put the Apple Watch into the ephemeral “wearables” category, which includes devices that may not even offer a watch, or a watch with only basic features, Apple doesn’t come across quite as well.

Until you actually consider what Apple is believed to have earned from Apple Watch sales, and it’s several times what any other company ever earned from similar, or not-so-similar, products, but Apple still isn’t getting the credit. Maybe the company is perceived as too large, and thus it must take a fall at some point in time. If not today, or tomorrow, next week. Well maybe next year.

But if all of the endless doom and gloom predictions about Apple come true, just where do we turn our attention for cutting-edge consumer tech? Samsung? Well, Samsung has the size and resources, but has mostly confined itself to imitating what others do, or delivering features that have plenty of flash but little substance. It brings to mind the pathetic tilt-to-scroll function that appeared on some Galaxy smartphones.

Smartwatches that could also serve as jewelry with gold cases, with bands to match? Well, I suppose one of the luxury watch makers might try — and some are trying — but the world won’t suddenly flock to a smartwatch powered by Android Wear, or a Samsung Galaxy Gear device. Consider how they did before the Apple Watch arrived.

I suppose a case can be made for a Roku media streamer, however. They are quite good, and the latest Apple TV doesn’t even support 4K. But that’s a rare exception.

This weekend, while doing the family grocery shopping at a nearby Walmart Supercenter, I happened to notice racks and racks of Ultra HD/4K TV sets. A large number were on sale for less than $1,000, with a few sets sporting displays of 48-50 inches or more that were selling for less than $500.

You might think that some of these sets represented unsold inventory from the holidays that Walmart wanted to move quickly. That’s no doubt partly true. But I saw some of the very same sets, with similar prices, in December. So clearly the extra cost of providing TV sets with four times as many pixels isn’t terribly high. Or perhaps TV makers are not against selling them cheap to boost sales and worry about profits later. That’s reminiscent of the PC and smartphone industries.

TV sales have been stagnant or declining in the last couple of years, and manufacturers continue to hope that the move to 4K will be the “next big thing” and result in a huge upgrade cycle that the advent of 3D failed to deliver.

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