As many of you recall, Tim Cook has said on more than one occasion that Apple wants to delight customers in building the products they never thought they’d need, but become impossible to live without once they use them. Sure, the statement is hype, but this is the sort of thing for which Apple is famous. Ask anyone who has embraced an iPhone or an iPad into their lifestyle, not to mention Macs and even iPods.

Sure, there are some so-called media pundits who delight in telling you how they abandoned Apple’s walled garden as if they were refugees from a cult that attempted to rule their lives. They adopt the gadget-du-jour, but may or may not return to Apple once their illusions of a better life are shattered.

At the same time, it’s understandable that people will speculate about what products Apple ought to make, assuming that they actually have any grasp on what products will not just sell but start a revolution. Sometimes they even come out with an idea or two that makes enough sense to presage what Apple will actually do.

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So in 2007, it was the year of the netbook. They were small and they were cheap, but they didn’t have a lot going for them otherwise. They keys were squished together, performance was tepid, and the screen was just too small to manage Windows effectively. I recently read a report that some of those sacrifices were made as the result of edicts by Intel and Microsoft, but the end result was something that was cheap in every respect, but what did you expect for $300 or less? Predictably, Steve Jobs pooh-poohed netbooks as “cheap PCs,” reminding everyone that “We don’t know how to make a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk. Our DNA will not let us do that.” And of course a $599 Mac mini is not a piece of junk.

When Apple introduced the iPad in 2010, the netbook was on the way out, though it took a couple of years before two of the mainstays in that market, Acer and Asus, took the hint and phased them out. Yet there are still some tech pundits out there that claim that netbooks are only moribund, but may stage a resurgence of sorts. Or maybe not.

In the latter days, netbooks began to sport larger screens, more traditionally-sized keyboards; in essence, they became little more than cheap note-books for those on a budget.

In case you’re wondering, yes I did spend a brief amount of time on someone’s netbook once upon a time. I found the thing near useless even when just making a few routine system changes in the wireless networking setup to recognize a new router. I presented a look of disdain that the netbook’s owner couldn’t miss. Knowing she had just bought the thing, I suggested she return it, and if she wasn’t able to pay more than $300 for a computer, maybe look for something used in a more traditional form factor.

Nowadays, people buy loads of tablets, mostly iPads. Yes, the PC makers are still pushing all their note-books, but even the slim, light Ultrabooks, highly touted as a better alternative to the MacBook Air, aren’t doing so well. Yes, they seem to largely imitate the form factor of the Air with similar parts, but they just don’t have the “it” factor that makes Apple’s note-books so successful. Or maybe more and more people just aren’t so impressed by Microsoft’s OS anymore. Recent trackings of Internet traffic don’t show much of an uptake in Windows 8, but the raw figures won’t be apparent until Microsoft releases their financials for the holiday quarter.

On the Apple side of the equation, despite some skepticism about the company’s future growth prospects in recent weeks, it doesn’t seem as if the company suffered any during the past quarter. Well, that is if you can believe a preliminary estimate, from Rob Cihra of Evercore Partners, which indicates that some 50 million iPhones were sold, along with 24 million iPads. Of those, 10 million were iPad minis, despite the fact that Apple’s smaller tablet was essentially back ordered through the quarter. However, the same estimate suggests a minor dip in Mac sales, about 3%, due to the lack of availability of the new iMac. That is to be expected, and the flat sales will still stand in sharp contrast to PC land, where sales likely dipped to a reasonable degree. This despite the arrival of Windows 8, and lots of hopes and dreams on the part of PC makers and, of course, Microsoft.

Of course, you’ll hear lots and lots of spin from PC companies and Microsoft as to what’s really going on. It’s not as if they will admit that their concepts of the future of the PC industry and the right products is necessarily the right ones. Microsoft still believes in the 1990’s vision of Windows everywhere, that we must run the same OS, more or less, on a tablet as on a traditional desktop computer. And the smartphone interface should also be extremely similar, at least insofar as the tiled interface is concerned.

In other words, not dissimilar to the Zune music player.

Certainly I don’t think it would be good for the industry for Microsoft to fail. Microsoft made a huge sea change in Windows 8, and even if the results aren’t what people might accept, the company showed a big amount of courage in throwing out the traditional Windows user interface, even though it’s still there in a separate environment.

In any case, while you will continue to hear a few people moan about the loss of netbooks, I hardly think there are really that many people who bought them other than to save money, and because they wanted something compact. It’s not that they were terribly usable as note-books, and you wonder what sort of mindset was involved in their creation, other than to make something as cheaply as possible with no indication that people would continue to buy them after the initial flurry of sales were over and done with.

The real question for 2013 is how will those “other” tablets continue to fare against the iPad. It appears the Amazon Kindle Fire might have done decently, but Amazon hasn’t revealed actual unit sales. But that won’t stop some industry analysts from making up their own numbers.

Over the years, tech pundits and so-called industry analysts have been saying over and over that Apple will inevitably build their own TV set — someday. On the heels of the claim from Steve Jobs, in that authorized biography, that he had solved the secret of the best TV interface ever, many felt that such a product would see the light of day really soon now.

In 2011, they said 2012, and some companies, at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, demonstrated advanced TVs possibly anticipating something from Apple. Compare that to the way new tablets were prominently displayed in 2010 ahead of the arrival of the iPad. But many of those fledgling tablets never saw the light of day, even though the form of the iPad, which some compared to a bloated iPod touch, was fairly predictable.

When Apple failed to deliver anything more than a refreshed Apple TV with support for 1080p resolution last year, the media said it therefore must happen in 2013. I expect you’ll see even more products at the CES anticipating Apple. Samsung has already promised the “new shape” of TV. This is most curious, as more and more TVs these days are little more than screens with narrow bezels and thin cabinets. Not quite as thin as a new iMac, but the trend is there.

LG Electronics, a main rival to Samsung, has already announced a 55-inch OLED TV, listing for more than $10,000, which will be sold in South Korea beginning next month. According to published reports, the set will weigh less than 22 pounds, and is a mere 4mm thick. Compare that to the 2012 27-inch iMac, which is, at the edges, 5mm thick, and weighs 21 pounds.

The price for the LG set might seem outrageous until you consider that the first commercially available plasma TVs, introduced in 1997, had 42-inch screens and cost $14,999. As OLED manufacturing techniques improve, you can bet that they will become reasonably affordable in a few years. For now, it’s a sure thing Apple isn’t going to launch an OLED set anytime soon.

So if there is going to be an Apple smart TV, expect the display technology to be a variation on the LCD theme. You probably shouldn’t expect anything that Apple isn’t already using, say, on the 2012 iMac.

When it comes to Apple’s set top box hobby, the Apple TV, I have already speculated about a digital hub version, but with three or four HDMI ports, and audio input and output jacks, such a beast would have to be a fair amount larger than the current model, maybe as large as the original version; in other words, comparable to the Mac mini. While such a product seems to make sense when it comes to integrating the various accessories that are found with existing TV setups, the form factor would have to be taken into consideration. But if the Apple TV Hub were offered as a complete replacement for your cable or satellite box, it might make perfect sense.

There is also renewed speculation about the form of the next iPhone. Will Apple cap the size at four inches, introduced with the iPhone 5, or will they add, say, a 4.5-inch model? Now one thing is certain, and that is that Apple makes no effort to fill every possible product niche, so on the surface such a prediction seems nonsensical. There is just so far a smartphone can grow in size before it becomes a small tablet, or, as some call them, fablets. They are not as easily carried around as smartphones, though it appears that Samsung’s fablet lineup has done reasonably well. Or at least that’s what some tech sites claim.

Even if it otherwise made sense to make a bigger iPhone, consider the additional element of app fragmentation for developers to confront. The side effect on the iPhone 5 is minimal, tiny borders on older apps, fixed by using the iOS 6 developer tools. To keep the apps compatible, there’s reasoned speculation that an iPad mini with Retina display will sport the same resolution as the 9.7-inch model. Considering that the existing model has the same resolution as an iPad 2, this would make perfect sense. It would also mean that apps wouldn’t have to be modified to work on the smaller model.

There’s also ongoing chatter about a smaller, cheaper iPhone to sell in the third world, where most wireless handsets these days are feature phones or cheap smartphones. But Apple has never played the cheap game. The current approach is to offer older models from two previous generations for those who want to save some upfront cash.

This approach appears to be working quite well, thank you, although pricing for the unlocked version of an iPhone 4 still ranges between $350 and $400. That is probably too much a climb for many, considering it’s free with a two-year contract.

What few predictions I’ve made for new Apple gadgets this year are all about predictable refreshes, or fulfillment of existing promises. But also remember that Apple’s approach, as expressed by Tim Cook, is to build the product you never thought you’d need, but, once you have one, you cannot live without. Can you say that about an Apple TV set, or a larger — or smaller — iPhone?

So as the year ended, and Apple’s stock price staged a sudden spurt after falling for many weeks, I had to wonder how the media would address Apple’s prospects for 2013. Looking at the roadblocks, some suggest that Apple will continue to sacrifice profit margins to get more new products out, and not allow prices to get too high.

Then again, the decision to sell the iPad mini for $329 wasn’t regarded as an effort to price the tablet in a way consistent with the actual costs of manufacture. You’d think that, if Apple really wanted to sacrifice margins, they might have brought it down to $299 or even $249, the better to match competing models from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Google. But that didn’t prevent demand from exceeding supply.

In any case, an article posted on New Year’s Day claimed Apple is moving to six-month upgrade cycles for key products, particularly the iPhone. If that were the case, the presumed iPhone 6 or iPhone 5s will arrive in March, which would seem rather early in the scheme of things. Apple usually makes those releases coincide with a new version of the iOS, and expecting iOS 7 to also arrive in March would be a big stretch. Maybe the summer, but with demand for the existing model still sky-high, the question is why rush?

The perception about faster upgrades is being highly influenced by the unexpected upgrade to the iPad in October, a mere seven months after the previous version was launched. Assuming a seven month upgrade cycle, that would put the next model in the crosshairs by April. That timeframe is not inconsistent with previous iPad introductions, but it puts the fourth generation model outside of a supposed “normal” release cycle.

Only there isn’t a normal release cycle at Apple. Sure, sometimes there will be upgrades once a year, or maybe a little bit longer. As I mentioned in a previous column, some Macs have received two refreshes in a single year, so don’t assume facts without evidence.

At the same time, it’s not out of line to make predictions, and I will make a few that appear to be locks, as much as you can assume anything about Apple.

With the iPad, the logical change for a fifth generation model would be a slimmer, lighter form factor, closer in look to the iPad mini. Kissing cousins as it were. In turn, the iPad mini would be set to get a Retina display upgrade. Both could happen by spring, assuming the production issues are ironed out, and the new models can be produced affordably. I suppose Apple has an incentive to move quickly, since competition in the tablet space is fierce, and staying ahead on an annual basis may become increasingly difficult.

When it comes to the next iPhone, again I would expect iOS 7 to arrive at the same time, and that would take it until summer at the earliest.

There are published reports that Apple is even now testing OS 10.9, which may indicate that, yes, there will be an annual upgrade cycle for a while. I wouldn’t be surprised to see system-wide support for Siri and a Maps API for developers. Having Jonathan Ive, of minimalist intentions, in charge of Human Interface means that the look and feel of OS X may become more consistent, with fewer skeuomorphic excesses to irritate Mac users. At the same time, there would have to be 100 to 200 new features to justify the upgrade, though some of what Apple considers “new” are mostly minor enhancements to boost the numbers.

But now that OS X is a mere $19.99 for the upgrade, I wonder if Apple will just go all the way and make the download free. This will speed up the upgrade cycle even further, and, of course, give Microsoft conniptions.

When it comes to new Macs, it’s not a stretch to expect Apple to install the forthcoming Haswell chips on forthcoming refreshes. The chips are expected by spring. They will be more power efficient and, according to published reports, provide substantially better integrated graphics. This may reduce Apple’s need to depend on discrete graphics for most Macs, except for the expensive configurations and, of course, the Mac Pro.

Speaking of the Mac Pro, there is little to speculate about except the form factor and final specs for the 2013 model. Tim Cook has confirmed there would be “something really great,” which may indicate a major revision to the bloated minitower. That means it’ll probably be sleeker, slimmer, lighter, yet still contain pretty much the same expansion options as the current model. It will also establish a platform that Apple could continue with regular component upgrades for several years. Regardless of how it shapes out, I would be very surprised not to see a built-in optical drive. The professional market that requires a Mac workstation wouldn’t settle for anything less.

And, yes, it may even be built in the USA, although it’s possible the Mac mini will get there first.

I also expect a major upgrade to the Apple TV, Apple’s ongoing hobby, but whether that will be it, or whether there will be a smart TV in 2013, is anyone’s guess. I’m still skeptical, but if Apple believes they can make a real difference, they will act. But that assumes that most of those differences can’t just be addressed with a new set top box.

On the software side: Beyond OS 10.9, I would expect an iWork upgrade. The last full version arrived in 2009. It’s about time, and maybe Apple will work harder to add features to match or beat those in Microsoft Office in a friendlier environment. On the pro side of the ledger, Apple will continue to spruce up Final Cut Pro X and address the ongoing concerns of video editors. There will also be a major upgrade to the Logic Studio audio production suite at a surprisingly affordable price.

To me, these predictions are just very obvious, but I may go out on the limb real soon now.