This story has been getting a lot of traction in recent days. Supposedly Softbank, a Japanese company that owns Sprint, is in talks with Germany’s Deutsche Telecom, owners of T-Mobile. If the proposed $32 billion merger deal comes to pass, the third and fourth largest wireless carriers in the U.S. will be one. The combined number of subscribers is estimated at 102.7 million, which will put the company just behind Verizon Wireless, with 103.3 million subscribers.

Number one these days is AT&T, with 116.0 million subscribers, now involved in a merger with a satellite TV company, DirecTV. But this article is not about that merger, or on whether it’ll succeed, except for one thing. AT&T once tried to buy T-Mobile, which would have left Sprint the poor handmaiden in such a deal, and the regulators said no. In turn, T-Mobile used the billions of dollars in breakup fees to fund network expansion.

So these days T-Mobile is on roll in terms of adding subscribers. Some 2.4 million joined up in the first three months of this year, lured by the “uncarrier’s” promise of lower prices, free international roaming, and getting an up to $650 refund to pay a rival carrier’s early termination fee.

Now the customers of the other other three major wireless carriers in this country are trying to get into the act and, more or less, match to come close to T-Mobile’s offers. Indeed, in recent months, I’ve been able to move to cheaper family share plans on AT&T, where I’ve been a customer for the past seven years. Funny how someone else’s cheaper prices and the implied threat to leave can do wonders.

But while AT&T and Verizon are profitable, Sprint and T-Mobile aren’t. T-Mobile’s efforts to sign up as many customers as possible meant a loss of $151 million for the first quarter of the year. That’s compared to $20 million in the year-ago quarter. Now T-Mobile spends billions to enhance their network, so a hundred million or two won’t kill the company so long as cash flow is good.

Sure, it’s also clear that Sprint and T-Mobile can’t lose money indefinitely. All right, Amazon has survived for years with losses or minuscule profits, but they appear to exist in an alternate reality where such questionable numbers actually impress Wall Street.

Now I wouldn’t presume to guess whether this merger, should the deal be made, will pass muster with the Department of Justice or the FCC, though I expect plenty of skepticism, As separate companies, they aren’t likely to ever get close to toppling the two market leaders. But T-Mobile’s CEO, John Legere, is a one-of-a-kind and often outrageous spokesperson who knows how to grab an audience. In a combined company, with Sprint calling the shots, what’s his place going to be? Sprint CEO Daniel R. Hesse is a credible talking head for his company, but he’s nowhere near as flamboyant as Legere. So how would that work out?

But the reason I consider the discussions about the merger to be rather simple-minded is because the largest obstacle of all isn’t getting near as much attention as it should While both Sprint and T-Mobile are busy rolling out their answers to LTE, the former uses CDMA technology, same as Verizon, and the latter uses GSM, mostly similar to the network structure at AT&T.

Thus, on Day One of this merger, the 53.6 million Sprint customers and the 49.1 million T-Mobile customers will have handsets that are incompatible, and the two networks will be incompatible. Job number one, therefore, would be to decide which network to favor, and how to phase out older equipment as the hardware is upgraded.

The integration process will be costly, there will be customer service issues, and I suspect an unknown number of customers would prefer to jump ship rather than put up with any aggravation. No doubt AT&T and Verizon will offer increasingly attractive incentives to convince Sprint and T-Mobile customers to come on board even if each conversion is expensive. Suddenly, the combined company will be slimmed by at least a few million bodies who decided they just couldn’t wait.

Now Sprint has already played the network incompatibility game with the 2004 acquisition of Nextel. It wasn’t so pretty for Nextel customers; the iDEN network the service used was ultimately shut down.

Even if a workable integration or migration plan is devised, how long will it take to complete? Two years? Three years? During that time, marketing messages will be muddled, and no doubt thousands of employees will find their jobs redundant or obsolete in the New Order. Mergers and acquisitions almost always result in slimmer employee rosters.

So there are clearly more obstacles involved in such a deal than getting the authorities to give the OK. I know if I had actually made the switch to T-Mobile, I’d be disappointed, and perhaps feel betrayed, particularly if there were rough patches over finding the promised synergies between the two companies.

At first, I actually believed T-Mobile might try to go it alone after the merger with AT&T fell through. But it’s also clear the telecom industry remains in a state of flux. In the end, if all the obstacles can somehow be resolved, having three wireless carriers that are similar in size could make for a more competitive landscape. But coming out of a predictably difficult integration process, it’s likely that Sprint/T-Mobile won’t be near as strong as AT&T and Verizon. If it happens, this merger is going to be very difficult to accomplish. Unfortunately, not so many tech outlets are considering all the obstacles.

There’s a feeling among some segments of the media that the people who run Apple are downright stupid. They shouldn’t be getting millions of dollars in wages and stock options playing with a huge multinational corporation. Let some smart people run Apple, such as the commentators and bloggers who must be frustrated because they aren’t earning the big bucks.

Of course this is silly. While it’s perfectly fine to state what you don’t like about Apple, or what Apple should do, don’t presume to suggest you know more than Tim Cook or any other executive over there. It’s possible to make mistakes, but don’t presume they are all incompetent.

Still, there is that unconfirmed report suggesting Apple’s executives didn’t understand the niceties of the streaming music business, didn’t comprehend the differences between Pandora and Spotify, and thus screwed up the launch of iTunes Radio. So they bought Beats Electronics to set things right.

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Implicit in the WWDC keynote this week is Apple’s effort to reduce reliance on Google for search, and to answer the complaints about the lack of features by those who have adopted the Android platform. The most blatant example of the former was putting Bing search in Spotlight. The trend had started with Siri, and it’s clear Apple and Microsoft are working more closely together than ever nowadays.

It’s notable that Microsoft managed to deliver a version of Office for the iPad, but it’s still missing in action on Windows 8. To be fair, Microsoft is also going to release an Office for Android in the near future. But to Microsoft, expanding Office to other platforms only expands the use of Word, Excel and PowerPoint as industry standards. Besides, it means more money for Microsoft, so why not? But it’s telling that a touch version for Windows 8 is taking very long to complete and may not arrive until 2015.

Now when it comes to Google, it’s also telling that Safari searches will also rely on Spotlight for results, and that, again, means Bing. Adding DuckDuckGo, a search engine that promises not to track you, as another option under OS X, must further dilute Google’s prospects. Sure, if Google remains the default when OS X Yosemite is released, and previous defaults settings would likely be retained, that will still give the world’s number one search engine the upper hand, but in an environment where there’s more to lose.

In passing, I wonder why Apple doesn’t just buy DuckDuckGo, though that might cause a political problem with Microsoft. But the price has to be real cheap.

In any case, the message is clear. Besides, Siri is already using Bing, so Google has been out of the picture there for a while. Indeed, Google reportedly earns more money via the Apple connection than from Android, so this has to be an ongoing problem for them.

Beyond search engines, Apple’s new posture of opening up iOS to more third-party opportunities goes far to eliminate the features that many may prefer on Android. I remember when one well-known Mac pundit, Andy Ihnatko, famously adopted Android because iOS didn’t let you install third-party keyboards on a systemwide basis. While you could get keyboards from Swype and other vendors, you had to use a complicated copy and paste routine to put text into your email or Pages documents. With iOS 8, you can drop in another keyboard and be assured it’ll fully replace Apple’s. You may prefer the default QuickType keyboard, offering smart predictive capabilities, or perhaps you’ll want to consider SwiftKey, highly praised for originating similar capabilities. Regardless, it appears that the major developers of alternative keyboards for Android will have replacements available for iOS 8.

Does all that give Ihnatko the incentive to return to the iPhone? Right after this column was posted, it appeared that he had indeed reached that conlusion.

Apple is also addressing other perceived Android advantages by letting you add widgets to the Notification screens, and to allow apps to talk to one another. That means, for example, that a third party can deliver extra filters and features to Apple’s new Photos app. There’s also an iCloud file browser, so you can see and manage your files in a way similar to what Android offers. Sure, Android is accessing files directly on your smartphone or tablet, but iCloud Drive means your documents are in sync on all your iOS gear and your Mac. It also preserves the limited storage space on your device.

I’m sure Android uses can cite chapter and verse of how their chosen mobile platform still offers other advantages compared to iOS. There is, of course, the feeling that Apple is too controlling, and the looser environment offered by Google is an advantage.

I suppose it does, especially for power users who want to explore every nook and cranny of their gadgets and customize to a fare-thee-well. But Apple doesn’t add features because they exist. Offering extra sandboxing capabilities for iOS means that Apple has tested them to provide the maximum level of security. This is why it didn’t just happen overnight. It’s also true that you can find a number of features that Apple has “borrowed” from other platforms, even though you are apt to find a unique slant on the original concept. It’s not the same as Samsung matching an iPhone feature-for-feature without thought to making changes to avoid patent lawsuits.

Most important of all is that, by this time next year, over 80% or possibly more of iOS users will have upgraded to iOS 8. That the iPhone 4 is no longer compatible will leave tens of millions of customers behind, though I can see where the next iOS might simply have performed so poorly on the older hardware that the user experience would be unacceptable. Don’t forget that, until the 7.1 update, running iOS 7 on an iPhone 4 wasn’t always a pleasant experience.

Does this mean Android users will suddenly come rushing to Apple? Well, supposedly half of the new customers Apple signed up in China gave up Android, so the potential is there. What’s more, it’s not as if Google has been rushing to add loads of new features. In recent years, Android updates have been relatively minor. Version 4.4 KitKat, released last fall, is installed on less than 10% of existing Android gear. The next version of Android is widely expected to be 4.5, although the rumors claim there will be a greater emphasis on new features. We’ll see.

In any case, the other reason Android users may prefer their gear is that the screens are larger, sometimes much larger, than an iPhone. But that state of affairs is widely expected to change with the iPhone 6, which may come in 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch versions. That appears to leave Android users with fewer excuses not to jump ship, but we’ll see how it all turns out come this fall.

One important feature of OS X Mavericks was the list of system requirements. It ran on the same hardware as OS X Mountain Lion, and evidently with good performance overall. I hadn’t really heard much in the way of complaints about OS 10.9 operating slug-like on someone’s vintage Mac, though I can see where the boundaries might be stretched on some of those 2007 and 2008 models.

What this means is that the uptake of Yosemite is apt to be similar to Mavericks, which now runs on over 50% of the installed base of 80 million Macs according to Apple. The rest? Well, an estimated 15-20% still use OS X Snow Leopard. Unlike Windows XP, though, that’s not necessarily an indictment against the quality of later versions of OS X. Complaints that the Mac is taking on too many of the characteristics of iOS are misleading, since a Mac is still a Mac and most functions work the same regardless.

One key reason for the high level of OS 10.6 users is the hardware. The equipment won’t run newer versions of OS X. A second reason is Rosetta, the PowerPC conversion software that lets you run older apps on Intel-based Macs. You could argue that Apple should have found a way to continue to offer that capability, but Apple rarely looks backwards. On the other hand, allowing Macs that are five to seven years old to use the latest OS X is far different from the Apple of a few years ago. You see, if performance is good, customers may be less likely to buy new Macs, although some features, admittedly, won’t make the transition.

The key impediment to Yosemite adoption, though, is the new look. One of my long-time clients muttered “YUK!” after reading about this week’s WWDC presentation. But changing artwork, fonts and special effects amounts to window dressing. It doesn’t make you use your Mac differently. The new features, particularly Spotlight on steroids, will give you more flexibility, but it won’t stop you from working on your Mac pretty much as you do now. Apple isn’t forcing you to buy an iPhone or an iPad to use Continuity. Use it or not, or stick with an Android or a Windows Phone device if you prefer. The complaints are overblown.

In the iOS world, there were plenty of complaints that the iPhone 4 and iOS 7 weren’t very happy together. Performance wasn’t so good, though the iOS 7.1 update improved things considerably. Still, a lot of the power of iOS 8 no doubt makes it necessary to set the iPhone 4 out to pasture. The iPad 2 and the first iPad mini, however, will support the new iOS. In fairness, performance of the current iOS on my wife’s third generation iPad isn’t all that terrific. I’ve turned off some of the special effects, but she will probably push me to get her a new one after iOS 8 is out.

A year from now, though, Apple will report that over half of the Mac user base will be using Yosemite, and a greater percentage will be running iOS 8 ahead of the announcement of their successors. That’s nothing surprising, though I’m certainly assuming that the new OS upgrades will be fairly reliable and won’t present any serious show stoppers for Apple’s users.

When you look at the Android world, though, you’ll see that only a tiny percentage of a much larger universe are using version 4.4 KitKat. Even if the gear is compatible, and Google promised that the latest Android would run better on older hardware, the possibility of an update is little to none. The sole exception is Google’s own Nexus product line.

So there’s the unfortunate situation where even new Android gear is running an OS that may be two years old or older. Security problems remain unfixed, and app developers aren’t able to exploit the latest and greatest features.

But with Android, it’s not that recent upgrades have been all that spectacular. That’s why Google went from Android 4.3 to 4.4. It was a modest upgrade. In contrast, both Yosemite and iOS 8 offer a larger number of changes and improvements than any Apple OS in recent memory. Or perhaps ever.

In the past, Apple has been forced to stretch the definition of “new feature” to exceed the magic 200 number. This time, 200 is the starting point, and hardly a day passes where I don’t read about yet another undiscovered feature reported by beta testers. Besides, only the first developer releases are out, so it’s quite possible other features that weren’t quite ready for prime time will appear.

So I’m still hoping for a side-by-side multitasking capability for an iPad, allowing you to run two apps or documents on the same screen. You can do that on Android gear now, and I was hoping Apple would say something about it at the WWDC. Some rumors suggest it’ll show up later, when it’s ready to demonstrate, and one can always hope.

As it stands, though, it’s really encouraging to see Apple providing a high level of support for older hardware as an amazing number of new features are being added for both OS X and iOS.