So shortly before I wrote this column, I read an article from one blogger usually critical of Apple that quoted another blogger critical of Apple as if that was something significant. The main focus was iOS 9 and the perceived problems with the latest and greatest mobile operating system from Apple. The complaints were typical. Poor touch sensitivity, losing Wi-Fi connections, app crashing and decreased battery life. As I said, the usual range of complaints one hears.

Now I’d be the last to say that iOS 9 was problem free out of the starting gate. But as of Wednesday, Apple has released three updates, with the first, 9.0.1, arriving just one week after the original release. 9.0.2 arrived the following week. Three weeks later, we’re at 9.1. So Apple has been busy, and each release fixed bugs and added some enhancements. For 9.1, the tentpole feature consists of 150 new emoji characters. A similar change was made with the first El Capitan fixer-upper, 10.11.1. It’s also a feature that doesn’t interest me in the least. But that’s just me.

I do not know if the new updates fix all the problems users have reported. But if you’ve held off upgrading to El Capitan or iOS 9, this might be the time to take the plunge. Happening on the day when a couple of bloggers are attacking Apple for buggy software sounds disingenuous. It’s not even certain whether they’ve tried the iOS 9 updates, and certainly they didn’t try the latest unless they are developers or members of the public beta program.

What bothers me the most is not that they are skeptical or frightened of iOS 9. That’s their privilege. But a good reporter would or should look for trends, rather than the problems reported by a single user. Or at least that’s what I’d do. One possible source of information is Apple’s support discussion boards. Even there, however, the most significant issues are the ones reported by a number of people, not just a few. With so many possible installations, most any problem is going to arise — for someone. The real issue is how frequent those issues might be, and if a number of people report similar problems, it’s worth investigating.

That said, the initial release of any computer operating system — mobile or desktop — is apt to have problems. But saying you shouldn’t update because of someone else’s experience, even if that someone writes for a supposedly respectable publication, is just shoddy reporting. At least if you can easily duplicate the problem, or the other blogger cites loads of similar experiences, you might have a point.

I wonder if these same people would have urged you to avoid the first release of Windows 10 because of serious bugs. Microsoft fed a number of fixes in the first few weeks. It’s not an indictment against Microsoft, or Apple for that matter, because problems always occur in the initial release. And, yes, I did find a few articles urging you not to upgrade to Windows 10 until the worst problems are repaired. At least one of those articles was based on the author’s personal experience and not just quoting somebody else without trying to verify anything.

And I haven’t begun to address Android.

As most of you realize, nothing I say or do will stop people from being foolish. As I’ve said many times, there’s an advantage to putting Apple or an Apple-related product or service in the title. It is sure hit bait if the headline or the implications are lurid enough. So if Apple must be doomed to failure, true or not, that’s enough to get attention. If a new product or service, or operating system upgrade, is fatally flawed in some way, real or imagined, that’s important too. Facts do not matter.

This doesn’t mean Apple is immune to criticism, or that new operating system releases are always problem free, or ever problem free for that matter. Some El Capitan users have reported glitches in our comment area, and certainly some apps weren’t compatible out of the starting gate. Microsoft Office 2011 and 2016 both had serious problems. Some of those have already been addressed by Microsoft, others were addressed in the 10.11.1 update. There may be more. Microsoft apps tend to be glitchy, and sometimes it takes a few attempts to straighten things out.

The El Capitan update also reportedly fixed the usual glitches with Apple Mail. I had just one, the occasional tendency for the app to freeze in place for 30 seconds or so. Clicking on a message or message folder did nothing. But that problem soon disappears — until it happens again. It may have been fixed by Apple. The release notes for 10.11.1 state, “Resolves an issue that prevented display of messages and mailboxes in Mail.” That sounds familiar.

Yes, I am running the update as I write this, but I can’t say if this particular problem is gone. Otherwise, apps have pretty much worked properly, although I had to install a few updates for full compatibility.

And I assure you that if the newest batch of Apple updates are flawed in any way, I won’t hold back. I’ll be writing from personal experience and doing lots of research to see if others have similar problems.

It has long been known that Apple has to aspire to a much higher standard. So what is considered successful for other companies becomes a miserable failure when Apple gets involved. Even when high sales are reported, they are often not high enough.

Consider the news that 13 million iPhones were sold the first weekend they went on sale last month. No other company has come close in such a short period. It’s better than last year’s 10 million figure, but at least some of that increase can be attributed to the fact that the new iPhones were available in China from Day One. That wasn’t true last year, and it should account for at least some of the sales improvement.

Of course, Apple might have been constrained early on by available quantities. Apple’s online store is still quoting a two or three week wait on some models, although you should be able to find the one you want if you look around, or you’re willing to compromise on color or storage.

That takes us to Apple Music.

With Apple Music, it began with lots of promise. The very week before it debuted, there was that famous dustup between Apple and singer Taylor Swift about paying royalties to artists and songwriters during the free period. Apple hadn’t planned to do that, but the outcry from Swift’s comments made them change their tune. Or was it really a put up job to generate buzz?

Regardless, it did seem Apple Music was meant to be a hit out of the starting gate, but the signup numbers appear to present a mixed verdict. Ahead of the expiration of the first 90-day trial, on September 30, Apple VP Eddy Cue said they had 11 million subscribers who signed up to sample the service. There were contradictory surveys of just how many planned to actually pay, and the numbers didn’t seem so hot.

Now when you look at the Apple Music figures, you’ll first want to see just how well other services have fared. The number one subscription music service is Spotify, which started in 2008. As of May 2014, they had 10 million paying subscribers; that number soared to 20 million by June of this year. But now they have competition from the largest tech company on the planet.

So after three-and-a-half months, Tim Cook reports that Apple Music has 6.5 million paying subscribers, out of a total of 15 million that are using the service. The rest are still just sampling.

Is this a good number? I can’t say, although an investment firm, FBR & Co., said they expected five million, and thus Apple exceeded expectations. But it’s also true that Spotify started from zero. Apple has hundreds of millions of iTunes users with credit cards on file. So it’s a trivial matter for people to sign up.

But there are loads of questions. How many people are even paying attention to Apple Music? Are Spotify users aching to switch to a service that promises extra human curation and exclusive tracks, such as Taylor Swift? After all, when you switch, you have to give up the music library you acquired from another service and start from scratch. If you’re a creature of habit, or have invested a lot of time in building custom playlists, you might not want to start anew just to get a few exclusives. Nothing stops you from buying a few albums the regular way to get music that your chosen service doesn’t offer.

So maybe gaining switchers won’t be a large factor, but Apple Music hasn’t been around long enough to know.

To be sure, the service has been heavily criticized for a too-busy interface, which makes it more difficult to get the lay of the land and find the music you want. During my 90-day encounter, it took a long time for Apple Music to begin to grok my musical tastes, which aren’t particularly weird. For You continued to display albums from the likes of Eddy Arnold, Tom Jones and Barry Manilow long after I rejected such choices. On the day before the first renewal date, I realized I hadn’t checked out Apple Music in weeks. I listened to music regularly on my old fashioned radio, and I listened to the tracks I already owned in iTunes, but I hadn’t paid attention to the albums Apple Music added.

So I decided not to renew.

Now it’s also true that Apple hasn’t exactly engaged in a major promotion of Apple Music, so it may be a matter of a gradual increase in subscriptions over time. I would also hope the interface confusion will be resolved, but that should be part of a long-needed overhaul of iTunes.

The ultimate question is the same. How many people are willing to rely on subscriptions to build music libraries? The numbers reported by Apple are small. Spotify’s may be three times higher, but it took years to get there, although the growth rate is high. Will the presence of Apple Music hinder Spotify’s growth curve? I expect it will, but I’m not sold on rented music. I’m not sold on renting applications either, although that business appears to be doing well for Adobe and Microsoft.

When the iPod appeared in 2001, it originally came across as just an indulgence from Apple. All right, so you had 5,000 songs in your pocket It was easy to sync your music with iTunes via a FireWire connection, and the download speed was way faster than competing digital music players.

But the iPod caught a wave and sales soared, especially when iTunes was ported to Windows. No competing player came close, and even Microsoft had a notable failure when it tried to gain traction with the Zune. But they also fell in love with the Zune’s tiled interfaces, since it soon infected Windows operating systems.

In 2007, the iPhone must, at first, have seemed a curiosity. Certainly Apple had modest expectations, and other industry players said the iPhone had no chance for success. Steve Jobs said he’d be happy if sales exceeded one percent of the global market by the end of 2008. It did that and more, overhauling the smartphone market. Instead of being an awkward plaything for busy executives, typified by the BlackBerry, anyone could master an iPhone and the concept was quickly “borrowed” by other companies.

Did the world really need an iPhone? The answer was unequivocally yes.

The iPad may be another story. It did well enough at the start, but sales have flagged. Whether the iPod Pro and the new multitasking features in iOS 9 will turn things around is anyone’s guess. I suppose Apple has the marketing information to have a good handle on the situation. The rest of us will just have to watch and see. Perhaps the start of a decent upgrade cycle will move things along.

I’ll withhold comment on the potential for Apple Watch. I suppose we’ll have a better picture later this month when Apple releases its quarterly financials. Or perhaps not, since sales of Apple’s smartwatch are buried in the “Other” category, and it’ll be a guessing game to separate the figures into different products and services. If there’s a positive story to tell, though, perhaps Apple will reveal something.

That takes us to the next great product from Apple. We have no idea what it is, but there have been ongoing reports of a Project Titan, which is devoted to developing an Apple Car for release perhaps in 2019 or 2020. Or maybe later.

The project supposedly includes hundreds of employees, recruited or poached, from a number of car makers that allegedly include Tesla. In fact, Tesla CEO Elon Musk made some acid comments about the employees who went to Apple, and about Apple, before walking them back. Clearly he felt the impact.

Of course, Apple hasn’t actually confirmed what this project is all about, or even if it exists. We just hear the rumors, but I wouldn’t dispute the fact that it is automative related. Is it just something to improve CarPlay or some future development to enhance existing motor vehicles, or actually build a car?

What sort of car?

Would it be similar in focus to the Tesla, an all-electric car with some pretensions to self-driving? Tesla has already rolled out Autopilot, which automates some driving functions that include steering within a lane, changing lanes and maintaining a safe driving speed. The software, along with a collection of sensors being outfitted to new vehicles, is also said to be self-learning, which means it gets better over time.

It’s not quite the same as sitting in your car and saying “take me to the nearest Walmart,” and letting it do its thing. It’s mainly designed for highway driving, where it builds upon a sophisticated cruise and lane control scheme. Still, that’s a lot of progress, and it’s only a matter of time — if allowed by governments — before a full automatic driving capability appears.

But that’s Tesla. Does Apple plan to rain on Tesla’s parade, or take auto technology into new directions? Bear in mind, the Tesla is probably the highest rated vehicle on the planet. Consumer Reports recently gave one a rating of 103 out of a possible 100, because they couldn’t confine the scores to their usual standards. Despite those ratings, Consumer Reports no longer recommends Tesla because reliability surveys have revealed a raft of problems. Clearly Tesla has some work to do to reassure customers that they build cars you can depend on.

Now reports about Apple’s possible entrance into the auto business have been greeted by the usual skepticism from the industry. Where does Apple get the temerity to build a car? They said the same thing about the iPhone and the iPad, by the way. Even the Mac was greeted with skepticism when it arrived in 1984, and it was regularly pronounced dead for at least two decades after that.

With over $200 billion cash available, I have little doubt Apple can do anything they want to do in the car industry. Every element of the industry, from sales and service, to the electronics in motor vehicles, is in need of improvement. So it’s not just a fancy electric car, but making the buying and service experience fast and friendly that’ll count.

Certainly another auto maker would be welcome. Existing car companies are notorious for pulling stunts that result in unsafe vehicles, or bypass emissions requirements. The Volkswagen scandal is not the only episode of cheating to pass emissions tests. Indeed, as governments consider getting more directly involved in testing vehicles, it may only be the tip of the iceberg.

Apple’s number one competitor would be Tesla, and if they go down this route, would they follow the same path with an expensive luxury vehicle, or deliver something reasonably affordable for the “rest of us”? But I wouldn’t presume to guess what they’d regard as “affordable.” The average transaction price for a new car these days is roughly $32,086, if that’s what you call affordable.

Does the world need an Apple Car? Maybe not until one actually goes on sale. That appears to be how things work with Apple.

The other day I read yet another suggestion that Apple needs to license OS X and allow it to be installed on personal computers not made by Apple. The logic, such as it was, was to somehow expand the market beyond premium hardware, as if Apple requires a bigger market share regardless of the impact to sales and profits.

At first glance, I wondered why the author didn’t do any research. At the same time, I read a quote from a popular history book, in which the authors (which include a highly-rated cable news host) boast about being able to do all their research online. Just go to Google Books, and they have armchair access to the largest library in the world from the comfort of their home offices.

So you’d think that, with so much information available at your beck and call, the people who are clamoring to open OS X would actually do some research and learn a few facts about Apple’s history. But facts and hit bait aren’t always the same. So most anything with “Apple” or an Apple product or service in the title is apt to get more traffic. It may not be the kind of traffic they want, but it may be enough to satisfy advertisers who pay for hits. Or at least that’s how it seems.

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