Some of my colleagues have been using iOS 7 since the first betas arrived from Apple in June, but I actually didn’t start until September 18, the very day it was released as a free download. Since then, the number of users has reached the hundreds of millions, signaling the fastest upgrade of any mobile OS — ever!

While every iOS release has arrived with an assortment of bugs, they seem more numerous with iOS 7, since it’s, visually at least, a sea change from previous versions. The slim and elegant text puts off some, because it may not be quite as readable. Others are freaked over the parallax effect from the few dynamic backgrounds Apple provides, or the constant zooming effects.

In fact, some people claim to have gotten dizzy or suffered from motion sickness over the special effects, and thus crave for a way to minimize or eliminate them. Now some of this is already possible. There are Accessibility options to reduce motion and contrast, which help some. You can also switch to bold type, which helps if visibility is an issue.

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In case you’ve been asleep for a while, let me make it perfectly clear: Apple has not released a wearable device known as an iWatch. Apple hasn’t indicated that they plan to release such a device, although Tim Cook has admitted there’s interest in wearable gadgets. But that doesn’t mean it has to be a wristwatch.

Regardless, the theory voiced in a particularly ill-informed piece in a major publication is that, since existing “smart” watches have failed to catch on, Apple would be wasting its time working on the same sort of product. Look at the evidence.

What evidence? Well, consider that such gizmos as smartwatches are already available. Think about the Pebble, the Sony SmartWatch or, more recently, the Samsung Galaxy Gear.

Now there’s one thing true about all of them, and that is that customers are not lining up to buy them.

After a very slight flurry of publicity for the Galaxy Gear launch, the follow up wasn’t encouraging. Reviews were generally negative. But that makes sense, since the Galaxy Gear doesn’t exist as a standalone device but is intended to mate with a handful of Samsung mobile gadgets. Just a handful. It’s too large, and battery life is not very good.

At least a Pebble smartwatch can mate with both iOS and Android gear, and it’s cheap enough, at $150, to satisfy the curiosity of people who like interesting gadgets and are willing to pay a modest sum to try one out. The battery is also reported to last for at least several days.

Now according the folks at Pebble, the company was funded via a Kickstarter campaign, which allows most anyone with a tiny sum to invest to get involved. Some 250,000 have been sold so far. That doesn’t seem like much when you consider the sort of numbers Apple touts for even the Apple TV — over 13 million sold — but we’re talking about a company very few have heard about, which doesn’t have a multimillion dollar ad budget. So a lot of the limited success is due to word of mouth, and some favorable reviews.

Indeed, the Pebble appears in just about every respect to be far superior to the Samsung at a fraction of the cost. But that doesn’t mean Pebble’s approach is the right one, or one that Apple should or will adopt should they decide to build an iWatch.

As with all smartwatches so far, a Pebble is an accessory for your existing smartphones or tablets. It uses Bluetooth to pair to your chosen device, and doesn’t do very much by itself. But needing two devices is not terribly efficient. If you forget to take your iPhone or Galaxy S4 with you, what is left for a Pebble to do?

More to the point, if the media raised similar questions about the prospects for digital music players before the iPod arrived, they would have received very negative responses. They were poorly designed with lousy software and slow download speeds. In addition to providing a smooth, intuitive interface, the iPod used FireWire to sync your songs, so it was much faster. It later switched to USB 2 for better compatibility with PCs, but with similar performance.

After the iPod produced amazing sales for Apple, other companies tried to get in line but failed. But it was clear that a built-in demand for the right digital music player existed, and Apple met that need.

Does such a demand exist for a smartwatch? That may be a loaded question. Although I’ve had a wristwatch with me since I was quite young, I realize a large number of young people simply aren’t into the watch habit, and that’s true for older people. Now maybe they would consider one with the right features, a cool design, and great performance, but I wouldn’t presume to make a guess.

Speaking for myself, I’d want to review an iWatch, should one ever come out, but I can’t say I’d buy one. Depends on Apple’s smartwatch solution. But I have contacted Pebble for a review sample, so let’s see what happens.

Unfortunately media pundits still, by and large, don’t get Apple. Predicting an iWatch must be destined to fail because existing smartwatches aren’t selling tens of millions of copies is the wrong approach. You could say tablets were unsuccessful too before the iPad came out, and that was certainly true. Apple found a way to solve the problems that prevented tablets from making it into the mainstream. There’s no reason not to think that Apple could do it yet again with the iWatch.

Yes, I suppose Apple could release one as a “hobby,” in the same way they’ve continued to promote Apple TV. But we know Apple TV is the gateway to a much larger initiative or grand vision of some sort. An iWatch would have to succeed by itself, and make a compelling impression to attract immediate interest. Apple knows the critics won’t be impressed regardless.

But the people who continue to assert that an iWatch must be a failure clearly don’t know what they’re talking about.

The media can’t stop telling Apple what to do, even if they don’t know themselves. Just this week, there was an article from a major British IT publication that claimed that Apple is essentially doomed if a genuine cheap iPhone isn’t released post-haste. Or even sooner.

In the real world, Apple has said over and over and over again that they do not plan to join the rush to the bottom. An iPhone is an aspirational device. You have to pay a little extra to get an iPhone, an iPad or a Mac. The theory, however, is that the smartphone market is saturated, and thus Apple loses out on future growth unless they take the cheap approach.

But aside from the lack of profit, there’s the question of how a cheap iPhone differentiates itself from the pack, other than an Apple label. How cheap can you make an iPhone, retain a decent profit margin, yet make it a premium product? Besides, that online pundit seems to forget that people replace their smartphones far more quickly than a PC. The two-year cycle coincides with the standard wireless carrier contract. Besides, as people in developing countries become more prosperous, they will inevitably seek out more expensive products as well, from cars to electronic gadgets.

There are also those ongoing claims that Apple is way behind the curve by not making a larger iPhone, as if the lack of one is causing people to buy other smartphones instead. Sure, there are all sorts of display sizes for smartphones, and some, above five-inch, have their own exclusive category known as phablets. But at the end of the day, has the public that’s been clamoring for a bigger screen, or are companies putting them out because they want to have something different?

Android handset makers are selling lots of gear. You can’t deny the facts, but does the customer who wants a smartphone really benefit from a larger display? Sure, there may be more room to display stuff, but at what cost? The iPhone will fit comfortably in most pockets and even small purses. Unless your hands are small, one-handed operation is possible. The five-inch Samsung Galaxy S4? The physical case isn’t that much larger, but I can tell you from personal experience that it’s more of a chore to retrieve from your pocket, and forget about using it with one hand for many tasks.

There’s also more to a display than the size. The iPhone has a somewhat lower pixel density than the Galaxy S4, but visibly text doesn’t look less sharp. There’s a point where an improvement in specs is meaningless. Yes, it’s nice to have a bigger display, but Samsung must not have realized that their AMOLED screens totally wash out in sunlight, or doesn’t care. At least the iPhone remains visible. That’s a huge difference in the real world.

After returning to an iPhone after using Samsung gear for most of this year, I found that I didn’t suffer from the smaller screen. Thus the headline — hold it closer!

Tim Cook says Apple hasn’t dismissed the possibility of an iPhone with a larger screen, but says there are tradeoffs. I expect that image quality and battery life both represent significant potential negatives. There is also the issue of usability in sunlight. Samsung doesn’t care, but you can be sure Apple will. There are also concerns about developers having to deal with yet another form factor, and Apple takes that seriously. Android developers are often forced to deal with the lowest common denominator.

The third set of arguments are all about features. The headlines will list the five or 10 features that the iPhone or iPad lack. Whether those features make any sense or not is beside the point. It makes for good headlines. Maybe someone should come out with the five or 10 “usable” features that Apple’s mobile gadgets need. That would reflect something more realistic, and it could serve as the wish list for future Apple upgrades.

But discussions about larger screens, removable batteries, and opening the file system are old news. Apple may do something about the first, but not the others. There are legitimate arguments about allowing you to add a “Swype” keyboard, which allows you to slide rather than tap. Yes, the App Store has them, but they require a convoluted copy and paste routine to work. Apple has yet to allow makers of third-party keyboards to replace Apple’s with all features intact. Apple is cautious about opening up core features to outsiders, but maybe they’d do it if enough customers cared.

While it’s all a matter of taste, I do wonder about people who have abandoned their iPhones and iPads almost solely because of Swype. While this keyboarding scheme may have undeniable advantages if you get used to it — and I didn’t when I had a Samsung Galaxy smartphone at hand — that doesn’t mean Swype will appeal to a large user base.

It comes back to the core argument. Apple does a lot that can be criticized, but demanding that they follow one’s personal business plan or product roadmap makes no sense whatever.

The cat is out of the bag, as AllThingsD has confirmed that Apple will hold an iPad-related media event on Tuesday, October 22. While we won’t know Apple’s full sales picture till the last week of October, unless some of the numbers are revealed at the iPad unveiling, some are wondering about its ongoing success. Reason is that sales were down in the September quarter, although there are probably good reasons for that result. One being that the current models were first introduced last fall, and that’s an awfully long time in the tech universe.

There are also ongoing reports that the iPad has been consigned to a minority status when it comes to market share, particularly against Android tablets, and it may only get worse. But there is that curious disconnect, that the iPad receives approximately 84% of measured tablet-based Web traffic. That conveys the impression that most of those other tablets aren’t being used to get online, which would seem to be one of the most basic functions. Why the disconnect?

One possibility is that lots of people buy those cheap tablets, under the impression they are getting a genuine iPad knockoff, with similar performance capabilities, or they are just buying something that they can afford. Regardless, after a brief period of use, it’s clear these white box tablets aren’t up to snuff, so they are placed in a drawer or in a closet somewhere. Perhaps they are returned in disgust to the dealer. I wouldn’t presume to have the answers, but there is that irritating question about what people are doing with all those tablets that, collectively, outsell iPads by a huge margin.

So what is Apple planning for the fifth generation iPad and the second generation iPad mini?

For the former, there are two logical changes. First is to make the chassis thinner and lighter, and I assume Retina display technology has advanced enough to allow Apple to give the iPad 5 a diet. There are supposedly leaked prototype parts that clearly point in this direction, a direction that appears to make the iPad 5 closely resemble its smaller sibling. It would also appear that a similar or faster version of Apple’s 64-bit A7 chip would be a given. Maybe it’ll be a more powerful version labeled A7x. That will continue to pave the way for the new generation of 64-bit apps. In a couple of years, it’ll be all 64-bit.

The expected chip upgrade may not necessarily apply to the iPad mini, which tends to receive somewhat less advanced parts, but I wouldn’t presume to second guess Apple’s intentions. What is clear is that the iPad mini is the hot ticket, and thus Apple would want to make the next version an extremely attractive upgrade.

That takes us to the Retina display dilemma. Although the display on the original iPad mini seems perfectly sharp and clear, it’s not quite Retina quality. Compare that to the small HD tablets being sold for less by Amazon and Google. It has been suggested by some pundits that it’s a matter of cost, since such a Retina display would have the same resolution as the one on the full-sized iPad, but I think Apple’s margins are high enough to absorb a more expensive component. The real question, then, would be whether Apple can get them in sufficient supplies for the holiday season.

The other question would be whether the first generation iPad mini would still be sold at a lower price as an entry-level product. Imagine buying one for, say, $229. Clearly a lot of customers would live without Retina to save $100. It’s also in keeping with how Apple has marketed the 9.7-inch model up till now.

The remaining question is whether there will be enough supplies to meet demand. Don’t forget it remains an open question how long it’ll take for the iPhone 5s backorder situation to end.

Now it’s a sure thing Apple’s critics won’t be impressed, even if everything I’m saying ends up being true, and it’s fairly conservative speculation. It represents a natural evolution of the iPad lineup, and it still keeps Apple ahead of the pack. As I said, customers may be buying those other tablets in huge numbers, but they aren’t doing much with them.

To be perfectly fair, it’s not as if the newest Android tablets are changing the paradigm. They may be a tad sleeker than the previous models, the processors are faster, and more and more are getting HD displays. But it’s not as if there are no growing pains. Consider the software problems that afflicted the second generation Google Nexus 7 tablet and made it almost useless, although they seem to have been mostly resolved. A recent survey of touch sensitivity still shows that Android tablets lag badly compared to an iPad.

At least Consumer Reports isn’t complaining, but they still expect mobile gear to be able to run Flash. Give me a break!

The one lingering question, though, about the next iPad is whether Apple will continue the policy of gouging customers who want more storage. Boosting the price by a flat $100 for each step upward in solid state memory is just plain wrong. That doesn’t reflect the cost to Apple, which is far less. Of course, that didn’t stop them from pulling the same stunt on the new iPhones, so I’m not expecting any changes, at least for this year.