Although the applause and cheering were quite loud during Apple’s WWDC keynote when new versions of iOS and OS X were demonstrated, the media has not quite taken to either. I suppose Wall Street hasn’t either, witness the continuing, if gradual, erosion of Apple’s stock price.

So what’s wrong with Apple’s OS upgrades that the reaction from the critics has been so tepid or outright critical? If you look at the feature changes, and compare them to what Microsoft and Google typically offer in a major OS upgrade, you’ll find that Apple has done quite nicely, and it’s not at all certain that we’ve seen the entire feature set. After all, both are promised for a fall release, which means there’s plenty of time left to flesh out a few things.

But as far as iOS 7 is concerned, the next iPhone, which some believe to be an iPhone 5s, will probably show up in September, so that’s when the new iOS will appear. As to OS X Mavericks, maybe it will come out somewhat later, in time for the release of the Mac Pro. When will that happen? I’m expecting October, but I have no secret Apple information to offer.

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I could probably devote every one of my columns to the silly comments tech and financial pundits make not just about Apple, but other companies and products. Every time I think a sense of sanity is returned, there’s not another example of someone who has gone off the deep end.

Take a commentator who works for a certain financial publication that will go unnamed. The topic under discussion is OS X Mavericks, and it’s clear that the writer in question isn’t impressed. All right, everyone is entitled to their opinions, but in this case a small wish list is presented, three ways, as it were, to improve OS X.

Now Apple has traditionally boasted of some 200 new features or enhancements in recent OS X releases, with the notable exception of OS 10.6 Snow Leopard, meant to offer under-the-hood improvements and not much else. In those days, I suppose some of you wondered if Apple had lost their creative juices, or had other priorities, such as the iOS platform. In any case, I have little doubt that Apple will have a lot more to say about the changes in OS X Mavericks between now and the release day. The presentation at last week’s WWDC was just the beginning, but it clearly indicated a focus on less sizzle, more meat and potatoes, and forgive me if you’re a vegetarian and don’t appreciate the metaphor.

In any case, Mavericks will contain significant improvements to system management, meaning more efficient use of memory, key power saving features and improved performance. If nothing else changed, that would be sufficient to warrant an upgrade. But there’s more, and again it’s focused on the things that improve the user experience, such as Finder tabs and tags, and key changes to Safari that’ll make it run a whole lot better. Notifications and managing multiple displays will be handled more efficiently, and there’s iCloud Keychain, a central repository to contain your passwords, credit card numbers and other secure data in a form that integrates with your Mac and your iOS gear.

So what is left for Apple to improve?

Well the financial pundit in question believes that OS X needs to “merge” with iOS. Why? Because that represents what Microsoft tried to do with Windows 8. Only thing: Windows 8 is regarded as a failure, a gigantic misstep from Microsoft. Apple CEO Tim Cook says that the PC and mobile platforms work differently, and require different operating systems. He’s explained why on a number of occasions. You can take him at his word, and Apple’s approach has been quite successful, or go with Microsoft, which hasn’t worked.

Which would you choose?

What about the user interface? Well, maybe it needs flatter icons, transparency and layers more akin to iOS 7. Or maybe it doesn’t. Are people clamoring for huge changes in the look and feel of OS X? Is there a need for significant changes? Aren’t there things that Apple could still do to make the user experience better? So why worry about the theme right now?

In saying that, I suppose there could be some interface adjustments down the road, before Mavericks is released. But that is just window dressing and doesn’t represent the most significant things Apple needs to do.

The final improvement demanded by that writer is to expand iCloud integration. Perhaps. iCloud is still troublesome, although Apple continues to hack away at it to make it run better. Putting iWork, Maps synchronization and password management help make iCloud a more important tool to improve your experience and better integrate OS X with iOS. But it’s also clear that Apple isn’t going to jump and release features because people say so. Every single change has to be carefully developed and tested. iCloud is far from perfect, and it makes sense for Apple to take baby steps until it is certain whatever is changed or added just works without causing trouble for developers and customers.

Now the real wish lists for OS X can be quite extensive, and it’s curious this writer focused on three issues, two of which are simply polar opposites to Apple’s proven approach. Apple ought to look into a more modern file system, for example, one that more efficiently addresses the needs of the 21st century user. Maybe the nuts and bolts of file management could be simplified in a way that focuses more on the document than on the raw file and which folder you put it in. Such niceties are relics of a bygone era, and it’s time to move on.

In fact, any system function that requires extra steps and extra thought ought to be fair game for improvement. Children can master an iPhone or iPad in minutes. OS X seems incredibly difficult by comparison, and surely Apple can find better ways for you to manage your stuff. Clearly Apple plans to continue to invest significant resources into OS X, and a real wish list, with meaningful changes, would make much more sense than questionable stuff from uninformed writers with grandiose pretensions. And, once again, the full feature set of Mavericks has yet to be revealed.

This week, Apple announced some new apps for the Apple TV “hobby,” or area of interest, or “grand vision.” So you now have HBO Go, from Time Warner, WatchESPN, from Disney, Sky News, Chrunchyroll, an anime subscription service, and Qello, for concerts.

All right, I’m not familiar with some of these services, but that’s just me. The key point here is that, with the forthcoming addition of the CW network, it’s clear that Apple is moving forward to expand the content selections on the Apple TV, albeit slowly. And I should also point out that HBO Go and WatchESPN both require a subscription to a cable or satellite service that supports either app. The way U.S. providers manage contracts with the entertainment companies, that’s never a certainty. Right now, as a DirecTV subscriber, I can’t use either, although the company promises support for the Apple TV version of HBO Go soon.

The point of it all is that all of these additions make the Apple TV more and more indispensable. As it is, Apple TV is in far more homes than any similar product, such as Roku. Some 13 million have been sold so far, with half of those in the past year, according to a recent statement from Tim Cook. But you wonder where Apple is going to take it.

I suppose Apple could keep it essentially as it is, and just flesh it out with more and more apps, while refining the interface more to handle the possible clutter and delivering more powerful hardware as needed. But that doesn’t seem to be anything close to a long-term solution, so where is Apple heading?

Sure, some still suggest Apple is aching to build a big screen TV, and maybe they’re right, although that market is so saturated, it doesn’t seem there’s room for another model, even with an Apple label on it. This isn’t the same situation as the wireless handset market, where smartphones still served more as playthings for business than essential computing devices for hundreds of millions of consumers, which is what the iPhone revolution brought to the table.

After all, aside from the interface, what design choices would Apple consider for a TV set? The latest sets are already thin with narrow bezels. Most of the parts are commodity, so innovation is confined to a few proprietary picture enhancements and app collections. Picture quality ranges from good to excellent, so it’s hard to find something really bad.

3D? Well, that low-cost 55-inch VIZIO E551D-A0 that I’m reviewing now does it well enough, it you stick to the front of the set and don’t try to view at a sharp angle. But it’s not as if there’s a whole lot of 3D fare, except for a handful of summer blockbusters, so it’s hardly worth the bother. Even if Apple, say, delivered a credible 3D solution without the need for glasses, I don’t think it would make a huge difference in the format’s popularity.

I suppose Apple could do something to deal with the generally awful TV sound quality. But solutions of that sort can become expensive. The Bose VideoWave II set, with an embedded tricked out audio system, starts at $4,999 for a 46-inch model, meaning you are paying over $4,000 just for the audio. That’s too high-end.

My theory is still about an enhanced Apple TV, one that could manage all your peripherals, including the cable/satellite connection, Blu-ray player, gaming console, and audio system. Content would be easy to manage, regardless of the source, without having to put up with this nonsense about handling multiple remotes or a flaky universal remote to switch connections. It should just work.

You see, the TV itself seems to work just fine as it is; by itself, that is. But once we got past the basic channels 2 through 13, things got way out of hand. Apple should be the company to simplify things, even if the cable and satellite companies have to be brought kicking and screaming to the table. Besides, many already have iOS and Android apps, so it hardly seems much of a stretch to turn it all over to Apple and let them figure out how to sort things out.

The other question is when Apple’s solution might appear. Will you see that as one of the cutting-edge product innovations expected from Apple this fall, or are those hardware rollouts just going to involve refreshed iPhones and iPads and, of course, the new Mac Pro?

Aside from replacing the remote, can the current Apple TV be updated to support all or most of the new features? Will third parties be allowed to build apps for Apple TV? Will it partly depend on seamless integration with iOS and OS X?

Every time I read those statements from Tim Cook that he feels he’s going back in time when he uses his TV, I have to wonder what changes need to be made, beyond the awkward process of dealing with multiple devices. There are no doubt other answers, and maybe some will be obvious when and if we get closer to the rollout of Apple’s hoped for solution.

So there’s an article in a certain tech publication that presumes to explain the possible downsides in Apple’s design decisions for the forthcoming Mac Pro refresh. Certainly the key issue, that of expandability, is front and center. There are also legitimate reasons to hold one point of view or the other, but some tech pundits just refuse to let facts get in the way of their suppositions.

But let’s look at the obvious: The current Mac Pro is a powerful beast, with a decent level of expandability. You can add PCI peripheral cards, extra hard drives, plenty of RAM, even an extra optical drive. What’s not to like?

The tower form factor, however, is ancient in the PC industry. Go back to the earliest days and you’ll see big boxes with plenty of expansion bays. The Mac Pro, descended from the Power Mac G5, added nothing to that form factor. Big, ugly, heavy, but you would have an entire production studio in a single rather heavy container. Just lug it to the car and take it with you for a location shoot (so long as there’s a nearby power strip), an all-night editing session at home, or a vacation where you hope to catch up on some uncompleted work assignments. And don’t forget a display.

But the world has changed. Nowadays, even a well-equipped note-book packs enough power to handle many content creation chores. The use of Thunderbolt, invented by Apple and Intel, allows for high-speed expansion for RAID drives, expansion chassis with peripheral cards, and other accessories that used to be installed within a big PC or workstation. When Apple migrated the iMac from a simple consumer computer to a professional PC that came exceedingly close in performance to the Mac Pro, the need for the latter lessened considerably. Indeed, in some benchmarks, the latest quad-core i7 chips from Intel that are installed in an iMac actually seem to run faster than the Xeon processors in a Mac Pro. Sure Apple has been behind the curve, and it’s also true that a Xeon doesn’t really strut its stuff until you’re doing resource heavy rendering chores.

Clearly sales of the Mac Pro have declined considerably now that there are less-expensive alternatives. That Apple has put the Mac Pro essentially on the back burner hasn’t helped sales. But as with a car maker building a limited production luxury or sporty vehicle, the Mac Pro should represent the pinnacle of Mac technology. The new Mac Pro, with its smooth and curvy lines, certainly comes across as a halo product. But internal expansion is limited to an apparently removable Flash drive and four memory slots. For the rest, you have to depend on external expansion.

With six Thunderbolt 2 ports, certainly there’s plenty of space to add stuff to the 2013 Mac Pro, assuming you can find the peripherals you want. Well, the magazine in question complains about the lack of Thunderbolt 2 products, not realizing that Apple will be the first PC maker to deliver a box with such ports, that it won’t be released until later this year, and it will clearly take a little time for third party companies to get with the program.

The other argument is cable clutter. Putting everything inside is simple, secure, and what if you have to take your Mac Pro with you? This is one of those considerations that might have a different answer depending on your needs. One survey claims that 80% of Mac Pro users never upgrade their computers beyond changing RAM or replacing the hard drive. So why spend money for a larger chassis that goes unused?

But for those who do need to upgrade or expand their Mac Pro’s capabilities, an expansion box ought to be a suitable replacement, and I’m assuming one with PCI slots and hard drive bays. For those who need that capability, you’d only need to connect two cables, one for Thunderbolt, the other to the power strip. It’s even possible, I suppose, for Apple to create an elegant solution when the Mac Pro is released.

One intriguing possibility would be a large, square expansion module with curved corners for sexy looks, into which the Mac Pro is inserted. A hole at the bottom of the module could provide for proper cooling of the Mac, with the expansion ports being situated at each end, or on four sides depending on the size of the thing. So there’d be space for extra drives, PCI cards (such as one of those NVIDIA cards with CUDA parallel processing), maybe even an optical drive or two.  There are lots of possibilities for designers to innovate, assuming there’s no home-brewed solution. With Apple you never know.

Besides, now that NVIDIA has revealed plans to license technology to third parties, it’s possible there will be more graphics options for the Mac Pro by the time it ships or shortly thereafter.

In any case, with an expansion module that serves as a base for the Mac Pro, the entire assembly could be carried as a single unit. That would eliminate the concerns of people who need peripherals but would prefer an internal expansion solution. For the vast majority who don’t,  the Mac Pro can work lean with just a few peripherals for routine chores, such as a backup drive, a printer, and perhaps an optical drive.

One thing seems certain to me: I cannot believe that Apple is insensitive to the needs of professional users who require lots of choices for expansion. And don’t forget about the people for whom even the Mac Pro’s internal expansion is insufficient. With all those Thunderbolt 2 ports, the four USB 3.0 ports, the HDMI port, and a pair of Ethernet ports (in addition to 802.11ac Wi-Fi), the possibilities are virtually endless.

But, regardless what Apple does, some people will never be satisfied.