So Bill Gates is disappointed that Microsoft hasn’t done more to gain a substantial foothold in the smartphone market. Well, maybe, but coming up with a credible alternative to the iOS and Android, and discovering that noisy ads only turn people off, would be good for a start. But you have to wonder about many of Microsoft’s decisions these days.

Windows 8, for example, hasn’t earned much love, and making an operating system nothing short of confusing and distracting didn’t help PC sales this holiday season. Of course, it may no longer be possible to do anything but reduce the sales erosion somewhat. It’s also possible Mac sales will continue to decline, though I won’t dispute Apple’s contention that the inability to deliver the iMac in a timely fashion hurt big time during the last quarter and it appears that situation will continue through the March quarter as well.

When it comes to Windows Phone, I’m not saying it’s necessarily bad. But it’s not as if the tiled interface has a real record for success, even though Microsoft has opted to stick with it. With reports that the platform’s market share is even less than BlackBerry has to hurt. Industry analysts who asserted that Windows Phone would be a real contender with iOS and Android shouldn’t quit their day jobs. If being an analyst is the day job, they need to consider a different line of work.

One key difference between Apple and Microsoft is that the former isn’t inclined to stick with something that’s demonstrably unsuccessful. As much as Steve Jobs clearly adored the Power Mac G4 Cube, he accepted the inevitable and discontinued the product. Even when new iPod models were successful, Apple didn’t hesitate to throw it all away and try something new. It’s also true that Apple ignored analyst claims that the iPhone and the iPad were yawners and destined to fail. Clearly there’s a disconnect.

Microsoft lives in a world where throwing money at a problem will eventually yield a solution. The company poured billions into developing and marketing the Xbox gaming console. Eventually, modest profits resulted, but not enough to put the aging platform into the black overall. Was it worth the effort? Well, it did make Microsoft a credible contender in the gaming console business, but at what cost?

So it would seem that Microsoft will continue to pour money into Windows Phone, even when the industry moves elsewhere, perhaps emphasizing wearable devices. How many years does Microsoft expect it to take to build market share? The industry is moving far too fast to make much room for another platform, or to reevaluate an existing platform. BlackBerry is equally fated for ruin. The new BB10 smartphones may be quite good, but not good enough to upset the industry and encourage buyers to reconsider BlackBerry.

Now in a move that surely lacks substance in the logic department, Microsoft has just upped the prices of the aging Mac version of Office, released in 2011. Rather than cut prices, which would seem to be the appropriate move for a product that might be getting a tad long in the tooth, the prices have increased by roughly 17%. But it doesn’t end there. There are no more multiple user packs for Office 2011, meaning you can’t just buy a copy and have it work, say, on your Mac and your MacBook. That, in effect, more than doubles the price.

Microsoft’s goal is evidently to move you to a subscription program, so you pay annual fees for Live 365 rather than one fee for a software license that works until new hardware makes it obsolete. That may make sense for Microsoft’s bottom line, but doesn’t that move make iWork, itself a project in need of an upgrade, a far more attractive alternative?

Worse, despite the fact that the Windows 8 upgrade hasn’t been very successful, Microsoft has not opted to continue the special upgrade price of $39.99 for a downloadable version. As of the first of February, the price increased to $119.99 for the regular version, and $199.99 for the Pro version. Maybe the profits will be fatter, but how many potential customers will just say no? Where’s the logic in making a product with at best a modest level of success more expensive? The bean counters at Microsoft may have won the battle, but where’s the logic in that?

All right, so Gates is fully supportive of his old chum, Steve Ballmer, as CEO of the company he co-founded. So what has Microsoft done lately to demonstrate that any current product is ahead of the competition? The Surface tablets, which have almost universally been damned with faint praise and shown no evidence of delivering more than modest sales? Windows Phone, where the share of the market has actually declined? What about the flagship OS, Windows 8? And does Microsoft really believe potential customers won’t be turned off by the decision to increase the price of retail software, and push people towards an even more costly subscription service, where you pay forever to keep the apps running?

Welcome to the Bizarro universe, where down is up, and losses are really profits.

The other day, I heard some cable news talking heads introducing a segment where they promised to explain what’s wrong with Apple. Among the problems: The alleged falloff in demand for the iPhone 5, perhaps suggesting that maybe Apple’s allure has diminished over time as the result of all that competition from Samsung and other companies. Yet another report, this one online, suggested that Apple’s appeal on high school and college campuses had seriously declined.

The lawyers would call this “assuming facts without evidence.”

You see, there hasn’t been any proof that demand for the iPhone 5 has fallen off, other than normal seasonal trends. Basically, fewer tech gadgets are sold in the March quarter than the December quarter. The claim about falling demand was based on reports that Apple had reduced orders for iPhone 5 displays. But few members of the media bothered to quote Tim Cook’s explanation at the last quarterly conference call with financial analysts, that you can’t take a single supply chain metric and make assumptions about the actual supply and demand for a product. But this simple-minded meme about Apple continues to be repeated without apology or correction.

So, for example, what if component yields for the iPhone 5 were higher, meaning Apple needed fewer parts? What about normal seasonal trends? What if Apple was merely switching suppliers to get better quality parts, or the same parts for less money? I’m only scratching the surface, but the unconfirmed story is still out there.

Without providing a link, there was also a survey from some unknown organization, with no track record for doing accurate polls, about Apple losing its luster on school campuses. No proof, no second source for similar information. But if the media hoped to find filler for an article suggesting Apple was on the decline, even rumors or poorly researched claims might fill the bill.

There’s yet another story out there, that iPad market share has dipped below 50%, perhaps meaning that, as competition heats up, Apple cannot depend on keeping a dominant position. Apple’s response came from Tim Cook, who said at last week’s Goldman Sachs presentation that Apple is the only company reporting actual tablet sales. I don’t know about “only,” but Amazon, for example, doesn’t give sales figures for the Kindle e-book readers and tablets. Analysts are just guessing. Such tech firms as Samsung will report the number of units shipped, not sold to end users as Apple does. This could mean that many millions of unsold products are sitting in warehouses or on dealer shelves. What about returns of unsold product? Do dealers get credit? Are those figures even reported? How many people, for example, return their tablets or smartphones because they aren’t satisfied?

While I’m not one to push for more government regulation, wouldn’t it make sense for, say, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission or the SEC to standardize on how product sales should be reported? That way, assuming companies comply, you can actually compare the results of one company with another. Tim Cook has a point here.

The other benchmark of potential sales is online access. So, during the last holiday quarter, the iPad scored more Black Friday says than other mobile gear. Sure, tens of millions of iPads are in use, but easier online access has to count for something. It may well be that a lot of competing tablets are being sold, but how many are actually being used to make online purchases? I assume, in passing, that the Barnes & Noble Nook and the Amazon Kindle tablets are primarily used to make purchases from the companies that sell them.

Now this doesn’t mean Apple is perfect, or that the hardware and the software cannot be improved. I do not, for example, appreciate how difficult Apple has made it to do RAM upgrades on some of the most popular Macs. While you could buy a MacBook Air or a MacBook Pro with Retina display with the maximum available RAM when you place your order, it’s not uncommon for buyers to want to buy the minimum amount from Apple, and purchase third-party memory to fit the remaining slots, or when they can afford such an upgrade. Apple is really hurting those RAM vendors this way. What’s more, it doesn’t make sense to put the kibosh on RAM upgrades for the 21.5-inch 2012 iMac. If you get the 27-inch model — assuming you can find one since they remain seriously backordered — you can replace RAM easily, in minutes, so why not the smaller version?

Sure, I realize that the drive towards maximum miniaturization may make it difficult to install convenient RAM upgrade slots and covers on some models. But I’m sure Apple’s brilliant designers and engineers can devise a way that makes the process simple. I don’t think it’s fair to regard a personal computer as a device you’re never supposed to open unless you work in a repair shop, or have the latest iFixit manual at hand along with the proper tools and the courage, or skills, to do the job yourself.

Indeed, there are many legitimate criticisms to be made about Apple. Too bad far too many so-called industry analysts and journalists choose to rely on unconfirmed rumors and unfounded speculation.

Apple first confirmed the existence of OS X Mountain Lion on February 16, 2012, offering a preview of some of the more compelling features. After a more extensive demonstration at the Worldwide Developer’s Conference on June 11, Mountain Lion became available for download on July 25, precisely on schedule, for $19.99.

So if Apple is really planning on annual OS X upgrades, it would make sense to see the first glimmers of an OS 10.9 feature set this coming week. But that assumes Apple is really keeping to that schedule, and that there are enough finished features to warrant such a presentation.

It’s not as if Apple would consider holding a special media event for a Mac OS upgrade. There will probably be one for the next generation Mac Pro, though it might just be a part of the agenda at the next WWDC. That would appear to make sense, since a professional Mac workstation would be well suited to the developer community.

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Being an armchair product designer has its advantages, but the most important is the lack of accountability. You can say anything you want without regard to the consequences of your statements. After all, you’re not actually inventing anything except for some words strung together in sentences, and sentences strung together in paragraphs. If someone is foolish enough to listen to you, and loses their shirt as a result, it’s really their fault. Talk is cheap.

So the media is having a field day predicting what Apple will, or should, release as a product that will somehow change the world. They certainly know, based on what Tim Cook has said over and over again, that Apple doesn’t focus on getting the highest market share in any industry they enter. It’s all about products that will somehow change the world, products that you never thought you’d need until you use them and find you can’t live without them.

Well, I suppose there are some products I can live without. Take the iPod. Yes, I was an early Walkman user, more or less, but I always felt somehow confined listening to music via ear buds rather than loudspeakers. I bought Walkman cassette and CD players over the years, used them for a time, and soon set them aside. The same goes for the iPod, and I’ve owned several over the years. But that’s just me.

As for the iPhone, I never had a BlackBerry. I was never interested in texting, since the process was so convoluted on my Motorola RAZR feature phone, although I would tap out a message or two from time to time in response to something my son would send me. But when Apple sent me an iPhone to evaluate for a couple of weeks, I went through the basic process of syncing my email accounts and Safari bookmarks. Rather than bring my MacBook Pro to the bedroom to keep tabs on important messages, as I used to do, I placed the iPhone on the night table. At the end of those two weeks, I asked Apple for an extension and, before I had to sent the unit back, I had purchased one of my own.

Until I had an iPhone, I never thought of a smartphone as anything indispensable, let alone a convenient replacement for my note-book in some situations. I didn’t think I’d need one until I spent some facetime with it, and I changed my feelings real quickly. That’s the Apple way.

But not so with the iPad. Mrs. Steinberg depends on one as a constant companion; she is not enamored of regular Macs, and only uses them grudgingly. To her, the iPad is the gadget she never thought she’d need, until exposed to one. In contrast, I rarely touch the iPad, except to help her deal with a problem of one sort or another. The regular iPad is otherwise an inconvenience, though I might change my tune with an iPad mini. But that’s just speculation.

The point of this little exercise is that it’s hard to predict how any individual may react to a new Apple gadget. Apple reportedly doesn’t do focus group testing before deciding what to build, assuming the public isn’t capable of knowing what products they might want or need if they never used one. Compare that to the old story that Henry Ford never evaluated public opinion before releasing Model T, assuming people would just say they prefer a faster horse and buggy.

Regardless, none of this stops the speculation, and even if there’s a suggestion of a report from someone supposedly in the know, such as an Apple component partner, the rumors will run amok. As talk about a possible Apple smart TV set dies down yet again, stories have arisen that Apple has some 100 designers and engineers working on something that’s been dubbed the iWatch.

Before going further, it’s important to realize that Apple may, at any one time, be testing dozens and dozens of product prototypes. But, as with pilots of prospective TV shows, few of these new product concepts will ever make it into production. Even then, the final form factor may differ sharply from the one that is given the green light.

While I find the concept of an Apple smart TV to be a hard sell, a souped up Apple TV box would make sense, especially if it simplifies the process of switching the various gadgets connected to your TV without having to program a complicated and temperamental universal remote. As the owner of a Logitech Harmony, let me tell you that, if you have a few devices on hand that you want to manage with a single remote, the setup process can sometimes be convoluted and inconsistent, particularly if you’re using a gadget that is a little off the mainstream. An example is the ZVOX sound base I’m reviewing. It’s a single unit home theater audio system that is designed to be placed below your TV on a normal stand.

But the iWatch? Well, some of the people I’ve talked to think the miniaturization process would make it hard to pack too many features into such a beast. Perhaps it would simply be a “dumb” terminal that connects to a regular iPhone via Bluetooth. It would, therefore, be little more than a wireless headset that happens to be affixed to your wrist with a strap. My concept is more all-encompassing: For an iWatch to make sense to me, it would have to incorporate a real wireless phone, a tiny Web cam, and enough storage to serve as an iPod. Make it an iPod shuffle on steroids. But don’t take me seriously. I’m just an armchair designer stringing words, sentences and paragraphs together.