The critics said that the iOS had grown long in the tooth, that Android and perhaps Windows Phone had passed it by. So where’s Apple’s rebellious streak? Where is the change you can believe in? Has Apple indeed become yesterday’s news?

Well, it didn’t take long for the rumor sites to suggest that a total redo of iOS 7 was in the offing because design guru Sir Jonathan Ive was put in charge of software. When the presentation began at the WWDC, it was clear Apple had upset, well, the apple cart. Thin and understated are in, and shading and skeuomorphism are out.

The changes are up close and personal as soon as your iOS gadget boots up for the very first time with the new OS. Suddenly that thin and minimalist interface makes it crystal clear that this is not the iOS of old. After responding to a few setup assistant prompts, I was exposed to the full brunt of the interface, and for a moment I thought I was using a totally different product.

Now I’m talking about a third generation iPad here, not a new iPhone, although that’ll happen real soon now. So my wife and I had been accustomed to doing things a certain way. Indeed, when Barbara spent some face time with her newly upgraded iPad, she thought I had betrayed her somehow, but soon realized most everything worked the same way, even if buttons and other interface elements looked different.

Since it’s easy for the critics to point to how iOS 7 resembles the competition, I focused on the Control Center and even the stick figure artwork to see where and how Apple might have been influenced.

Certainly minimalist artwork is part of Windows 8, though done in a far more garish fashion, if you see the distinction. So my biggest criticism of the iOS 7 Control Center is that quick settings icons do not have labels. The comparable features in Android, in the Notification Center, sport clear lettering in case the purpose of an icon momentarily eludes you.

Under iOS 7 on that iPad, the only visible label is for AirPlay. Everything else is indicated strictly by an icon. It becomes white when a service is activated, and remains dark gray when it’s turned off. But audio playback and other toggle switches are also dark gray, and only become white momentarily when tapped. Now it’s also true that the icons are designed well enough so that the purpose ought to be clear at a quick glance, but labels would be nice.

Although most critics want to liken Control Center with the Android alternative, Apple offers a significant advantage. Android stuffs the service toggles into a crowded Notification Center, and it’s awfully easy to accidentally turn off a service with a wayward tap. By putting these settings in a separate pane, one that would be consulted for limited functions, the chance for error is sharply reduced. This is an area where Apple clearly understands how and why things should “just work,” and to allow for user error.

When it comes to performance, navigating through iOS 7 again demonstrates how Apple’s mobile gear works so much better than even the most powerful Android product. Understand that I’m not referring to the latest and greatest iPad, but the previous model. Yet scrolling and animations are smooth and fluid. When you scroll through a page, it’s a seamless process, and there’s not a trace of raggedness or thickening of the letters or artwork while in motion. When I do the same thing on the most powerful Android smartphone on the planet as of this past spring, the Samsung Galaxy S4, you do see that ragged effect, with an occasional stutter. It’s as if the hardware is fighting an unfinished and bloated OS to make things happen.

Despite all the new features, Apple clearly prizes simplicity and elegance. Although apps may have their own settings panes, you can get most things done direct from the Settings app. Going through all the options, which are expanding as more features are added, can be done in minutes. With Android, you may have to spend hours traveling through extensive system and app settings before you get things just right. Sometimes you wonder what Google’s OS team was thinking, such as the option to make lettering sharper. This is equivalent to the Windows ClearType feature, and it appears to have a similar result. On the iOS, no such setting is present or required. Why should getting the sharpest text require finding a well hidden setting and turning it on?

I realize we are talking of a point-zero release, and there’s already a 7.0.1 awaiting owners of the Phone 5c and iPhone 5s when they first set up their devices. So I expect things to go wrong from time to time, and I did get a few sudden quits when changing something in Settings. What’s more, I would also have preferred somewhat thicker and maybe darker lettering on some interface elements, since they aren’t quite as readable as they should be. I assume if enough people complain, Apple might make changes.

Right now, however, iOS 7 is working pretty much as advertised. The long-term battery impact of background updating and other enhanced multitasking features remains to be seen. Clearly battery life on the newly tested iPhones, however, seems very much in line with Apple’s claims based on the early reviews.

But I’ve just started writing this story, so stay tuned.

To some, it’s not what Apple says, but what they don’t say that counts. So, lacking a statement about preorders for the iPhone 5c, some financial analysts concluded sales must be poor. Apple’s stock price tanked yet again, with the unwarranted assumption that this new iPhone lineup was destined to fail, but all without evidence that such dire conclusions were true.

As I write this article, Apple’s stock price is up, but that doesn’t mean the street has come to its senses. They are still freaked out over the fact that the iPhone 5c is mostly based on the iPhone 5, as if that’s supposed to be something real bad. Besides, it’s not cheap enough.

What is forgotten how many iPod updates over the years were mostly cosmetic, with only modest changes in specs or features. But the “Apple is no longer innovating” game wasn’t being played then. Too bad Steve Jobs isn’t around to watch all this absurd by-play on the sidelines, but I hope that, wherever in the universe he might be, he is not rolling in his tomb.

So what is the true picture about iPhone 5c presales? Well, it does seem that all or most configurations remain available for delivery on or about September 20, but does that indicate lack of demand, or simply plenty of product to sell? Perhaps the latter, as most of the components are carry-overs from the iPhone 5, and fabricating the plastic casing isn’t near as difficult as the metal, particularly the way Apple does things. It’s less certain how the iPhone 5s will fare, since there are already warnings of severely constrained supplies. But supplies are almost always constrained on new Apple gear, particularly when there are major changes, and the insides of the iPhone 5s most definitely have major changes.

Oh yes, there is one survey supposedly tracking iPhone orders and indicating predictably high demand. But, once again, Apple hasn’t revealed anything, and you shouldn’t expect any real numbers until September 23, after the new models are actually delivered to customers. Apple’s previous benchmark is 2012, where five million iPhone 5s were sold, but this time two models are debuting, so the figures may be skewed.

Right now, many expect that, as with the iPad mini, the iPhone 5c will get the lion’s share of orders. Early adopters and those with a bit more disposable income may spring for the iPhone 5s. But you wonder how any of the new features, despite being magnificent innovations, will fare.

Despite what some ill-informed tech pundits claim, the 64-bit A7 processor can offer real performance improvements on 64-bit apps. Based on a new ARM architecture, you don’t need 4GB or more of RAM to yield those improvements, and early reviews of the iPhone 5s clearly bear this out. I look forward to more thorough benchmarks going forward, but it’s important to know that Apple’s claim of up to twice the performance of the iPhone 5 appear to be quite accurate, at least so far.

Touch ID, the fingerprint sensor, also seems to be extremely reliable, and I await my chance at bat in a few days to confirm how well it does. And, no, you can’t follow what’s done in those spy TV shows and movies, and just take someone’s dead finger and make it work. I won’t go into the reasons why, but such gruesome scenarios aren’t going to actually happen in the real world. But wait till Apple adds a retina sensor. They’ll be plenty of ghoulish comments then.

I won’t repeat the possible advantages of the M7 motion coprocessor. It should be obvious if you read Apple’s specs for the iPhone 5s, and, no, it’s not a trivial component.

But remember that having a feature doesn’t mean it’s necessarily going to work well, or at all. Sure, Samsung could upgrade to 64-bit hardware, but what about Google and Android? I gather that making Android 64-bit savvy is no easy task, and, even if it were done in a reasonable period of time, it’s not at all certain what advantages it would offer, or how easy it would be for developers to update their apps. The current app situation is scary enough for developers, what with so high a proportion of Android handset owners running relatively ancient versions of the OS. So forget about adding new features, and that’s precisely the reverse of what’s happening on the iOS, as millions download iOS 7.

Or is Google planning to focus the lion’s share of attention on the Chrome OS, since the same executive runs that and Android these days? It’s not that the next version of Android, 4.4 KitKat, seems to offer a compelling feature set, or any feature set. Yes, there are some scattered reports about possible 64-bit support and all, but that’s fueled more by the desire to see Google match Apple than any sense of reality.

But reality often conflicts with a good story, and you can bet the media will often be inclined to consider the latter, fact checkers be damned!

So I saw a headline from an online pundit Tuesday claiming that the problem with the iPhone 5c is that it has a plastic case but not a cheap price. The implication from the writer in question is that using that material rather than metal is a way to, as they say, cheap out and shortchange customers.

It’s all about the plastic, so how dare Apple use that material in building a mid-priced smartphone? Clearly they aren’t paying attention to the market or the competition. Or so they say.

Typical of uninformed bloggers who try to rain on Apple’s parade in such a pathetic fashion, the writer in question is just plain uninformed. Plastic doesn’t necessarily mean cheap. Consider the construction material used to fashion the first iPhones, and they were most assuredly not inexpensive, nor did they look cheap. Consider millions of Apple MacBooks and PowerBooks fashioned of polycarbonate.

More to the point, take a look at Samsung’s flagship Android smartphone, the Galaxy S4, which is made of, shall I say it, plastic. Do you think it’s cheap? Well, if you want to buy one unlocked at Walmart, they have a “special buy” offer for just $649. Want to buy an unlocked Apple iPhone 5s, which is fashioned in metal? Apple’s price is $649, and, no, that’s not a special buy. It’s just the regular price.

So because Samsung uses plastic instead of a sophisticated machining process to build a metallic Galaxy S4, does that make it a cheap smartphone? Certainly it doesn’t appear to have impacted the price, at least if you buy a new one. If you actually want to sell your Galaxy S4 in advance of moving to an iPhone 5s or any other smartphone, you’ll get quite a bit less than an iPhone 5. Remember, the iPhone 5 was introduced a year ago. The Galaxy S4 was released in late April of this year.

But that only goes to show that an iPhone holds its value better than a Samsung, and not because the latter is made of plastic.

Sure, the iPhone 5c is little more than a clever repackaging of the iPhone 5. You get multiple colors, plastic construction, with interior metal framing to keep it rigid (Samsung doesn’t offer that), a somewhat better FaceTime camera, and up to 20% longer battery life. All this comes at $100 less than last year’s model. All right, in other times, Apple would have continued to sell the iPhone 5, but the iPhone 5c carries the prestige of being one of the new models, rather than something left over from a previous year. So I presume Apple will sell more of them.

However, the criticisms over the choice to use plastic simply don’t make a lot of sense. Sure, Apple may conserve costs that way. But as a practical matter, so long as the product feels solid, looks great, and works reliably, it shouldn’t matter what materials Apple uses to build them. It’s doubtful that Samsung loses many sales because of the decision to stick with plastic.

Besides, Samsung can still rightly claim that it’s easy to open the case, in case you want to swap out the battery or install an SD card. They do have a point, although the inability to easily replace batteries doesn’t seem to have hurt Apple to any noticeable degree. If the company was losing loads of sales because of the sealed case syndrome, you would expect Apple to change the designs. Indeed, they would if that’s what customers really wanted.

Now I cannot tell you how many copies of the iPhone 5c will be sold by next Monday. There are concerns that Apple has yet to release the total of preorders received the first weekend, though with two new models available, perhaps those numbers won’t be compelling until people can actually take them home.

In saying that, don’t expect it to be easy to get the iPhone 5s. There are published reports, though admittedly unconfirmed, that supplies will be extremely constrained. You’ll be able to place an order on September 20, at 12:01 AM Pacific time, and I am willing to suggest Apple’s site, and the sites run by carriers and dealers, will be slammed within minutes.

You can also depend on the fact that, regardless of how many sales Apple records for the new iPhone lineup, the media and financial community will probably not be satisfied. This is in keeping with last year’s bout of “Apple Derangement Syndrome,” where Apple reported five million iPhone 5 sales the very first weekend. But some members of the media pulled numbers out of their hats, or some dark portion of their anatomies, and suggested Apple must sell ten million or be unsuccessful.

Yet, sales of the Galaxy S4 were said to be off the charts even though Samsung claimed it took four weeks to ship ten million. Shipped! There’s no indication how many were actually delivered to real customers, and it has been reported that overall sales weren’t quite what some expected. But did you see Samsung’s stock price take a huge dive as a result?

So we know that there are a lot of people out there who believe that Apple is toast, what with stock price problems, and with an apparently declining share of the smartphone market. The perception is that, if Apple isn’t number one, they are doomed to a decline into irrelevance. If not today, tomorrow, or the next year. Or some day.

This is particularly true in the wake of Apple’s refusal, once again, to build a cheap iPhone. Instead, the long-predicted iPhone 5c came in at a “mere” $100 cheaper than the flagship iPhone 5s. How dare they?

Now in past years, Apple would have simply offered last year’s model for the lower price. This time, they fashioned a new model that contains most of the components of the previous model with a few enhancement,s and packed into a new, colorful dress.

That decision may be a more significant development than it seems. As wireless carriers add more family style plans, where you get unlimited talk and text along with a shared bucket of data bandwidth, it’s not very expensive to just add another phone. With a low price of admission on a subsidized contract, rather than buy an iPod touch for the kids, it may well be that many families will opt an iPhone 5c instead. Or at least that’s what one ZDNet columnist suggests, and there may be some basis for reaching this conclusion. On the other hand, ZDNet is often wrong about things, so make of that what you will.

Sure, such attractive packages may not be available in countries where some expected the iPhone 5c to be targeted towards, but that doesn’t mean Apple goofed, misjudging the market. Apple isn’t simply chasing market share at all costs, but that doesn’t mean there are no cheap iPhones.

Don’t forget that the iPhone 4S remains on sale, and, in some countries, the iPhone 4. Now some suggest that you can get a “great” Android smartphone with “great” apps for $400 or less, which is close to what an unlocked iPhone 4 will sell for in places where it remains available. Sure, it’s a three-year-old model, but it still has a Retina display, and will still work with iOS 7. The built-in camera is quite good, and it’s fast enough to deliver a good user experience with most current apps.

In contrast, it’s hard enough to get consistently smooth performance from a flagship Android smartphone. Calling those cheap models “great” doesn’t reflect reality, and calling Android apps, many of which work well only on some models, “great” also fails to recognize what’s really happening.

Apple could sell more product at lower prices, by sacrificing profits. But how much more gear would they have to sell to cover the difference? Consider that HP is the number one maker of traditional PCs on the planet. But profits from that division are a mere 3%. Apple earns more than ten times that number as a percentage on Mac sales. So which company is doing better? Apple also owns the market for personal computers priced at $1,000 or more.

Some might make the BMW argument, about a company that remains successful despite having a relatively tiny share of the auto market. Of course, a Mac, an iPhone and an iPad are not necessarily the equivalent of buying a BMW. But they are also aspirational devices for many people. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with a company making affordable gear at a good profit, rather than cheap gear for little or no profit. At the end of the day, Apple still has huge cash reserves, and is capable of funding massive acquisitions, expanded R&D, and still have plenty of money left for stock buybacks, and in case of ongoing economic downturns. And that’s supposed to be a bad thing?

That doesn’t mean that selling cheap stuff is necessarily bad. But in the smartphone industry, only two companies make decent profits, and that’s Apple and Samsung. After paying $12.5 billion to buy Motorola Mobility, Google is still losing money from the acquisition, and there’s little indication that the handset division will return to profitability any time soon. While Microsoft is acquiring Nokia’s handset division on the cheap, that division has hemorrhaged market share, with few buyers for the Windows Phone OS. It remans to be seen whether making Microsoft vertically integrated will somehow magically turn the company into Apple, or just end up with another failed acquisition that went nowhere. Consider the fate of the Zune music player.

Google should also fear for the future of Android. Samsung barely mentions the OS, and is doing more and more to add junkware to differentiate their smartphones and tablets. If Samsung’s goals to establish a developer base bear fruit, I suppose it would be possible to fork a new version of Android, or a different OS, and where would that leave Google?

As for other handset makers, both HTC and Samsung build Windows Phone gear, though not in high volumes. With Microsoft in control of Nokia, there’s no incentive to continue. So the Windows Phone market may contract slightly with the loss of these two makers, adding yet more pressure for Microsoft to get some traction out of Nokia. But why assume they have to chops to make it happen?

For Apple, it doesn’t matter how many new iPhones will be sold as of the first weekend. It’ll never be enough. Some bloggers are even suggesting that Apple should have simply created an iPhone 4c, colorful renderings of the iPhone 4, so they’d have something cheap to sell.