The other day, I read yet another story about a lingering Apple problem, the inability to merge that dreaded Apple ID with another in your household or business. Certainly the problems are obvious: Licensed content purchased under one Apple ID doesn’t work when you login with another. This is particularly true of movie downloads, since the Hollywood entertainment moguls insist that you cannot be trusted.

Certainly it makes the process of managing your apps and getting updates all the more complicated if some were purchased with different accounts.

The Apple ID problem is understandable. You set up a new Mac, iPhone or iPad, and you just cannot remember your login info. So you create a new account. After a few years, you have several. Or perhaps another family member sets up their own account, and soon it gets complicated.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve helped a friend or client in just this situation. The setup assistant requests the Apple ID, and I get a questioning look. Is  it written down somewhere? What Apple ID do you use on your other Apple gadget? In the end, they might find one of many, or just start from scratch with a new Apple ID, although I strongly recommend against it.

True, they could contact Apple and try to recover an older Apple ID, but that’s hit or miss.

Apple’s solution is no solution. You cannot merge the accounts and simplify your life. For me, I still have an Apple ID representing an email address I haven’t used in over a decade. I keep the domain and the address active for one reason: Apple.

Now in theory I can understand why Apple might have problems merging Apple IDs. It would require some sort of verification process to confirm you are the same person with multiple accounts, or that the other accounts are being used by another family member. I suppose this would include confirming credit card numbers, addresses and other information Apple uses to make sure you are who you say you are. But they haven’t asked for my social security number — at least not yet.

Regardless, a couple of years back, Tim Cook was quoted as saying that Apple was looking into a solution. Maybe they were sidetracked fixing Maps, or building the next versions of iOS, OS X or the first iWatch. I wouldn’t know for sure, but it’s a sure thing that the present scattershot method of managing your Apple account or accounts is not workable, not efficient, and only causes trouble for customers. Surely Apple can carve out some time to address this issue.

I also return to the way junk mail is handled by iCloud’s email system. As I reported this past weekend, it appears that more severe spam — or at least messages that hit a higher threshold for some unknown reason — never hit your Junk box. While that might seem a blessing if there aren’t false positives, how do you handle the mistakes? When messages from the company I use to register domains didn’t reach me, I contacted Apple for a solution. That’s when they revealed that they can actually add an address or domain to a whitelist for you.

While I did finally receive the messages from the domain registrar that got caught in this quarantine, I have no way of knowing just how many messages never reached my Inbox or any mailbox. I also do not now how many messages I’ve sent from that account didn’t arrive at their destinations. I know the Apple support person didn’t receive the responses I sent to his email address, so go figure.

At the very least, Apple ought to give customers access to the block lists impacting their accounts online, so they can make a final decision as to whether to release and whitelist a message. I’ve been able to do that with any of the email hosts I’ve used.

A third issue is whether or not Apple is about to ditch the traditional headphone jack, based on 19th century technology, and use Lighting instead. This is a story that’s been going around for a while, and while I suppose anything is possible, those who are taking this story seriously seem to forget the a serious contradiction.

So, what do you do when the lightning port is already occupied with another connector, say to a power source, or another outboard accessory? Do accessory makers have to provide a duplicate port to support your headphones? Is Apple really saving that much space getting rid of the headphone port? Really?

This doesn’t mean there are no advantages to choosing a digital over analog connection for some abstract purpose that will expand the usability of headphones. I suppose there could be products that might leverage Lightning’s exclusive features in ways that traditional analog jacks cannot support. Maybe.

Now you should know that Apple has never officially commented on expanded use of the Lightning port, or on any plan to remove an old fashioned jack that supports hundreds of millions of headphones, speakers and other accessories for your iOS gear.

Yes, it’s true that Apple does want to drive technology, and many complained when the 30-pin Dock connector was ditched in favor of Lightning. Some car makers still haven’t gotten the memo, and thus provide the older connectors rather than the new ones. Regardless, that move will clearly pave the way for newer generations of outboard gear despite the inconvenience. Besides, it won’t be too many years before older gear with older connectors isn’t being used very much. Remember when Apple killed floppy and optical drives. Yes, I know there is one legacy MacBook Pro with an optical drive, but its days are numbered.

One thing is sure: There will always be Apple decisions and changes to complain about. But this is a useful start.

This weekend, Aereo, a cloud-based startup that allows you to watch local TV for a small monthly fee, suspended operations. This expected decision came in the wake of a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that Aereo was infringing on a broadcaster’s copyright, which pretty much put the kibosh on the service.

Now it’s widely expected that the company is done, and there will be no coming back, although I suppose it’s possible Aereo might try to reach a retransmission agreement with the TV stations, which would put it in essentially the same boat as a cable or satellite TV service. But its smaller footprint and limited choices would keep it at a competitive disadvantage.

In passing, it’s curious that Aereo was funded by IAC, an Internet company chaired by Barry Diller, who was chairman of Paramount Pictures for a decade. His entertainment industry background would seem to put him in a curious position to be involved in such a venture.

As for Aereo, it’s methodology was carefully crafted, no doubt to attempt to skirt the need to secure rights from the broadcasters. Basically, you leased a tiny TV antenna on their cloud-based network, and you received the stations on an Internet connected device, such as a personal computer, tablet, or smartphone. But not a TV, though you could feed it to a TV with a streaming set top box, such as an Apple TV.

To Aereo, this was all the equivalent of hooking up a TV antenna on your own set, but it wasn’t, since the signal was being sent to you online from a reception point at their datacenter. This is a distinction that the company’s lawyers argued, and the logic was found wanting. Those who supported the Supreme Court’s decision suggested that Aereo’s scheme was finely tuned to avoid having to confront a copyright issue. Regardless, the matter is settled.

This doesn’t stop you, of course, from buying your own TV antenna at the local Best Buy or Radio Shack and coping with the irregularities of over-the-air reception. Having tried it recently, I understand why most people are happy to embrace cable or satellite TV, or one of the streaming services, such as Netflix and iTunes. Unless you are fairly close to the transmitter, and don’t have large buildings getting in the way, getting a crisp digital signal constantly may be hit or mess. From my location, about 20 air miles from the largest local stations in Phoenix, reception was definitely hit or miss, with frequent breakup.

This inconsistent reception, particularly in the fringes, was the main reason the cable TV industry was created in the first place, starting up in small cities that were distant from most or all TV stations. They consisted of building one or large antennas to receive the distant stations, and feeding the signal over a network of cables and amplifiers to your home. Only later were cable TV outfits mandated by the FCC to broadcast local content, and it didn’t take long for cable-only channels, some premium, to rise and flourish.

Indeed, the top-rated cable channels, such as USA Network, TNT, FX, HBO and Showtime, often have shows with ratings that come extremely close to those of broadcast TV. They have strategically scheduled their new shows to be presented during the summer and winter months where broadcast networks are polluted with reruns and silly reality programs that few ought to care about.

Indeed, I find that possibly half of the shows I watch nowadays come from one cable network on another. As a practical matter, there’s little difference, except that cable, particularly premium channels, will offer tolerate explicit language and images.

As to Aereo, whether the signal comes through copper, coax or fiber doesn’t matter. According to the Supreme Court, putting the antenna in the cloud is equivalent to running a cable TV service, which means Aereo should have made retransmission arrangements with the broadcasters. I wouldn’t presume to assess the legalities or whether the court was correct, although those participating in this decision came from both sides of the political spectrum.

At the same time, the current contract situation between entertainment companies and cable/satellite systems is untenable. If they can’t reach an agreement on retransmission fees, channels are blocked out till the matter is settled. This has already happened, and it’s somewhat equivalent to union and management failing to reach an agreement and the workers going out on strike. If the channels are blocked, the customers, who still must pay their bills or be terminated, are inconvenienced. As a result of a new fee arrangement, your price may go up.

In any case, I don’t see the Aereo decision impacting other cloud-based services such as Netflix, which licenses all their content, nor such services as Hulu Plus, which is owned by the networks. Perhaps it will impact the startup who wants to find new ways to deliver TV content, but it seems to me that the effort made to avoid paying copyright fees might be better spent finding new and more efficient methods to present the entertainment and information you want.

As for me, had Aereo come to the Phoenix area, the chances that I’d subscribe are zero. I can get some stations via antenna — with the problems I mentioned — without paying anything. And a basic cable or satellite subscription — the cheapest promotional package — is more more than enough to include all the local stations and dozens or perhaps hundreds of others without much fuss or muss.

One of my long-time support clients sent me an email while the WWDC keynote was being streamed around the world. Her reaction to the first demonstration of OS X Yosemite? “Yuk!” To her, the Mac would no longer be a Mac, but some offshoot of an iPad, and she didn’t want any part of it.

Now to be fair, you can’t tell the book by the cover and all, so a new face doesn’t necessarily mean that the world has come to an end. But some people are resistant to change, and OS X Yosemite has more changes than just about any Mac operating system in memory. And my memory of Macs goes back to the 1980s.

Yes, I suppose you can brand the original OS X release as a sea change. The Aqua interface was different all right, but the new OS was bare of features, and, until apps became compatible, I didn’t use it all that much at first after the books and magazine articles were written. It took several releases before I went to it full time.

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While Apple is sometimes accused of borrowing a few features, such as the Notification Center, from Android, it’s still true that Google’s mobile OS was heavily influenced by iOS from the very beginning. Before the iPhone came around, Android concepts were, as with other smartphone platforms, heavily influenced by the BlackBerry. How things changed!

More recently, after a number of minor tenth of a point releases, Android’s back in the game with the “L” OS, due this fall. Introduced at this week’s Google I/O event, it’s a sure thing that there are a fair number of changes, though not near as many as in iOS 8.

First and foremost is a new user interface dubbed Material Design, with floating icons, lighting effects and real-time shadows. The impression of floating above the screen appears to be quite a change from the flatter look of iOS 7. But at least Google wants to seem different. There is also the promise of interface consistency among all devices running a Google OS, which reminds you of what Microsoft has been trying to do with limited success.

Yes, OS X Yosemite offers the opportunity for more consistency with iOS 8, but Apple understands the line of demarcation between a handheld mobile gadget and a traditional personal computer.

But when you go deep into the changes, you’ll find some seem highly derivative. So notifications are enhanced with the ability to interact with them from the lock screen, and even respond if you like. Now doesn’t that sound familiar?

User Authentication lets you avoid having to identify yourself with a pin, a pattern trace, or on one or two handsets, a fingerprint. The feature works if you are already in close proximity to an Android smartwatch. But it seems to me that this only lessens security, not enhances it.

There’s also a display of recent apps and indexing. The latter allows you to search for something in Chrome and allow you to open the appropriate app that relates to that content.

There are also said to be graphics performance boosts courtesy of the Android Extension Pack, which sounds reminiscent of the Metal graphics enhancement feature coming in iOS 8. Battery life is also said to be improved. So if you’re running low on power, the OS will reduce CPU load and dim the display to allow you to get up to 90 minutes more battery life.

These are supposed to be the tentpole features, along with support for health and fitness capabilities. But that’s not near as expansive as Apple’s HealthKit.

More to the point, beyond the interface changes, nothing seems to hit you in the face as anything compelling. Very little of Android L appears to change the competitive landscape, although Android fans will appreciate having more powerful games courtesy of those graphics improvements. But as with Apple’s Metal, that would require app developers supporting the new toolkit to offer enhanced gaming experiences.

There’s also support for 64-bit, which means that you should expect 64-bit chips showing up in Android smartphones and tablets later this year.

Oh, and did I fail to mention Android Auto, which allows an Android gadget to present its interface in a car that supports the technology? It’s highly reminiscent of Apple’s CarPlay, and you wonder if auto makers might just decide to include both technologies, and let the driver decide which to use.

At a time when it seemed that Android development had largely come to a standstill, it is encouraging to see the changes promised in Android L. At the same time, the biggest hurdle to overcome is the number of gadgets that will support the new OS. As it stands, the number of units supporting the current version of Android, version 4.4 KitKat, are in the very low double digits according to the latest survey released by Google. Remember that KitKat was introduced last fall, and the recent growth is mostly due to the release of new high-end Android gear, such as the Samsung Galaxy S5.

It’s not that older gear has much of a chance of receiving the update, and it’s questionable how quickly Android L adoption will occur. If nothing has changed in the way Google, the handset makers and the wireless carriers roll out these updates, it may be months before the uptake grows out of the single digits.

The biggest problem, then, is that developers who want to use the new graphics capabilities have to consider whether there are a sufficient number of potential customers for their apps. If a load of Android handsets never upgrade, even considering the potential hardware limitations, building more powerful games for Android might be a big waste of time.

I don’t think I have to dwell on the fact that the iOS adoption rate is always extremely high. Some 90% of eligible gear is running iOS 7, and I would expect the same to be true for iOS 8. But Apple distributes the updates directly. Google, because they allow manufacturers and carriers to customize and update their own Android distributions, will always remain behind the curve. Android L is not expected to change that unfortunate situation.