With reports of flat or declining sales of the iPad, confirmed in Apple’s March quarterly results, some clearly worry about the future of the tablet. Sales were reported as 16.3 million, compared to 19.5 million last year, which is a pretty big drop, a figure noticeably lower than analyst estimates.

Of course, it’s also questionable just how much iPad “sell-through” there really was in the March quarter, at least based on Tim Cook’s somewhat convoluted description of inventory management. In theory, after you account for the differences in the way inventory was handled last year compared to this year, the downturn was only around 3%, which wasn’t very much. But Apple’s critics regard it as little more than corporate spin control with geeky overtones.

Whatever figures you accept, I suppose there’s reason to wonder where the market is going. Forgetting the spin about the high adoption curve in the enterprise and in school systems, you wonder whether the public is actually cooling on tablets. The global tablet market was also relatively flat, so maybe there’s a point to that.

Or perhaps, as The Mac Observer’s John Martellaro will explain on the next episode of The Tech Night Owl LIVE, the market is maturing and ready for the next phase. What that phase might be is anyone’s guess, but if sales don’t begin to soar once again, I wonder if Apple has something in the works to rejigger the market.

Now John has had his own ideas, but I’ll suggest a few of my own that may not at all resemble his.

One possibility to jump start sales is just to sell the next version for less. There’s already precedent for this in the Mac market, with that $100 price cut for the newest MacBook Airs, which also offered a slight speed bump. Apple previously cut the prices on the MacBook Pro with Retina display, and perhaps other Macs will benefit from new pricing plans as they are updated over the next year. Imagine, for example, a Mac mini for the original price of $499 (it’s $599 now) along with slightly better performance.

Moving the MacBook Air to a starting price of $899 was a critical decision, because Apple has entered the volume segment of the note-book space. So people who might have spent $500 or $600 for a Windows note-book might not find the price jump to buy an MacBook Air to be quite a stretch. Sure, it’s only $100 less, but there’s a lot to be said for the psychology factor.

Now when it comes to the iPad, I suppose Apple could make a similar move. With economies of scale, how about an iPad mini with Retina display for $349 instead of $399? What about offering the 2014 iPad Air, however it changes, for $449 or even $399? This may not seem a lot either, but it’s a pretty high percentage, and if other configurations scale up appropriately, Apple might address a greatly expanded market.

Yes, this is the age-old argument that Apple’s prices are too high, but the company also needs to allow for high profit margins. The critics will pounce on them for that, even though other companies who might earn little or no profit continue to get a pass. So any move has to be done with deliberate care, recognizing the costs of the raw materials. But Tim Cook and crew can make better deals for components than any company in the industry, so I suppose it’s possible to get pricing that, with expected high volumes, will allow for the lower prices without seriously sacrificing margins.

Such a move also assumes the 2014 iPad lineup will, in large part, be just a modest refresh. Both iPads will get the rumored A8 processor, and the iPad Air might receive the expected Touch ID in the process.

But what about all-new models? The one getting on and off speculation is the alleged iPad Pro, a version with a 12.9-inch display that might include a case that sports a keyboard. That, however, seems to take it too close to Surface territory when you factor in the fact that there’s an Office for iPad now. Once Apple gets into a display configuration that large, you wonder if a standard MacBook Air or MacBook Pro wouldn’t be the better choice.

Big tablets, mostly those convertible note-books on the Windows platform, have been poor sellers. Even if it’s just a jumbo-sized iPad, I don’t see it as the mass market product. It’s possible Apple might consider one for more specialized use, but it’s still about numbers. Right now, the only limited focus hardware in Apple’s lineup is the Mac Pro.

And, no, I wouldn’t regard a phablet as an iPad. It would be an iPhone of some sort; one rumor calls it an iPhone Air. But a clever pricing strategy, and some really neat features for iOS 8 focused more on the new models than the old, might swing more customers to Apple. And the lower prices might also make customers who might have otherwise chosen Android think twice.

You may not have heard, but Firefox 29 was released this week. Version 29? Yes. It appears even the most modest update these days merits a full version number. Google Chrome is at version 34-odd and counting. But I’ve lost count, and it would take only the most dedicated power user with obsessive/compulsive predilections to define the changes from one version to the next.

But with the new Firefox, things have changed in a fairly comprehensive way. There’s a neater interface that, on the Mac version, seems flatter with perhaps a tad of iOS pretension. That’s a good thing, since Firefox has become the staid choice among browsers these days. For extensibility, all those great add-ons, it’s great. But if you want the best possible performance, not so great.

At one time, Firefox, from Mozilla, formed from the ashes of the original Netscape browser that Microsoft destroyed in the marketplace, was the alternate browser of choice. This was particularly true on the Windows platform as Internet Explorer languished with questionable levels of performance, rendering accuracy and notorious security bugs.

But the changes in Firefox became so incremental over the years, you wondered if it was relevant anymore. The upstart, Google Chrome, which originally used Apple’s WebKit as a rendering engine, same as Safari, was slim and fast. Over time, its market share caught up with Firefox, though I don’t know why. I never took to Chrome, and the fact that I was opening myself up to Google tracking of my goings on, unless deliberately turned off, didn’t endear the app to me.

Indeed, I mostly just use Safari these days for regular use. You can argue about individual features that may be better implemented in other browsers. At the end of the day, I just want fast, accurate display of sites, with easy control of tabs and decent levels of security. I will use other browsers to check my sites for rendering accuracy and possible performance glitches, but otherwise Safari fits neatly into my comfort zone.

On the Windows platform, ditching Internet Explorer is actually par for the course, but online analytics of the most popular browsers varies depending on who is doing the sampling. So when I checked the “Realtime Web Analytics With no Sampling” page from Net Applications for traditional desktop computers, I found Internet Explorer still ahead with a 57.96% share. Chrome was second with 17.52%, and Firefox took the third spot with 17.26%. Safari brings up the rear with a 5.68%, partly influenced by the fact that a Windows version is no longer being developed.

In passing, Opera, where many of the best ideas for browsers, such as tabs, originated, still remains the afterthought.

Of course the numbers are strictly academic. You should use the app you prefer without regard to how many others agree with you. But Internet Explorer became poison this week with the warning around the world not to use it, any version, because of a serious security problem. A security bulletin reported that “US-CERT is aware of active exploitation of a use-after-free vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer,” and even the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said stay away.

While I haven’t heard of how many PCs might have been compromised, that news had to come as a huge embarrassment for Microsoft, which is busy trying to rebuild itself as a device and services company under the leadership of newly-minded CEO Satya Nadella. Indeed, Microsoft announced the fix on Wednesday, including one for Windows XP which, as you recall, is supposedly no longer supported.

Now I realize many of you can give me chapter and verse why I should favor one browser over another, and I respect those opinions. In fact, I have been examining the possibilities of Firefox now that the new version is out. The look and feel is better. It’s a lighter gray than Safari, whose dark gray interface can seem a tad depressing. Even better, Firefox was relatively quick to launch on my vintage 27-inch iMac, and rendering speed was unexpectedly snappy.

I did not make any effort to measure actual performance. These days, a top-flight browser is almost lightning-quick with a fast broadband connection and a well-crafted site. The differences are in the tiny fractions of a second that most of you will never notice, even if you look real hard.

The rich selection of browser extensions is the feather in Firefox’s cap. There’s one, in fact, that checks a site to see if it’s impacted by the Heartbleed bug, a big-time security vulnerability that impacted OpenSSL, a widely used open source app. Since it’s not at all certain how many sites might still be vulnerable, I find that utility might actually make the argument in favor of Firefox, particularly if your online visits stray beyond the normal sites and move far afield to more obscure choices.

I’ll try to hang with Firefox for a while and see if I can get a taste for it. But it would help if Mozilla could devise a display feature to match Apple’s Reader. For now I’ve installed the equivalent Reader extension, but it doesn’t seem to toggle on and off as Apple’s does.

A day before the event happened, there was growing speculation of a minor refresh for the MacBook Air. The chatter centered on a very modest processor upgrade, using the very same Haswell chip family that powered the 2013 versions. And, on Tuesday morning, it happened. It was a sort of 100/100 deal, with processor speeds boosted by 100MHz, and the price reduced by $100. Oh yes, iTunes movie playback time was extended due to some power efficiency magic of some sort. The rest of the product specs appear to be unchanged.

The benchmarks will, at best, yield a very modest performance boost. But shaving $100 off the purchase price is the most significant announcement of all, since it puts the MacBook Air into a more affordable place compared to Windows UltraBooks. Indeed, Apple is making a big deal of the modest price cut. No doubt their efficiency in buying components for the new boxes will keep profits high.

But what about the rest of the Mac lineup for this year? Just what sort of changes or improvements might we expect?

Well, with the Mac Pro backordered, one hardly expects much of a 2014 model update unless Intel gets some really spiffy new Xeon processors out over the next few months. Even then, it would be a simple refresh. But maybe costs of the speediest SSDs will come down enough for Apple to offer 512GB as a minimum. Presenting 256GB on a high-end workstation sounds insulting, even 512GB is too small, and it does appear these drives are getting cheaper, at least when you check out third-party solutions.

Overall, however, I’m not expecting much if anything to change with the Mac Pro. The 2013 version, which shipped so late it barely qualified for that label, was so very different from previous Mac Pros, or any PC for that matter, that it’s not something that would be overhauled very much for a few years.

The other Mac form factors seem equally certain to look pretty much the same, although the raw components will no doubt be updated as new and better parts are available.

As to existing models, time is short for the standard 13-inch MacBook Pro, since it’s only $100 cheaper than the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. But there is that 500GB traditional hard drive and the optical drive on the former. Customers may buy it for that reason alone, not caring so much about the joys of a Retina display. Besides, the 128GB SSD on the Retina display model is downright paltry. Again, I think Apple can afford to make 256GB the minimum without seriously hurting profits. They know how to make deals for great parts prices.

There is, of course, the Mac mini, which didn’t get much love in 2013, and still exists in 2012 form. It’s still a pretty desirable box, perfect for general use. Indeed, I know people who have traded down from larger Macs because the mini was good enough. But why didn’t it get the Haswell chip? Well, the biggest advantage is of the new processor is lower power usage, and better integrated graphics. The former, though, doesn’t mean a thing for a computer that’s always connected to the wall outlet.

Maybe there will be a mini refresh when the Broadwell chips are ready. But I don’t see a new form factor in the near future, since the question would be: Why? Yet there is one set of rumors suggesting Apple might dump this model for a cheaper iMac. But that hardly makes sense, since they don’t always fit the same usage patterns so far as I can see.

There are also occasional rumors about a possible MacBook Air with Retina display. I think there will be one, but possibly, at the start, as a separate premium-priced model. I don’t know that Apple is capable of getting a Retina display priced low enough to offer one for the same price as the standard resolution version, but this is Apple, and that development would be significant for the cheapest Mac note-book.

I think that should cover it, except for yet another set of rumors about the alleged convertible Mac, or a so-called iPad Pro that may or may not be able to also run OS X. Of course the latter doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. Besides, convertible note-books have gone virtually nowhere in PC-land, and the computer makers are reportedly cutting back on buying those PC-based touchscreens. That hardly augers well for the form factor, and it’s not one that Apple has ever considered.

Besides, is there even any genuine consumer demand for a note-book computer that can double as a tablet, with a touchscreen? The fact of the matter is that this is the singular approach PC makers took for tablets for years before the iPad arrived. “The year of the tablet” never came, but somehow, in the twilight of the PC era, some companies still believe that the success of tablets means they can trot out old form factors and give it another go. Maybe Ford should next consider reviving the Edsel. It would make just as much sense, don’t you think?

It doesn’t mean Apple has run out of surprises for Mac hardware, but you have to be realistic about where it fits in Apple’s mobile-based ecosystem, and be pleased the computers and the OS are still getting regular updates.

On the surface, the concept of a phablet seems an awkward mix. It’s meant to serve the functions of both a tablet and a full-featured smartphone, but there is that issue about usability that complicates the picture.

So Apple famously maintains they want you to be able to do things on your smartphone with one hand, and thus the iPhone has a four-inch display, which is taking it to the edge with some users. Yet Tim Cook has not dismissed the idea of a larger handset. He speaks of technology issues, which may include battery life, display quality and reliability as being among the reasons why Apple hasn’t made larger iPhones, at least not yet.

But it’s not that the larger screens on other smartphones necessarily suffer from any of those issues, so let me continue.

Supposedly things will change with the iPhone 6, where the rumor sites have settled on a 4.7-inch display for various and sundry reasons. Part of it is how well it scales up from the smaller models. But it’s hard to realize now that, at the beginning, the original iPhone form factor, with a 3.5-inch display, was actually quite large for a smartphone. But the competition, wanting to trump Apple in the specs game, went for the bigger screens.

But what about the phablet?

Well, it comes across as the sort of kludge that Apple would frown upon. As a smartphone, it’s big, maybe too big. The landlord has a Samsung Galaxy Note, and I can see him struggle to place it in his pocket, but I suppose he finds the larger display useful for conducting business on the road without having something that’s too large, or being forced to bring two devices with him.

To me, it would be a non-starter. My iPhone goes in my pocket, and I found the 5-inch Samsung Galaxy S4 to be a chore to insert and remove. I had thought less-than-seriously, in passing, of maybe moonlighting as a clown to get pants with larger pockets, but that’s not my thing. So for me, perhaps the larger iPhone 6, if the form factor is as predicted, would be a little much, but I suppose I could tolerate it if Apple employed appropriate space efficiencies.

But what of the phablet? As a tablet, it’s clearly a non-starter for practical use, or so it seems. Apple went with a 7.87-inch standard aspect ratio display for the iPad mini because it provides a decent amount of useful work area for something other than movies. This is the great advantage over all those 7-inch Android widescreen tablets that have polluted the consumer electronic store shelves.

As a practical matter, the phablet seems the worst of two worlds. Too large for a handy smartphone, and too small for a usable tablet. But that’s just a case of practicality, and customers aren’t always practical.

So we have this market survey from Kantar WorldPanel ComTech reporting that 40% of the smartphones sold in China in March were phablets, having screens larger than five inches. Now Apple is lusting after the Chinese market big time. This year’s deal with China Mobile, the world’s largest wireless carrier, was the result of lengthy negotiations, and Apple clearly wants to grow the relationship. It’s not easy to give up on the potential of tens of millions of lucrative sales even for a form factor that might be, well, controversial or somewhat inconvenient.

Such an approach may seem to be against Apple’s meme, which is not to build products that serve every possible market niche but to focus on a simple lineup that makes it easy for customers to chose the models that best fit their needs.

But you may see the value of a phablet as an all-in-one computing device that does have appeal to many potential iPhone customers. Rather than buy two gadgets, particularly in a country with a far lower income than any of you would find tolerable, they choose just one. A phablet doesn’t have to be cheap, and Apple would clearly charge an appropriate premium for the bigger form factor, but the public relations impact might require a little explaining. Nothing about the phablet seems to fit within Apple’s usual standards of usability, yet it has to be sorely tempting.

So if there really is, as rumored, a 5.5-inch iPhone Air, Apple would need to employ smoke and mirrors to explain why they succumbed to the almighty dollar. The sheer popularity of the form factor, particularly in some parts of the world, might be enough, although even netbooks were once popular. But a case can be made for a phablet being a gadget of choice for many users. No such case was ever made for the netbook, which was just a bad PC by any normal standard.

In light of this, I am becoming more and more convinced that an Apple phablet, an iPhone Air or whatever, may really come to pass. I wouldn’t buy one, and I suspect Cook would green light the product with decided reluctance and a groan on his countenance, but if there’s going to be a phablet, why not make the best one on the planet?