As regular readers recall, while Apple was demonstrating OS X Yosemite at the World Wide Developers Conference, one of my long-time clients was freaked at the changes. Her response? “Yuk!” Maybe a little over-the-top, but it made sense if you believe Apple is busy destroying the look and feel of the Mac in favor of iOS because it’s not the company’s largest revenue generator.

But you have to consider the reality, which is that Mac sales have increased faster than the overall PC market in 32 of the last 33 quarters. Except for a certain company doing industry analysis that claimed Mac sales in the U.S. actually declined the last quarter by 1.7%, Apple reported a double-digit increase. That company has never apologized for that and a similar error published in the March quarter.

Remember, too, that Mac sales of some 4.4 million units hit a record in the last quarter. It wasn’t so many years ago that Apple was lucky to sell that many Macs in a full year. This time, the smart decision to release a minor MacBook Air upgrade, with slightly faster performance and a list price that was $100 less, helped keep sales at a good clip. That may also explain the reason for essentially giving the cheapest iMac the equivalent of MacBook Air performance for $1,099. Power users will say it’s not worth the $200 savings, but buyers on a budget who don’t use stopwatches and benchmark tools, and aren’t into high-end audio or graphics, may not care.

So Yosemite will arrive at a time when the Mac is doing extremely well, better than at any time in the history of the platform. So this justifies spending lots of money to improve the user experience, which takes us to Yosemite.

I’ve been running the developer previews since very shortly after the June 2 release. It wasn’t immediate because of an installation glitch that I managed to resolve by setting up a new partition on a backup drive.

Although there are still loads of bugs and incomplete features as of developer preview 4, the one that is reportedly being made available as the first public beta, Yosemite has become snappier, even on that slower FireWire 800 drive. What’s more, it appears developers are starting to crank out their Yosemite upgrades. I just heard from Paul Kafasis of Rogue Amoeba that Audio Hijack Pro, a key product that we use to capture audio from Skype and other apps, is now compatible with Yosemite, along with a number of their other nifty apps that include Airfoil, Intermission, Nicecast and Piezo. While he says that there may be glitches — and certainly ongoing changes to Yosemite ahead of release could cause new problems — they should be functional.

Forgetting the glitches and a few interface changes that I don’t like — such as killing the full title bars for sites in Safari except for the tabs — I never for a moment felt I wasn’t using a Mac. Understand that I have worked on Macs since the 1980s. So I have lived through every single release — sometimes as a beta tester. I have written books and articles covering many of those releases, so I think I have a fair understanding of the changes over the years.

So I feel safe in assuring you that, despite the flatter interface elements and the new typefaces, you can continue to use your Mac in much the same way as you do now without regret. As you get attuned to the new environment, you’ll be able to consider some of the more significant changes, such as the front-and-center all-inclusive Spotlight feature. It’s a natural evolution, but it also means you’ll be using it more often, even for some web searches. But since those web searches drop Google in favor of Microsoft’s Bing, the former won’t appreciate the changes. So be it.

The major tentpole feature, Continuity, has a lot of promise, and certainly it’s designed encourage a lock-in among OS X and iOS gear by allowing you to start a task on one and continue on another. But Handoff, a key part of Continuity, appears to require Bluetooth LE, a hardware feature not part of Macs until 2011 or 2012 — depending on the model — and thus many of you won’t be able to use it. Well, unless Apple allows for third-party solutions, such as a USB-based Bluetooth LE adapter. Evidently the beta versions of Yosemite do not support that scheme, at least not yet.

In Apple’s defense, they shouldn’t block a feature because it doesn’t support hardware that’s four or five years old. They have to look forward regardless, although you can be cynical and assume that they would also prefer you buy a new Mac. But why not?

Without going into detail about a somewhat unfinished product, I am hopeful Yosemite Mail will be faster and more reliable. Even after adding some accounts with large email stashes, I didn’t observe the slowdowns and hangs that plagued previous versions. That’s an improvement even before you look at Mail Drop, the ability to use iCloud as an intermediary for sending attachments of up to 5GB, or the Markup feature, which lets you annotate an attachment, such as a PDF form.

Now some are looking at the Yosemite Public Beta and comparing it to what Microsoft does with a new OS release. The difference is that Windows is a commercial product, sold for a retail price, and thus beta testers don’t routinely get the final version free. With its new beta program, Apple can also receive important feedback from a wider range of Mac users and perhaps fix early release bugs before they get out in the wild. That’s a good thing, so long as the beta testers fully understand what they’re getting and the possible nasty consequences of using a prerelease OS.

The earnings season for the June quarter is coming to an end, and, as has been the case in recent years, Apple’s results get high priority in the media coverage. This time, there are different good or not-so-good reactions, more so than I usually see when Apple is in the headlines.

So it’s clear that Apple’s financials represented somewhat of a mixed bag for Wall Street, yet were still a record for a June quarter. Total revenue came in at $37.4 billion, which was somewhat short of overall expectations, while profits totaled $7.7 billion, or $1.28 per diluted share, which was slightly ahead of expectations. This compares to the year-ago quarter revenue of $35.3 billion, with profits at $6.9 billion, or $1.07 per diluted share.

The star of the quarter was, one again, the iPhone, with sales of 35.2 million, compared to 31.2 million last year. Despite the misleading reports suggesting an ongoing drop in Mac sales in the U.S, which isn’t actually occurring, Apple moved 4.4 million, up from 3.8 million last year. Both the U.S. and Canada recorded double-digit growth, but you just know the source responsible for the false information won’t retract or modify the false claim. It will probably just deliver more flawed numbers for the current quarter.

In any case, the modest MacBook Air refresh, with a slightly beefier processor and a $100 price reduction, appears to have helped. In the end, Apple has outpaced the PC market in 32 out of the last 33 quarters. This is significant, because it shows that personal computers aren’t quite dead yet, at least if those PCs are Macs.

Unfortunately, for the second quarter in a row, fewer iPads were sold. Some 13.28 million units were moved, a decline of 9.2% from last year’s tally of 14.6 million. In the previous quarter, Tim Cook blamed much of the loss of iPad sales on inventory management. As you might expect, this state of affairs does raise all sorts of questions. Does this mean that iPad sales have reached a plateau, or is Apple suffering compared to the competition from Amazon and Samsung?

Does Apple have a game plan for the expected fall iPad revisions that will turn iPad sales upwards again, or do we expect that this product’s success may be more and more confined to the holidays? Read on.

In saying that, however, I should repeat what I wrote long ago: I’m not a real fan of the iPad. I love my iPhone 5s, but my wife concentrates her attention on an iPad. She finds an iPhone too confining for her, except when she’s taking a trip.

In Apple’s press release on the quarterly financials, Cook put the typical positive spin on the entire picture, saying, “Our record June quarter revenue was fueled by strong sales of iPhone and Mac and the continued growth of revenue from the Apple ecosystem, driving our highest EPS growth rate in seven quarters. We are incredibly excited about the upcoming releases of iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, as well as other new products and services that we can’t wait to introduce.”

We can’t wait either!

Already one media outlet, which I won’t name, started out by putting a negative spin on the numbers. Both the AP and USA Today insisted that Apple exceeded expectations for the most part. Still, you can’t argue with record sales regardless of what so-called financial analysts expected, particularly with reports of declining profits at Microsoft and Samsung.

But if you want to check the raw figures, you’ll find them, as usual, at Apple’s site.

In the quarterly conference call with financial analysts, Cook began the session with a pitch about the joys of OS X Yosemite, iOS 8 and the Swift programming knowledge, all of which began Apple’s fall push that will include upgraded products and, many expect, new product categories.

Once again, Cook blamed declining iPad sales, in part, on reduced channel inventory, but he also admitted to soft tablet sales, particularly in the U.S. and Europe. Still, he pointed to the positive surveys of customer satisfaction, the high level of tabled-based eCommerce purchases, and the fact that a high percentage of people planning to buy a tablet will choose iPad. But what does Apple do to boost sales? One key factor may be the IBM deal, where iPads will be strongly pushed into the enterprise.

And, as you might expect, Apple clearly feels iPhone sales would have been higher had it not been for all those rumors about the iPhone 6. But, of course, Apple doesn’t talk about future products, or at least future iPhones and iPads. The last time a future Mac was launched was last year’s Mac Pro.

Still, Cook put the lie, yet again, to the claim the mid-tier iPhone 5c has been unsuccessful, saying it’s growth curve was faster than the other products in the line, and ahead of the previous mid-tier product, the iPhone 4s, in 2013.

As usual, most of the callers discussed the arcane elements of profits and sales, though there was some discussion about the IBM deal and the Beats acquisition towards the end of the session. But most of what Cook said was essentially based on common sense, and what you’d assume from the original announcements about both.

In the end, as with the contrary reactions to the sales figures, you can expect some to suggest that Apple didn’t do enough, whereas others will suggest Apple did just fine. But if you put Apple up against other tech companies, particularly with the iPhone and the Mac, you’ll see where they continue grow at a decent clip compared to the rest of the industry.

So Apple on Monday July 21 released the fourth developer preview of OS 10.10, also known as OS X Yosemite. As usual, some new features were added or modified, and there are loads of problems in the release notes that impact many significant parts of the new OS, including the Finder and Safari. Some may only be cosmetic, while others impact basic functionality.

It is also rumored that the first public beta, available for up to one million users who signed up for the seed program, will be made available for download later this month, although there’s not much time left to fix a decent number of the most irritating problems. Indeed it has been confirmed that this release will be the first one available to the public on Thursday, July 24.

While I do not know just how many Mac users have signed up, or if the one million threshold has been realized, I can tell you from experience that beta testing an OS is not a casual process. You would not, for example, want to deploy a preview edition, regardless of how reliable it seems, in a production environment. What’s more, you’ll want to have a full backup in case you want to restore the drive to the version of OS X you were previously using.

In my case, one of the critical tools I use for my two radio shows is Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack Pro, designed to capture audio from such sources as Skype. But it is not yet compatible with OS X Yosemite, very probably because Apple made some big changes to the audio toolkit, so lots of reworking will be required. I do hope, however, that the app is fixed in time for Yosemite’s release. I hate to have to use two operating systems in my daily work.

But such cautions hold true for most anyone out there, unless you have a spare Mac around that serves as a plaything. The key is this, however. You know that the first official releases of a Mac OS (or Windows for that matter) will have various and sundry bugs that might impact your daily routine. Some might be serious. Now imagine a release with far more problems, and you’ll see why you need to be cautious.

On the other hand, making OS X betas available to a wider audience will allow for a more expansive test. Problems that might be discovered in the final release if only enough people had seen the beta may be addressed before they cause trouble. I expect that’s Apple’s hope, but the marketing value if the semi-public beta (semi-public because it’s not available to everyone) is tremendous. Apple isn’t charging for OS upgrades anymore, but if the test process goes well, more Mac users than ever will be lining up to download the final version when it appears.

As of the fourth developer preview, however, I would not recommend anyone but a power user or developer touch it. It’s just not ready, not because Apple is doing anything wrong, but because a lot of work is left to be done.

One thing we do know, however. The heavily-promoted Continuity and Handoff features, which, for example, allow you to start writing an email, a Pages document or something similar on a Mac, and have it pick up where you left off when you move to your iPhone or iPad — or in any sequence you wish — has a severe limitation. It apparently requires a Mac with Bluetooth LE, which excludes tens of millions of Macs released before 2011 and 2012. I suppose Apple could address this limitation by supporting third-party USB Bluetooth LE adapters, which are quite inexpensive. Whether Apple can or will provide that support is still an open question.

In any case, the next question is when Yosemite will appear. I suppose the schedule could mirror Mavericks, where it came out more than a month after the arrival of iOS 7. This year, however, that might not be in the cards. The reason is that OS X and iOS are closely dependent upon one another because of Continuity. It wouldn’t make much sense from a marketing standpoint to release iOS 8 first and inform iPhone and iPad users that they cannot use the new feature on their Macs until Yosemite is out, which may be a few weeks later.

Since the beta releases have been virtually simultaneous, I suspect Apple wants to get the final releases out on the very same day. That would be unique, but it makes sense in light of the fact that a key tentpole feature requires both to be fully functional.

What I will say is that DP 4 is snappy and most things do work, despite the raft of lingering bugs. I look to the final release with anticipation, and, if the development process continues at a good clip and most remaining problems are resolved promptly, this could be the best OS X ever.

At the same time that I read a report speculating about the feature set of the rumored iPhone 6, there was yet another headline suggesting that Samsung was poised to introduce a smartphone designed to compete head-on, which may be called Alpha. Of course, this is the way of the tech world. Apple puts out something, and tech pundits tout competing products that are intended to be “killers.”

So we had the iPod killer, the iPhone killer and the iPad killer. But none of these killers every actually sold more copies than the Apple gadget they competed with. Yes, more Android smartphones are sold than iPhones. But most are cheap models with which Apple never competes.

When I mention Apple having higher sales, I’m referring to single models, not hundreds of products produced by dozens of manufacturers both small and large. That’s a distinction that isn’t always drawn by commentators who want you to believe that the iOS has been overwhelmed by Android, there’s no room for a more profitable number two, and Apple might as well throw in the towel.

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