According to published reports, someone tweaked the iPhone simulator in Apple’s developer tools to present a resolution of 1136×640, which is the rumored layout of the rumored 4-inch display on the iPhone 5. Supposedly the Home page looked normal, but gained an extra row of icons. If confirmed, this experiment would appear to indicate that the iOS 6 developer tools are already taking into account an iPhone with a larger display.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that all apps developed or revised to support iOS 6 will also scale up proportionately without some tweaks. What it does mean is that Apple is evidently prepared to make it as easy as possible for apps to be updated when the next iPhone arrives.

One of the prevailing theories has it that existing apps will simply gain black bars at the top and bottom (or left and right sides in landscape mode) to compensate for the change. While the screen will be taller, width will evidently be the same, so you can still use an iPhone comfortably in one hand. You can search for several online mockups that present the image of a slightly taller and thinner iPhone 5.

The other key spec of the new design will probably be support for LTE. In the U.S., handset makers are bumping into themselves touting the improved performance of the latest and greatest wireless networking technology. At the same time, those LTE chips are notoriously power-hungry, so customers have to suffer from slightly thicker and heavier smartphones, to accommodate larger batteries, or shorter battery life.

Apple’s scheme may well include thinning out the other electronics and reducing weight, to allow for a larger battery without seriously impacting weight. Shorter battery life is not an option.

Certainly Apple had to compromise with the third generation iPad, which is a tad thicker and heavier than the iPad 2. But the difference is barely noticeable without a side-by-side comparison. No doubt the fourth generation model will go on a diet, as Apple discovers ways to thin the display. One possible improvement expected of the iPhone 5, in-cell technology, combines the touch layer with the LCD, which means thinner. No doubt the next iPad will gain a similar improvement, assuming that Apple’s OEM partners can build enough of the larger retina displays with the new technology. But the key elements of the design of the next iPad are probably even now being finalized

Returning to the iPhone 5, the real question is whether Apple can pull out any surprises now that so many details appear to be on the table. Sure, nothing is set in stone until the product is actually launched, and it’s been essentially confirmed that will happen on September 12. It’s always possible Apple will present a new feature or two that, along with the introduction of iOS 6, will be as iconic as Siri’s arrival last year.

As to that date, several journalists with great track records, known to have inside sources that are almost always on the mark, say you can take that September 12 timeframe to the bank. Assuming that the next iPhone ships the following week, initial demand and sales could fuel a great end to the September quarter. If a reasonable number of potential iPhone customers are hanging on the sidelines for the next model, their demand could be filled quickly.

But Apple is not about to just add needless features to look good on an advertising slick, as other tech companies are doing, when they aren’t just imitating Apple. You won’t see an iPhone with 3D, at least unless or until Apple finds a need for the extra dimension, and a way to deliver it in a way that looks good, works without glasses, and is reasonably compatible with existing software.

If there is a “one more thing” potential, Apple could announce an iPad mini at the very same event. There seems little reason not to take such a beast seriously. If Apple delivers the goods at the rumored 7.85-inch display size, with a standard 4:3 aspect ratio, there will be noticeably more screen real estate than those 7-inch tablets from Amazon and Google. It will make such a product far more usable.

The smaller iPad will also answer objections to the full-size model, such as not being able to use it comfortably in one hand, being more suited to offering navigation services in your car, and the improved ease of transporting the thing. An expected price of $249 or $299 for a 16GB version would make an iPad mini an affordable purchase for cash-starved educational systems, and it will destroy much of whatever market still exists for the Nexus 7 and the Amazon Kindle Fire. I realize some of you will dispute that contention, but the iPad has already captured 68% of the supposed tablet market. That’s an iPod-sized market share.

Regardless of what Apple announces, however, the critics will shout “same old same old” simply because most of the particulars were already published. But that assumes the rumors are on the mark, and, other than the iPhone 5’s intro date, that’s by no means certain.

As millions of Mac users continue to adopt OS 10.8 Mountain Lion, it’s clear most user experiences are really great. There’s, in fact, a perceptible performance boost, most probably to do more efficient graphics drivers. One test from Ars Technica indicated a modest performance increase that would reveal itself with snappier performance.

That would explain why I’ve observed such improvements. As an example, when moving audio tracks through the timeline in Amadeus Pro, an audio editing app, I can confirm that the action is smooth, fast, fluid. It was ragged under Lion. Clearly Apple has done a lot of work behind the scenes.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any problems. There are published reports that Apple is investigating the mysterious 50% reduction in battery life on some MacBooks right after installing Mountain Lion. As usual with such issues, it’s not an across-the-board phenomenon, which makes it that much more difficult to nail down.

Now I did encounter one issue after an otherwise flawless Mountain Lion installation that may explain why battery life may have taken a hit for some of you. In my case, it was a runaway process, involving Contacts, which kept CPU usage very high on a late 2009 iMac, with a corresponding performance dip. The problem revealed itself clear as day in Apple’s Activity Monitor app, which you’ll find in the Utilities folder. In short, if something like this happens on a Mac note-book, if the CPU is working overtime for some reason, battery life is going to be reduced.

In my case, it took just a little voodoo to set things right. The problem appeared to result from Contacts constantly polling iCloud for updates. First I logged out of iCloud, accepting all the dire warnings about the consequences to my address book, deleted all the Contacts preference files (which still bore the AddressBook label for some curious reason), and logged back into iCloud. The runaway process, ABAssistantService, was history, and CPU use was restored to a more normal level. Suddenly Mountain Lion acted as if on steroids.

I read another report of a similar runaway process, involving the Calendar app, with the same symptoms. A little finagling with iCloud, and the problem vanished. I wonder if such issues explain why battery usage is higher than it should be on some Macs. In passing, I haven’t observed any noticeable decline in the battery life of my 2010 17-inch MacBook Pro, nor did I see evidence of anything taking an unusual proportion of memory or CPU reserves.

That doesn’t mean that these iCloud related issues are causing all of the battery life problems some of you are reporting. But it is an example of one possible cause for such symptoms. There are also reports that some users are experiencing severe system slowdowns after installing Mountain Lion. I don’t know if they have gone as far as I did to see what might be taking an excess amount of system resources, but it does make me curious.

If Apple releases a 10.8 update in the near future to address battery life problems and system slow-downs, I will be curious to see if they devised a fix that keeps those runaway processes in check.

In the meantime, if your Mountain Lion installation has been flaky, take a look at Activity Monitor to see if something is a little too energetic with system resources. The symptom will usually involve something bearing an arcane name constantly grabbing 100% of CPU horsepower. If quitting the process, which is easy in Activity Monitor, results in its mysterious return after a few seconds, you may just want to do an online search of the purpose of the runaway process, which may give you some clues as to what’s responsible.

Point-zero issues of this sort shouldn’t necessarily deter you from installing Mountain Lion. The problems appear to affect a small number of users, and the runaway process phenomenon doesn’t seem terribly difficult to solve, if that’s the cause of the other reported symptoms. But if it all seems too daunting for you, you might as well contact Apple support or visit the Apple Store Genius Bar.

As OS releases go, however, Mountain Lion appears to be better than most of Apple’s recent OS upgrades. Being able to get superior performance with a new system installation is always a good thing.

Of course, there are always potential incompatibilities with someone else’s app. If you’re hesitant, maybe you want to consult the Roaring Apps an extensive list that indicates whether apps are fully or partly compatible with Lion and Mountain Lion.

Yet another potential problem with Mountain Lion concerns possible lost features. One obvious example is Web Sharing, a Sharing preference that activates an Apache server on your Mac, which disappeared in OS 10.8. This is not necessarily intended for running a regular Internet server — that’s the province of the Server version of Mountain Lion. But it’s good for testing your site.

Fortunately, the loss of Web Sharing, while it doesn’t make sense, is easily fixed. There’s a piece at MacFixIt that explains how it’s done via a few Terminal commands. It’s not so big a deal, but you have to wonder why Apple thought this feature wasn’t worth retaining, since switching it on or off is such a trivial matter.

If you want to get the early buzz about a new movie from both audiences and critics, you might pay a visit to Rotten Tomatoes. The site’s name is based on the old practice of people throwing rotten tomatoes or vegetables at the stage during a bad performance, and earning a green or rotten tomato is the unkindest cut of all for a new movie.

An especially low rating from critics may not keep the audiences away, but if the people who actually see the movie agree, you can bet it will fade fast from the multiplexes.

Now when you look at the reviews of the public beta releases of Windows 8, you can really see that Microsoft may be in a heap of trouble. Even reviewers who tend to give Microsoft a pass are very skeptical, reminiscent of a bad Rotten Tomatoes rating. Yes, the Metro look and feel may seem attractive and responsive at first brush, but actually getting work done, and coping with the abrupt transition between Metro and a slimmed down traditional Windows interface, can be downright annoying, not to mention confusing.

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Although there were some suggestions that Apple planned to introduce a special version of the iOS for a possible future TV set at the WWDC, we all know that didn’t happen. And I didn’t expect it to happen. But where does that move the discussion about Apple delivering a full-blown TV set in our near future.

As you have heard, Apple will hold a special media event on September 12. It hasn’t been confirmed by Apple, but people “in the know,” whom I trust, are clearly in possession of well-sourced information that you can take to the bank. So what are we to expect on that date?

Well, the betting has it that you will see a sixth generation iPhone that many call the iPhone 5. Yes, it is possible Apple will call it “the new iPhone” instead, though that may make less sense for a smartphone. But with Apple, you never know. There could, I suppose, be a “one more thing” launch of an iPad mini, the alleged 7.85-inch Kindle Fire/Nexus 7 killer.

But what about Apple TV? Yes, sales have apparently more than doubled since last year, but not enough for the $99 set top box to leave the hobby stage. Where does it go next?

Well, there was a tiny upgrade this week, with the addition of support for Hulu Plus, a subscription movie/TV streaming service that features content from ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, Nickelodeon, and other cable and broadcast networks. After a one-week trial period, the service costs $7.99 per month, same as the Netflix streaming service. In passing, Hulu Plus seems to do better with current TV shows, but movie selection, as with Netflix, could be better.

In any case, all this does is take Apple TV closer in third-party content to the Roku 2 set top box, which sells for $79 and also offers 1080p video. Roku, however, doesn’t integrate with Apple’s iTunes, or the AirPlay feature. But Roku offers a wider selection of third-party content, including Amazon Instant Video, Viacom’s Epix movie channel, the online version of several cable news channels, plus other services.

Nothing, however, stops Apple from fleshing out the Apple TV’s offerings over time. The big question, however, is just how far Apple plans to take their “hobby,” and will it lead to a real smart TV set. This is the question that may or may not make sense. Certainly the media wants to continue to help design Apple’s products, but the transition from Apple TV to an Apple “Smart” TV remains a huge question mark.

Although most of you knew this already, it is quite clear from that Apple versus Samsung lawsuit playing out in a California courtroom that Apple doesn’t rely on focus groups to build new products. Apple doesn’t design gear because the media or financial community tells them to. There is certainly a long range plan in place, or under consideration, that will move Apple TV to a new level. What that level might be is, of course, open to speculation.

A smart TV might seem some sort of ideal, and there is that widely quoted statement from the late CEO, Steve Jobs, in his authorized biography, that he’d found the secret to create the best TV interface on the planet. But does Apple need to build a TV to deliver that interface?

Wouldn’t it also be possible for Apple to license Apple TV as the controller for someone else’s TV set, and deliver the same interface? All right, Apple earns most profits from selling hardware, although I can’t see where a $99 Apple TV is delivering loads of cash. Offering Apple TV hardware to OEMs for $25 or $50, each, will mean far more revenue, without forcing Apple to enter into the cut-throat TV business, where profit margins are slim.

Or just keep Apple TV a separate product, but expand the features in different ways, to include more apps. In theory, it is possible for Apple to make deals with the cable and satellite providers to deliver special apps that will load their paid content within Apple’s special user interface. Compare to a TiVO as one possibility of how a system of that sort might work.

Sure, I suppose Apple might consider replacing these services with their own repertoire of TV and movie content, but unlimited streaming to your ISP is probably not possible right now. The cable companies, most of whom have broadband divisions, are already losing your TV business. Most set bandwidth caps. If you are watching 1080p streaming TV content on one or more sets for hours a day, you’ll suck up your bandwidth allotment in days. Right now, most of the ISPs in the U.S. are seeing high percentages of some of their customer’s bandwidth consumption used up by streaming content from Netflix. And I do not think people spend five or six hours a day just watching Netflix.

But perhaps we are looking at the short term. Broadband speeds and bandwidth limits may take years to work themselves out, but it will happen, and Apple plays long ball. Apple TV may not mean so much this year or the next, but some day it might. It’s just that Apple is not telling us their game plan, but I still find it hard to believe that a TV set is in Apple’s future.