If you believe what Microsoft tells you, the system requirements for Windows 8 are pretty basic. Here they are, direct from Microsoft’s site:

• Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster with support for PAE, NX, and SSE2
• RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
• Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver

On the surface, and forgive the bad pun, that would make it seem as if tens and tens of millions of existing PCs, going back a number of years, are perfectly capable of upgrading to Windows 8 and receiving what Microsoft would regard as an acceptable user experience. Indeed, those who chafe at the fact that Macs a mere four or five years old cannot upgrade to Mountain Lion might believe all is rosier on the Windows side of the tracks.

But that’s not exactly true.

You see, Microsoft’s system requirements have a number of other conditions, such as possible support for touchscreens. There is, in fact, an upgrade app that is designed to determine whether your PC will survive the upgrade in good order. This is critical to deciding whether you will have a successful Windows 8 user experience, because Microsoft’s installer is just too dumb to stop in its tracks if the PC cannot be properly upgraded.

Now you’d think a power user would realize all this, and be cautious about attempting to upgrade an older PC, say from 2008 or 2009. That’s the same age as many Macs that aren’t capable of upgrading to Mountain Lion. But look at the experiences of the All Things D’s Walt Mossberg, the “dean” of tech commentators, who evidently threw caution to the wind and attempted to install Windows 8 on an older Lenovo laptop and HP desktop.

Had Mossberg bothered to run Microsoft’s Upgrade Assistant, he would have known he was barking up the wrong tree, that his two PCs weren’t suitable for Windows 8. He could also have checked the manufacturer’s Web sites, and he’d see that they weren’t supported. The very fact was confirmed when he contacted the two companies.

The reasons are complicated and explained in the article. Most of it is about the lack of suitable drivers for various key functions. This is understandable. PC makers are bottom feeders, building hardware as cheaply as possible, and fighting for sales in a declining market. With lower and lower profit margins, they aren’t about to invest money to ensure that older computers are compatible with newer operating systems. They’d rather sell you new gear.

It also makes perfect sense that Microsoft isn’t going to invest tons of development money in making sure the vintage computers can run the new OS. They want you to buy a new PC too, although there’s a discount program for early Windows 8 upgraders, which expires at the end of this month.

Even Consumer Reports, which tends to favor the Windows world in their reviews of PCs, is warning of degraded performance when upgrading to Windows 8. Even with more recent computers, it may be a matter of driver incompatibilities, although that might just be an excuse, considering PC companies have had plenty of time to make their software compatible. Worse, Microsoft’s lax system requirements tend to deliver misleading impressions about upgrade possibilities. Yes, Windows users need to understand that an operating system upgrade is a severe and potentially dangerous process. It’s nowhere near as seamless as a Mac OS upgrade, even though Microsoft may want you to be lulled into a false sense of security.

It would, at the very least, have made sense for Microsoft to include Upgrade Assistant as part of the actual Windows 8 installer, or provide some better intelligence in the process so others won’t encounter the pitfalls Mossberg faced. Besides, if a distinguished tech journalist screws up in this fashion, what about the rest of us?

The long and short of it is that, if you want to get Windows 8, you are best advised to have it preloaded onto a new PC. That way you’d be assured drivers are compatible and that the hardware is best optimized to support the touch-enabled Modern UI and other frills and flourishes of Microsoft’s latest and greatest OS. On the other hand, it appears that Windows 8 wasn’t so high on the shopping list of holiday shoppers, and that PC sales will just continue to fall regardless.

Microsoft’s problem is not posting lax system requirements, or failing to make the Windows 8 installer smart enough to abort the process if the hardware isn’t up to the task. It’s all about building a product that many people simply don’t want. There’s even some speculation on the part of the tech media that Microsoft may, at the very least, decide to restore the Start menu in an early update. Maybe Microsoft might consider the plight of an auto maker, Honda when the 2012 Civic compact was released to tepid reviews. Rather than waiting two or three years to release a product refresh, they went to work making substantial improvements to the 2013 model.

At least in Honda’s case, the Civic was actually selling quite well despite the flaws, but the company took it as a matter of pride and future sales potential to fix what was wrong as quickly as possible. Microsoft should do the same with Windows 8 — make the critical changes needed to produce an OS that’s more consistent and easier to use. And return the Start menu.

There are Apple rumors and there are Apple rumors, and when two key players in the business media, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, report essentially the same thing, you might be inclined to assume it’s something to take very seriously. So when the stories emerged this week that, yes, Apple is seriously developing a cheap iPhone for release some time later this year, primarily for the third world, you might stand up and take notice.

Now if true, and obviously I won’t assume it’s wrong, it would represent a sea change in Apple’s approach to building mobile gear. Yes, there are cheap iPods, but there are no cheap Macs, unless you regard the Mac mini as cheap, and Apple has said they don’t make junk. When the iPad mini came out, some suggested its $329 entry-level price was too high compared to the 7-inch tablets selling for $200 or thereabouts by the competition. Sales figures, however, are expected to show nothing of the sort, that the iPad mini is poised to become Apple’s mainstream tablet. In fact, it’s still in short supply.

When it comes to smartphones, the iPhone 5 is priced in the same range as premium product from Samsung and other companies with and without the carrier subsidies. Apple also kept the previous two versions of the iPhone available to keep the prices as low as possible for customers who want to save some money, just don’t care about being at the cutting edge, or a combination of both.

Well, if the stories about an iPhone mini, or whatever it is, are true, Apple will somehow build it cheaply enough to charge $199, unlocked. That would mean free for those who accept a carrier contract, of course. It would also be competitive in the third world, and as an option for prepaid carriers (the ones where you pay before it plays).

Now it’s not a question of whether Apple can build the thing for between $99 and $149, which is what it would cost to meet a $199 retail price with a decent profit. The real issue is how Apple cheapens the product without, of course, making it seem cheap.

Some suggest the iPhone mini will earn its name with a 3-inch screen, which seems rather tiny to actually manage your stuff, even if the pixels were small enough to provide the same level of content. Others suggest lightweight parts, possibly plastics, and maybe using slower, cheaper chips. Perhaps there will be cost-cutting in other respects, so you won’t get LTE.

How this feat of economy will be accomplished, however, still doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. After all, an unlocked iPhone 4, the 8GB model, traditionally sells for $350-$400, and that’s the low end of the price spectrum. How does Apple halve the price? What do they remove, or have they developed new manufacturing techniques, and found the right components to allow them to deliver a quality product for a lot less money?

Yes, the media is delivering some unconfirmed figures suggesting that Apple would accept a lower profit margin in the quest for volume. But, once again, this is the very opposite of what Apple has been known to do. Sure, maybe they don’t want to leave sales on the table, but they’ve done that with Macs. And, as I said earlier, the iPad mini is $129 above somewhat smaller tablets from such companies as Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Google.

Then again, the media was dead wrong when they estimated iPad mini pricing. Their estimates were in the range of $249 to $299. That being the case, I suppose an argument could be made for a basic iPhone in the $299 range, unlocked. That wouldn’t be so far below the price of current offerings as to challenge belief. Sure, Apple may still lose sales to the bottom line gear available from Samsung, LG, HTC and other handset makers, but that shouldn’t make a difference. It doesn’t in the PC market, where even the Mac mini, at $599, is considered expensive.

I don’t want any of this to suggest that I do not believe Apple is trying to find a way to build a lower cost iPhone and garner volume sales they aren’t getting now. But it would have to be something very different from current offerings, which is the Apple way. If it was nothing more than a slimmer, trimmer, cheaper iPhone with lower cost guts, Apple would be succumbing to the “volume at any cost’ mentality of other tech companies. That would be a sure indication the company has lost its way.

Yes, there are $49 iPods, but they are still smart, cute little gadgets that work well, support Apple’s ecosystem, and do not in any way convey the impression of being cheap. So regardless of the price of this alleged iPhone mini, it would have to deliver the same elegant experience as the regular iPhones, and have its own snazzy appeal. Sure, Apple may be able to deliver the goods, though the impression the media is conveying is all about cheap, and that impression clearly fails the logic test.

So a big fuss is being raised in the media over the fact that the iPhone 5 is not listed as the number one smartphone in the latest rankings from Consumer Reports. Based on product ratings of smartphones sold by the major U.S. carriers, the iPhone 5  is slipping.

Some members of the media continue to make excuses for the curious reviews from CR, claiming that the competition keeps getting better, while, I suppose, Apple stands still. So even though the iPhone 5 was once at the top of the heap, some mysterious changes on the part of HTC, LG, Motorola and Samsung have pushed Apple’s gadget from the top and supplanted it.

So is that true? Since the introduction of the iPhone 5 in September, have the ensuing four months brought worthy improvements in the competition? How so? Do they offer better screens? Not that I can see? What about speedier performance? Well, here the iPhone 5 and its A6 processor rate with the best of the competition. And there hasn’t been a major upgrade to Google’s Android software that would somehow result in a sudden improvement of the OS’s interface or performance.

So what’s really going on? Has Apple suddenly been downgraded by CR?

Well, ratings that are no more than a few points apart are regarded by CR as not significant. It seems that the Android phones, for some reason, rate better than the iPhone at “Messaging” and “Phoning.” You’d think the features are fairly obvious by the description, but it appears that CR blurs email and texting, and doesn’t give Apple any brownie points for iMessages. When it comes to Phoning, Android handsets are somehow regarded as superior in handling calls. But they both rate the same in that ephemeral “Ease of use” factor, which seems doubly confusing, since the iOS tends to fare better on that criteria according to most independent reviewers. Overall, they are all quite close, and CR would have you believe that you can buy any of them and be assured of a great user experience. They are, after all, all recommended.

But the truth is that these ratings have been out for weeks. The only change is the appearance of “The Hot List” in the February 2013 issue, which summarizes the best products in several categories that include smartphones, TVs, E-book readers and home appliances. To CR, Apple has always been at or near the top, with the highest-rated products receiving ratings that are extremely close.

You can certainly agree or disagree with CR’s rating methodology, or the results. But to assume something has suddenly changed is just plain wrong. But that position simply advances the meme on the part of some members of the media that Apple is in hot water, and that explains the stock price’s erosion in recent weeks. Apple has, some claim, lost its mojo.

If anything, the iPhone 5 rates better than the infamous iPhone 4, from 2010, in one key respect: CR recommends it. In the midst of the trumped up Antennagate scandal, such as it was, CR tried to convince readers that the iPhone 4 was the one and only smartphone to exhibit severe signal degradation when held the “wrong way,” the so-called “Death Grip.” In the real world, there were YouTube videos showing other popular smartphones exhibiting similar symptoms when held in ways that covered their antenna systems. CR also ignored the telltale labels on some smartphones and the references in user guides warning customers not to hold them in certain ways because of possible signal strength problems. But I suppose CR doesn’t believe in reading manuals, because how could they miss the warnings? I guess they never saw the Apple videos or the ones on YouTube showing how other phones had reception problems.

Don’t forget how CR tried to ding the third generation iPad when some reported it ran hot under load. CR did its level best to make the iPad fail, without success. It got hot, but not too hot to recommend.

But I am not going to suggest that CR is engaged in a deep-seated conspiracy to downgrade the iPhone 5, and really wants the companies who sell Android gear to succeed. Despite the shortcomings in the magazine’s testing, they appear to be going about these reviews with good intentions. That you aren’t seeing real usability testing of the various mobile platforms probably just means that CR thinks they are very much the same in the scheme of things, or the differences aren’t significant enough to mention. To them, “Ease of use” is very much about using the various features, but nothing is said about interface niceties or even possibly significant variations from one platform to another.

So, does the tiled interface of Windows Phone make it easier to check notifications on a Nokia Lumia 920, so you can quickly get back to your work? Is the iOS better than Android, equal, or not as good? You can’t tell, because Windows Phone, Android and the iOS are all regarded by CR as “Excellent” in “Ease of use.”

Regardless of how you interpret CR’s ratings, it is not true that the iPhone 5 is not faring so well compared to the competition. However you regard CR’s ratings scheme, and not every category gets equal importance or consistent importance, the top-rated phones are mostly equal in key respects. That’s not such a bad thing, even if you disagree with the totals.

Now there is another tidbit in the February issue of CR worth mentioning: According to their testing, Windows 8 PCs are actually slower than Windows 7 PCs, though the magazine doesn’t say how much, nor do they explain how much less battery life you’ll get on a note-book. They attribute the performance disadvantage and inferior battery life to the lack of drivers for the new OS. But since developers had the prerelease versions since 2011, you wonder why it’s taking them so long — assuming that is the real reason. Shades of Windows Vista!

You’d think that Apple CEO Tim Cook is the enemy based on some of the comments spewed forth in recent weeks from so-called tech and financial journalists. I suppose part of it is that he’s a numbers and inventory person. He even has an M.B.A., which means he’s just a professional manager, right? Isn’t that what’s wrong with all those other companies?

Against this skeptical backdrop, Cook clearly has to work that much harder to prove his mettle. Every single product introduction so far has been viewed with disbelief. It wasn’t changed enough, it’s too expensive, Apple has lost its flair for innovation. Might as well give up on them now before it’s too late.

Certainly Wall Street is concerned. Apple’s stock price has been on a downward slope for weeks for the most part. This despite the fact that Apple’s mobile gadgets remain amazingly popular. The iPad mini, introduced to skeptical commentators in October, remains backordered amid analyst estimates that Apple might have sold between 10 and 12 million of them during the last quarter. The full-sized iPad continues to gain in the enterprise, and Mac sales seem to have held their own. A recent NPD survey showed somewhat lower sales of Mac note-books in the U.S., which might possibly be compensated for by overseas sales, where Apple continues to have stellar growth. Certainly the slow roll-out of the new sleeker iMac desktops didn’t help. You still have to wait up to four weeks for the one you want.

But PC sales appear to have fared far worse, and the ongoing skepticism about Windows 8 appears to have been borne out. People just aren’t buying, so maybe Microsoft will make those loud TV ads even louder to get your attention before you hit the Fast Forward button.

Just before writing this commentary, I read an article from a financial writer that will go unnamed suggesting that “The magic is gone, replaced by a focus on margins and old products in new colors.”

So, then, the iPhone 5 was just an iPhone 4s with a different color? Well, I suppose that 4-inch display and the difficult-to-build cutting-edge design weren’t real. I suppose the iPad mini didn’t sport sophisticated construction techniques either, though I agree you could complain about the fact that it didn’t have a Retina display. But Apple doesn’t blow its wad with the first version of any new product; it’ll come, maybe by spring.

But Apple has to first catch up with demand.

In any case, it’s quite likely that all the new Apple products you saw in 2012, and perhaps for the next year or two, received the approval of Steve Jobs in his final days. Apple continues to execute on those products, though it’s up to Cook and his team to do the fine-tuning, and develop the marketing plans. You can argue that Maps was released prematurely, but you can’t dispute the fact that the app’s early development occurred under the watch of Steve Jobs. And don’t forget .Mac, MobileMe, and even iCloud, all of which have been troublesome.

But perhaps the largest degree of damn-foolishness in that article is the comment that, “Until Cook can prove Apple’s prior success was a function of the team and not just Jobs, the stock won’t get credit for being the Apple of old Old Apple.”

Doesn’t that sound incoherent to you? Remember that Jobs may have been a great product editor-in-chief for Apple, but I can’t imagine that anyone believes that he did all or most of the product development by himself, and just pretended Jonathan Ive and tens of thousands of other Apple workers did the heavy lifting. The commentator in question wonders whether Apple “lost its genius.” Well, maybe one genius, but there are lots more, and there’s no way Apple would have survived without all those brilliant OS and hardware designers, not to mention Ive, Schiller and loads of other executives, including one Tim Cook.

Sure, Apple could fail big time over the next few years, just as it was very possible when Steve Jobs was in control. Remember that the iPod, iPhone and iPad were all huge risks that paid off despite lots of skepticism from some portions of the media. The iPad mini might have done badly as well, because it was perceived as expensive compared to the Kindle Fire and Google Nexus 7. But Apple didn’t scrimp on great design, and a careful attention to detail, and it’s very possible the iPad mini will become the mainstream iPad before long.

I suppose Tim Cook is inclined to pay closer attention to the bottom line, but there’s no evidence he’s somehow hurting the company. The financial community ought to be looking not just at Apple’s quarterly sales figures, which will be released later this month, but at the product intros as they happen throughout 2013. Will it all just be iterative, as some suggest, or is there some more revolutionary gear in Apple’s test labs that will see the light of day in the months to come? Apple has confounded the critics before, and they are fully capable of doing again. Unfortunately, stories of that sort don’t play to the doom and gloom mentality of some commentators.