It has been a long time since you could take Microsoft’s promises — or threats — seriously. After they conquered the PC world early on, almost every pronouncement from them was accepted as gospel by the media. Whenever they announced a product or service, they were believed. When those products or services failed to appear — or showed up in a feature-limited form — those lapses were ignored.

Just a single example: When Windows Vista was announced, several features, including a new file system, were demonstrated. When Vista appeared to tepid customer response, those missing features, promised later, were seldom discussed. Does anyone even remember what they were? Or even care?

This week, in a published interview, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s loudmouth CEO, vows he’s “not going to leave any space uncovered to Apple.” Yes, I’m sure Tim Cook is even now shaking in his boots.

But such interviews are softball. It’s not that we have a seasoned journalist with the courage to ask Ballmer the hard questions about Microsoft’s inability to fulfill promises about new products. Or would Ballmer just walk out — as Steve Jobs was known to do — if the questioner veered from the script? Indeed, that would make a better story, that Ballmer won’t answer probing questions about Microsoft’s problems.

Now if you actually look at what Ballmer has said through the years, you’d wonder why anyone would pay attention to him. His casual dismissals of Apple’s mobile products are major examples. It’s one thing to say that he believes Microsoft can beat Apple in a market segment, but to just dismiss Apple outright, as he did with the iPhone, makes him just look foolish. Or jealous.

A real interview with Ballmer, if he had the guts to allow it, would deal in-depth with Microsoft’s problems moving past Windows and Office. Yes, the Xbox is successful now, but how many years will it take for Microsoft to earn back the billions squandered in developing and marketing a gaming console? Will it ever happen, or will gaming consoles be passé before something of that sort ever happens.

You can also see where Microsoft is responding to Apple, rather than innovating. So Mountain Lion is $19.99, and the upgrade to Windows 8 Pro will be double that price. Certainly it’s probably not fair to compare two unreleased products, and even though a Golden Master seed of Mountain Lion has been made available to developers, it’s not available for regular Mac users to buy and download. A GM seed could get be updated before the OS actually goes on sale. However, it’s fair to say that developers have given Mountain Lion positive buzz. Windows 8 has received a surprising amount of skepticism even from media pundits whom you’d think were favorably disposed towards Microsoft.

At least with Mountain Lion, you will be able to upgrade and find that most things work the same as they do in Lion and Snow Leopard. There are some iOS-inspired changes, but some can be reverted to the way they worked in older OS X versions, and the other changes do not require complete retraining, or even slight retraining. Windows 8, however, changes things for no discernible reason, and it’s clear to me that enterprise customers will avoid it like the plague. Why should a business be forced to submit to substantial employee retraining costs at the whim of Microsoft?

Indeed, why isn’t anyone asking how Microsoft expects businesses to embrace Windows 8 now or ever? These days, companies have a hard enough time dealing with mounting operating costs, and earning enough money to keep all or most of their employees on the job. If Windows XP or Windows 7 work well, where’s the incentive to upgrade? That it’s cheaper?

When it comes to the supposedly forthcoming Surface tablet, Microsoft can’t see the forest from the trees. They still believe in Windows everywhere, meaning desktop Windows and mobile Windows must forever look and work the same. The keyboard on the Surface’s inside cover is laid out in a traditional Windows note-book fashion, including a touchpad. What about just using the Surface’s touch keyboard instead? Well, one reporter who tried, before the prototype was taken away by Microsoft’s PR crew, said the touch response was ragged. That doesn’t auger well for hardware that’s a mere three months from release. But since Microsoft has yet to seed reporters with hardware that is supposed to be in close to shipping condition, how can you know? They didn’t ask Ballmer about that either.

However, it may well be that Ballmer, in a sly fashion, has admitted the Surface may be less than real. He is quoted as saying: “Surface is just a design point. It will have a distinct place in what’s a broad Windows ecosystem. And the importance of the thousands of partners that we have that design and produce Windows computers will not diminish.” Maybe it was meant as a wakeup call for Microsoft’s OEMs to deliver better Windows 8 tablets; existing prototypes have been pathetic, to put it mildly.

Or maybe Ballmer felt the pressure from OEMs who are feeling betrayed, once again. In other words, the Surface may not be another Zune at all. It may be nothing more than a concept that will never see the light of day.

When it comes to Bing, and all the billions Microsoft has thrown away trying to become relevant in search, how does Ballmer make excuses for wasting over six billion dollars buying an online ad company and not being able to make it work? Google managed with a company they acquired for half that price? Does that mean that Google has better negotiators than Microsoft, and has a better sense of how to integrate a newly acquired company?

Now I’m not necessarily a fan of Google, but I keep looking for reasons to switch to Bing, and I can’t find any. These are truths that Ballmer may never be able to face. I still wonder why Microsoft’s board hasn’t sent him off to the retirement home.

No, that’s going way too far, but Consumer Reports still deserves more well deserved criticism. I want to expect better, because CR is run by a non-profit corporation that does not accept outside advertising and buys tested products at regular retail outlets. They aren’t getting freebies from a PR agency or a manufacturer’s corporate communications department, so you have to believe that the tested product is the same as regular people buy. No ringers allowed.

Despite those qualifications, CR just can’t get tech gear right. More to the point, their undefined test methods result in skewing the ratings against Apple in curious ways, without an iota of apparent support with facts and figures. Worse, ratings are buried under generic labels, with no indication how the conclusions were reached.

So in the August 2012 issue, for example, the iPhone 4s gets, at best, middling ratings, a 67, compared to the other smartphone offerings from the major wireless carriers in the U.S. Now such ratings would be deserved if all the other products examined were demonstrably superior, but there are serious questions about CR’s test standards and results.

Take the ratings of 11 Verizon Wireless smartphones, topped by the Droid Razr Maxx with 78 points. The main advantage of the Maxx line is the larger battery, which, on the basis of its high capacity, offers more talk time than any other tested smartphone, even on an LTE network. All right, that’s a positive. But the rest of the ratings make far less sense. So all the Android smartphones are credited with better “Messaging” than the iOS, even though Apple’s exclusive iMessages feature, which will come to the Mac when OS 10.8 comes out, ought to count as a major advantage for Apple. Although the Safari Web browser is generally regarded as equal to our superior to the browser on Android phones in the detailed tests I’ve located, CR considers it merely Good, compared to the Excellent ratings on Android gear.

According to just about every benchmark comparing iOS versus Android browser performance, Safari is demonstrably better in HTML5 fidelity. Or maybe CR hasn’t a clue what HTML 5 is. In terms of rendering speeds, they are usually close, meaning that differences aren’t going to be noticeable. It’s more about the speed of your Internet connection. Or maybe CR doesn’t understand that either.

As usual, CR doesn’t rate the quality of the OS. They are just included among the features for reference, with an “A” for Android, an “I” for iOS, a “W” for Windows Phone, and a “B” for BlackBerry. Which is better? CR won’t tell you. Which version of Android do you get on those smartphones? CR overlooks the fact that many owners of Android gear are saddled with OS versions over a year old, with no possibility of getting an over-the-air update, even to receive a critical security fix.

It’s also true that CR just adores larger screens. They are wowed by the “superb 4.7-inch” display on an HTC One X, without saying anything about the convenience of using such a large smartphone with one hand or taking it on the road with you. You’d think a publication that is so concerned about the failings of autos when it comes to ride, steering, handling, seat comfort, and the ease of use of dashboard controls, would also consider the possibility that a smartphone’s display might be too large, that the case might be unsuitable for convenient storage in a pocket or a purse. Or maybe they hired a bunch of clowns to perform customer evaluations, or require their testing staff to wear clown uniforms, so they can carry the larger stuff.

When it comes to tablets, the ratings might be expressed with ditto marks. Regardless of OS, every tested model gets a Very good rating for “Ease of Use,” whatever that’s supposed to signify. It doesn’t seem as if the OS has anything to do with it. In the end, among the larger tablets, the differences in scores from the highest rated third generation iPad to the worst rated Motorola Xoom are not significant. The iPad’s Retina display appears to be the only defining difference, and not one that seems significant to CR’s editors, despite their love of large displays on smartphones. Worse, CR seems oblivious to the well-known problems with touch responsiveness on Android gear.

But at least they aren’t complaining about the new iPad running too hot. They tried to get away with that scheme a few months back, but the test results were still acceptable. Of course, iPads ran a lot cooler when tested by other publications, but CR is not always about consistency or reliability.

To the CR reader, it would appear that all tablets rate very close to one another, and you might as well get the model that’s cheapest. Why bother to consider any other factor in deciding which one to buy? Well, the public has decided, despite CR’s unfortunate efforts to find equality where it doesn’t exist. Android tablets are still failures.

There’s also a brief survey entitled, “Faster laptops make a debut,” but CR included last year’s MacBook Pros among the ratings. I’ll cut them a break here, because the 2012 Mac note-books no doubt arrived too late to be included on the list. I could tell you that CR doesn’t understand the differences between OS X and Windows, but you knew that already.

And did I tell you that CR also reviewed chain restaurants in that issue?

What would you think about a company that, whenever they enter a new market, the media is ready to declare failure? What would you think if that declaration comes despite the fact that, in the past decade, those new products have been amazingly successful? Would you begin to think that too many members of the press need a reality check?

So just this week, there’s a report that Amazon may build a smartphone to compete with Apple. No doubt they’d follow the Kindle Fire playbook, delivering a product at cost in the hopes that people will use the gadget to access Amazon’s storefront and buy lots of stuff.

Since the story comes from Bloomberg, a respected source of business news, you have to take it seriously. Or maybe Amazon is floating a trial balloon. The assumption is that it would go up against the iPhone in the same way that the Kindle Fire went up against the iPad. Only the Kindle Fire mostly grabbed market share from small Android tablets. It doesn’t look as if iPad sales actually suffered.

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Although Steve Jobs once put very cold water on the possibilities for a smaller iPad — it was all about you needing sandpaper to make your fingers small enough to navigate the tinier screen — rumors about an iPad mini just won’t stop. It has reached the point where such a beast must be inevitable, where the media is even designing products for Apple.

But why should anyone see a need for a smaller iPad? Isn’t Apple selling so many copies of the 9.7-inch version that they continue to trounce the competition? Yes, but Apple may need to find a compromise.

Most of the rumors about a smaller iPad speak of a 7.85-inch model. This curious size, with the height matching the width of the current iPad, will allegedly include a screen with a resolution of 1024×768 pixels, the same as the iPad 2. Used on a smaller device, it won’t be quite a Retina display, but it will be sufficiently sharp to deliver a good user experience, assuming that Apple’s customers can adapt to a smaller iPad of course. It also means that developers won’t have to modify their apps for the so-called iPad mini.

But it comes down to the reason for such a device, and it may be all about convenience, utility, and, of course the competition.

As you no doubt recall, the 7-inch Amazon Kindle Fire supposedly did pretty well during last year’s holiday season. Although Amazon doesn’t officially break out unit sales for Kindles, the numbers were said to total several million, although it is also reported that it appears to have been strictly a holiday phenomenon. Sales apparently dropped off substantially after the first of the year.

Then there’s the decision of Google to push out a 7-inch tablet as an Android OS flagship. That’s the Nexus 7 that is shipping this month for $199.

Now the Nexus 7 has been getting pretty decent reviews. The hardware is apparently far more powerful than the Kindle Fire, and there’s even a front-facing camera for videoconferencing. That’s something the current Fire lacks. But the real question is whether Google’s marketing plan has legs. At $199, the Nexus 7 is being sold at or close to cost. Google can only make a profit from the sale of apps and streaming content from Google Play. This is a variation on Amazon’s marketing scheme, but Amazon also has a well-deserved reputation as a powerful online retailer with a huge selection of merchandise that ranges from e-books to personal computers (including Macs), clothing, cosmetics, and even home appliances.

So a single purchase made on a Kindle Fire might bring thousands of dollars of revenue to Amazon, whereas most purchases at Google Play will likely amount to less than $50, even for those who order several apps, and stream a few flicks for weekend enjoyment. The revenue potential just isn’t there, although this is one area where the media is, once again, just not paying attention.

In short, I don’t see Google’s business plan making much sense, while the Kindle continues to have huge potential. So why should Apple produce an iPad mini?

Well, if there is real customer demand for smaller tablets, and if customers really like them (very important!), it might make sense for Apple to offer an alternative size. Sure, there will be some cannibalization from the regular iPad. But it may well be that, being exposed to both the smaller and standard iPads, customers who can afford to pay extra will opt for the bigger model.

But an iPad mini would be easier to carry, and might be more convenient for students, particularly in the lower grades. It would also be a useful option for cash-starved school systems that simply do not have the money to spend on truckloads of full-sized iPads.

Certainly an iPad mini, probably listing for $249 or $299, would easily vanquish the competition. But that again assumes large numbers of customers would like the smaller model, and aren’t just buying them because they cannot afford the regular iPad. It is not even certain that there will be sustained demand for a Kindle Fire and a Nexus 7 during the 2012 holiday season.

The iPad mini scenario demands a reality check. Apple is not going to build a product just because the media tells them to, or because other companies have seen some level of success with such a form factor. Apple’s magic is in deciding which products not to produce, and what features to avoid or remove. Even if an iPad mini has real potential, it may be more as a consumption device rather than a productive tool. The display on the regular iPad is not dissimilar to older Apple PowerBooks, which were credible productivity machines. An iPad mini wouldn’t work so well as a productivity tool, except, perhaps, for small children writing letters and doing homework.

In the end, it may be that these rumors stem from the fact that Apple is just building prototypes to test the waters and evaluate the feasibility of an iPad mini. So orders are observed somewhere in the supply chain. Such a product may never see the light of day, ever. But the rumors won’t stop, at least until fall comes and we know for sure one way or the other. But even if no iPad mini appears, there’s always 2013.