This week, some online pundits speculated about the possible pricing for Microsoft’s ARM-based Surface, which will run Windows 8 RT. This is the model that appears to be most directly competitive with the iPad, at least based on the preliminary specs that, a little over two months from the alleged release date, still remain preliminary.

One story had it that Microsoft was hot for market share, and thus would sell this 10.6-inch tablet for $199, to compete with the Amazon Kindle Fire and the Google Nexus 7. But that’s not a story that I can take seriously.

Just consider the bill of materials. Amazon and Google are selling their 7-inch models with little or no profit. The Surface, assuming it is as represented, will cost a whole lot more to build. It’s not just the 10.6-inch display, but providing a cover with built-in keyboard. Sure, I suppose it’s possible Microsoft would consider taking a $100-$200 loss on every unit sold to build market share, but I’m skeptical.

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It has been easy to speculate as to just what Apple plans to do with Apple TV. Today, it’s a simple set top box that delivers iTunes contact, AirPlay mirrored content, and a handful of third-party providers, such as Netflix and, very recently, Hulu Plus. But, with sales at roughly 1.3 million units in the last quarter, it remains a product that Apple regards as a hobby. That’s true, even though other companies aren’t really doing even that well with such gear.

Renewed speculation about the future of Apple TV arose as a result of a statement that Steve Jobs reportedly made to the author of his authorized biography, as quoted in the book, that he had cracked the secret of delivering the best TV interface ever. Did Apple have a TV set in the hopper, ready to introduce at the “right” time?

Certainly the TV space isn’t as open as other markets Apple has penetrated. Digital music players had gone nowhere when the iPod arrived. Smartphones were very much business tools, often the playthings of executives until Apple’s iPhone made them user-friendly for almost anybody. The industry took notice, and certain patent lawsuits may determine if other companies took too much notice.

With the iPad, Apple had the advantage of entering a market that had been underutilized. For a decade, PC makers had tried to build a tablet, but such gear only succeeded in some vertical markets. The public didn’t pay attention. The iPad changed the game, which is why Apple retains iPod level market shares.

So how would an Apple smart TV set become a significant player? Would a nifty interface be sufficient? No, because Apple can deliver that in the Apple TV set top box. What about a tricked out sound system? Well, that can get costly. Consider one example, the Bose VideoWave II, which starts at just under $5,000, and costs $1,000 more if you want Bose to deliver the unit to your home and set it up for you. Clearly Apple wouldn’t get very far with a set that expensive, when you can get a perfectly good 50-inch plasma for under $1,000 with a terrific picture and the usual range of online features.

Even if Apple can improve picture quality, smooth the setup process, and offer an Apple TV experience without a separate appliance, would that be sufficient to gain significant market share? Profits are slim for TV makers, so unless Apple can make a miracle in reducing component costs for their first TV, it doesn’t seem to make sense.

Another Apple TV theory has it that Apple is busy negotiating with the entertainment industry to license content for a subscription service, so they can compete head on with your cable and satellite provider. But that’s not a simple process by any means. Even if they get the contracts, there is still the problem of streaming. Most ISPs have bandwidth caps. They aren’t going to be enamored of lifting those caps for a company who is taking away their TV business. Yes, there is an H.265 protocol that, when it arrives next year, is expected to deliver video streaming of the same quality with half the file size, meaning it will reduce bandwidth consumption.

But even at half current streaming rates, it wouldn’t be sufficient to watch HD content for hours every single day and not quickly exceeding the limits imposed by most ISPs.

In talking about the potential of Apple TV here and on my weekly radio show, The Tech Night Owl LIVE, I have suggested that Apple might just want to strike a deal with the cable and satellite providers. The end result would be that the Apple TV, or a revised version, would become the front end for their services. You’d be able to watch all your favorite channels from your favorite service, including DVR time-shifting, using Apple’s super smooth interface. Perhaps this would be similar to what TiVO offers. But for Apple to be able to let you record loads of shows, they’d have to provide an Apple TV with a regular hard drive. Flash memory is still too expensive. That is, unless the cable and satellite providers fully implement plans to store even time-shifted content on their servers.

Whether Apple would market the souped up Apple TV for bundling by cable and satellite providers, or separately, is something that would have to be worked out. But the very idea suddenly became credible this week when the Wall Street Journal published a story that such a deal may be in the works. The report begins, “Apple Inc. is in talks with some of the biggest U.S. cable operators about letting consumers use an Apple device as a set-top box for live television and other content, according to people familiar with the matter.”

In an updated story, the WSJ suggests Apple would attempt to blur the difference between live TV and on-demand content with a cloud-based DVR feature. Once again, the issue of streaming comes to the fore, but if they are streaming the content direct to customers of a cable or satellite service, the bandwidth caps aren’t likely to come into play.

I didn’t get many comments from the media when I suggested Apple might have to move in that direction, because a subscription service just didn’t make sense. Now that the mainstream media has evidently found sources to confirm such a story, it may be in vogue.

Maybe making deals with existing TV providers isn’t the best approach, but it may be the only practical solution right now. You heard it here first.

So let’s see here. Nokia’s efforts to sell smartphones with the Windows Phone OS have, so far, failed. It’s reported that AT&T invested $150 million to get you to buy a Nokia Lumia 900, the flagship Windows handset, and it failed. Those endlessly irritating ads said that the Lumia 900 was the first smartphone that wasn’t a beta, but then Microsoft tells you that the OS installed on that device, version 7.5, won’t be upgradeable to version 8.0, which ships this fall. In other words, the first non-beta smartphone is yesterday’s news.

I wonder how Nokia felt about that, as they continue to face shrunken earnings. What about the people who bought a Lumia 900 thinking it was something special?

At least if you bought an iPhone 3GS, 4, or 4S, you will be able to upgrade to iOS 6 when it arrives this fall along with the so-called iPhone 5. Sure, there are some features that may not work on the lesser-powered iPhones, but most will be there. Clearly Microsoft cares far less about the customers who, despite overwhelming odds, bought a Windows Phone handset anyway. The same could be said for Google, since only a fraction of Android users get the latest and greatest OS.

Now, nearly two months before Windows 8 is released, it appears that the widely-used name for the tiled OS that is the face of this new OS will no longer be called Metro. That’s reportedly the result of the fact that a German retailer, Metro AG, already owns the trademark. One preliminary name bandied about is “Modern UI,” which is the polar opposite of sexy and memorable. Sure, I suppose Microsoft could have offered a thick wad of cash to license the trademark. Apple does that very often, but that hasn’t happened, at least so far.

Some weeks back, Microsoft introduced its slim PC, the Surface, and promised that the Windows RT version, for ARM processors, would ship when Windows 8 arrives, on October 26. But as of the time this article was written, Microsoft’s site devoted to the tablet still bears a “Coming Soon” label, specs are bare bones, and the pricing hasn’t been set. One online blogger claimed that Microsoft planned to sell the 32GB Windows RT Surface for $199, but there’s no support for that rumor. And certainly there’s no way for Microsoft to come close to making even a tiny profit at that price. They’d probably be taking a bath north of $100 on each unit sold. Of course, Microsoft isn’t above squandering billions of dollars on new products and services in the hope of future profits. But I would think that the recent write-down of over $6 billion, because the purchase of an online ad company some years back didn’t yield profits, would be sufficient to give Microsoft pause.

And even though Apple’s OS X Mountain Lion has gotten consistent rave reviews, even from publications that usually favor Windows, the preview versions of Windows 8 have received a surprising number of thumbs down ratings. That doesn’t auger well for its success, although you can be sure Microsoft will dump loads of money promoting Windows 8 this fall.

I would think Microsoft’s stockholders would be up in arms over the way their investment dollars are being wasted on R&D that never, ever, pays off. Take the Xbox. Sure, Microsoft has earned a profit from gaming consoles, but not before billions were wasted. When do the profits overcome the losses? The answer is they probably won’t, because the Xbox, first introduced in 2005, is still sadly in need of a major upgrade. Yes, there have been interim enhancements. The Xbox 360 S, introduced in 2010, was mostly a repackaging effort to provide more ports, internal Wi-Fi, a more efficient cooling system and, apparently, a more reliable design to reduce the frequency of early hardware failures. But the luster of gaming consoles has apparently faded.

When it comes to Microsoft’s Mac software, the Mac Business Unit has apparently backed off from the promise of full Lion compatibility for Office 2011. While the full screen features has been added to some of the apps, there’s still no support for Auto Save and Version. Only the latest Outlook 2011 is compatible with the MacBook Pro with Retina display. The rest of the apps will appear fuzzy on the Retina screen, but not warm, without any commitment as to when, or if, that’ll change.

Now it may be that Microsoft is working on an Office 2014, for release next year or the year after. An Office 2013 for Windows is already available as a public beta, although the only apparent concession to touchscreens is the controversial ribbon. The little buttons become less little when you tap them.

I suppose it’s possible Windows 8 will confound the critics and get a reasonable amount of early adopters. Certainly a PC sales bump would help Microsoft and all those suffering PC makers. If Nokia’s efforts to build Windows Phone handsets bear fruit, at long last, that would be good news for Microsoft. But with co-founder Bill Gates touting more efficient toilets these days, you have to think that there’s very little to stop Microsoft’s onward descent into irrelevance.

There was plenty of talk about the MacBook Pro with Retina display when it arrived. Apple changed the game again, keeping Macs way ahead of Windows boxes. These days, the PC makers are still trying to find a way to earn profits from those super slim Ultrabooks, even though they are doing as much as they can to copy the success of the MacBook Air, and despite getting incentives from Intel.

Now it’s true that three quarters of new Macs sold these days are note-books, so it made sense for Apple to upgrade them first, even though new Intel parts are also available for desktops. So the speculation continues about when there will be a new iMac and Mac mini.

But there was a sort of upgrade to the Mac Pro, with a slight change in processor specs, but the “real” upgrade has been promised for 2013 by no less than Tim Cook. So I’d take that as an admission that something really different is afoot. What form that might take is anyone’s guess, I suppose, but one possibility is a slimmer, lighter design. Rather than deal with an ugly 41 pound behemoth, Apple could make something with similar expansion capabilities, but weighing half as much.

That theory isn’t out of line. Consider the late 1980s and early 1990s when Apple sold a series of expandable compact desktops beginning with the Macintosh IIcx. Introduced in 1989, the IIcx had three expansion slots (it was NuBus in those days), and eight RAM slots. The chassis was easy to work on, and the unit weighed 13.6 pounds. All right, you had space for one hard drive and a floppy drive (which would be replaced with an optical drive these days). All told, I would find it hard to believe that Apple couldn’t pack a similar range of expansion possibilities, plus the ability to add up to four drives, in a compact box that weighed less than 20 pounds.

Assuming performance improved to the extent that Intel’s Xeon chips have improved, I would consider such a refreshed Mac Pro quite a buy indeed. It would be an even better one if Apple could deliver it for less money than the current version. But the largest expense, particularly the high-end configurations, depends on the choice of processors. That’s Intel’s problem, or perhaps the people who would buy a Mac Pro workstation wouldn’t worry about shelling out five figures for the most powerful systems.

Yes, I think putting the Mac Pro on a diet is a real possibility, but since it clearly won’t happen till next year, I’ll move on to something else.

The last iMac update, the Mid 2011 model, arrived some 15 months ago, and that’s an awful long time in the personal computing world. This is particularly true in light of the fact that Windows desktops are already using many of the parts expected for a 2012 iMac. So you have to wonder why Apple appears to be taking so long. Surely a simple product refresh could be handled in a relatively short time, so maybe Apple has a different game plan.

Some suggest a 27-inch iMac with Retina display, but that would be a costly luxury. Apple has only just caught up with supplying the 15-inch MacBook Pro version. You also tend to stay farther away from the screen of a desktop computer, particularly one that large, so the improvements of a retina display would be less drastic. This doesn’t mean one isn’t in Apple’s playbook, but this year doesn’t seem so certain.

Otherwise, Apple could, I suppose, slim down the iMac, and maybe provide an easier way to add or replace a hard drive, with convenient access to two drive bays. That solution alone could make the iMac more useful for content creators, particularly those who have given up waiting for a major Mac Pro upgrade. If Apple installs the fastest Intel i7 quad-core processors from the Ivy Bridge family, the attraction of the Mac Pro will be reduced for some. Of course, you will need an outboard expansion box on the Thunderbolt port to run your favorite PCI cards.

Sure, 12 cores running full-bore are better than four, but only a small number of apps take advantage of the theoretical extra level of number crunching power. But I’ll make no guesses about whether the next iMac will have an optical drive.

Then there’s the Mac mini, which is still a compelling product for many Mac users. Sure, you need a separate display, and keyboard and mouse are also optional. But even the basic performance level of the Mac mini is more than sufficient to satisfy many Mac users. Of course, when you add a 27-inch Apple Thunderbolt Display, suddenly you’re in iMac territory. But if you have an existing display around, and it meets your needs, a starting price of $599 makes the Mac mini quite a deal. It’s also suitable for server duty for a small business. Some Web hosts even use banks of Mac minis for hosting services, although I would be hesitant about running a computer without redundant parts — particularly the power supply — for mission critical applications.

So when will the next iMac and Mac mini arrive? Probably by fall, maybe even before the end of the current quarter, the better to boost Mac sales in a declining PC market.