In line with predictions from the Mac rumor community, Apple this week released a 10.7.3 update for Lion, along with a set of security fixes for users of 10.6, Snow Leopard. In theory, the changes shouldn’t have been terribly significant, at least if you looked at the bill of materials.

But that didn’t stop things from going awry.

Almost from the first hour the Snow Leopard update was installed, legions of angry Mac users began to complain about the loss of Rosetta functionality, usually signaled by the onset of frequent crashes when launching a PowerPC app on an Intel-based Mac. Indeed, one of my clients, a textbook author for a major publisher, placed his “911” call to me and asked for help. He was already running up against a serious deadline.

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There have been some stories in recent weeks suggesting that Apple is readying an all-new iPhone 5 for introduction at the WWDC this June. This is the “real” iPhone upgrade that so many industry pundits suggested Apple would deliver last October, only Apple doesn’t operate by the same timetable they do. To them, the iPhone 4s, which looked the same as the iPhone 4, must therefore have been an unsatisfactory upgrade.

Well, the public clearly doesn’t pay attention to industry pundits. They certainly don’t pay attention to me, and I don’t expect them to. Instead, they looked at the value proposition of the iPhone 4s, compared the specs and the look and feel to those dozens of other smartphones, and decided to go (or stick with) Apple.

Now if you look at the past history of the iPhone, nothing Apple did should have come as a surprise. Certainly the iPhone 3G and 3GS looked the sam. Apple didn’t swap out cases then, so why should they change their tune with the immediate successor to the iPhone 4? Would the skeptics have been more pleased had Apple replaced the externals and didn’t change the internal workings? Otherwise, what’s so bad about the iPhone 4 shape that makes them so determined to see Apple “fix” it?

Certainly, Apple is reporting record iPhone sales, and has only just managed to catch up with the unceasing demand as the product appears in more and more countries. So where’s the rush?

At the same time, if there is anything at all consistent with Apple’s release plans for a new iPhone, it’s that it would coincide with the release of a major new version of the iOS. Since iOS 5 came out last October, does it make sense to expect Apple to deliver a major upgrade within a mere nine months? Right now, according to published reports, iOS developers are currently beta testing iOS 5.1, a modest upgrade that some expect to be ready for the release of the iPad 3 perhaps next month.

So where’s the logic in making the entire OS obsolete just two or three months later? Would Apple even have the time to put it all together and find another 100 or 200 must-have features to deliver? It’s not as if the latest and greatest version of the Android OS is raising the bar. If you buy an Android smartphone or tablet, you’re not even assured that you will ever get the current “Ice Cream Sandwich” version. Indeed, the most popular tablet incorporating Android was the Amazon Kindle Fire, which buried all of it with a proprietary storefront. The Android version used was, in fact, an older edition never certified for use in a tablet.

That doesn’t mean that Apple should slow development of the iOS. Certainly Microsoft won’t be stopping development of Windows Phone and struggling RIM is hoping to deliver a new version of the BlackBerry OS later this year. The pressure remains, but why expect Apple to deliver iOS 6 before October? And, when it comes, wouldn’t a new iPhone be just the ticket on which to exploit the new features?

One reason why some expect a new iPhone by summer is that they don’t want to be proven wrong, that the incredible sell-through rate of the iPhone 4s must be some strange anomaly. Besides, shouldn’t Apple be delivering larger screens, the better to compete with Android? After all, Consumer Reports rated some Android gear higher than the iPhone 4s solely because they had bigger displays, or perhaps 3D, as if there is a compelling need for the latter.

Now it may well be that the iPhone 5, or whatever it’s called, will have a somewhat larger screen, but it would probably have the same number of pixels as the current model, so as not to cause complexities for current iOS apps. That way you may have somewhat fewer pixels per inch, but it would still be sharp enough to be considered a Retina Display, although I admit I’m just shooting in the dark here. I don’t know whether Apple believes your next iPhone must have a larger screen, or that the smartphones out there with displays of up to five inches are really catching fire.

Consider the usability issue, something that other companies ignore in the attempt to have better specs. Would a larger smartphone still fit comfortably in your pants or shirt pocket? What about holding it in one hand if you aren’t blessed with big hands and moonlight as a basketball player? In the drive to close the gap between a smartphone and a tablet, are these companies actually paying attention to the user experience? Or is a case of, since the iPhone doesn’t have it, they need it?

In the end, I do think there will probably be a heavily redesigned iPhone, that it will be called the iPhone 5, and that it will ship this fall. The release will be accompanied by iOS 6, and I expect to be proven correct on all counts.

Meantime, there’s no reason for Apple to rush anything to market before then. In fact, it appears that some of the competition will be slowing their release schedules somewhat so as not to confuse customers with an avalanche of new products that are hardly different from the ones they replace.

There was an article this week that proclaimed so-called “Ultrabooks” as “The Next Big Thing in Portable Tech,” as if such products are brand new and thoroughly innovative. Such stories were inspired by the pomp and circumstance of the presentations of these thin and light note-books during the recent Consumer Electronics Show.

In case you didn’t know there’s an “Ultrabook craze” happening right now. It’s the alternative to tablets that might appeal to people for whom such gadgets as the iPad aren’t sufficient for their needs.

Unfortunately, the people who believe that the Ultrabook is something new and different seem to be living in a time warp, since such a product has been out since 2010, only it first came from Apple in the form of the MacBook Air.

Now the 2010 MacBook Air wasn’t the first version of that product. Apple originally introduced that feather light note-book at the Macworld Expo in 2008, a slimmed down 13.3-inch portable with a standard hard drive, but without optical storage or Ethernet networking (except as external options) and only two peripheral ports, one for USB, the other for an external display. It weighed a mere three pounds, in the range of those costly thin and light PC note-books.

The idea was compelling, but the price, $1,799 for the base model, was a non-starter. They sold, but not in terribly high quantities.

Segue to the fall of 2010, when Apple totally rethought the concept, creating the blueprint for Intel to build a reference platform. This time Apple considered the price carefully, with an 11.6-inch version starting  at just $999, same as the entry-level MacBook. It was, relatively speaking, a tad slimmer and lighter, with a longer-life battery and two USB ports. By 2011, Apple replaced the Mini DisplayPort with Thunderbolt.

However the most compelling change was the completely switch from a traditional hard drive to solid state storage; SSD was optionally available on the original version. Suddenly the low-end Intel processor seemed incredibly snappy. It would start in a few seconds, awake from sleep in an instant, and applications would launch much much faster than even on the most powerful Mac Pro. Sure, you were limited to only 64GB storage for the cheapest model (topping out at 256GB with a costly check on the customize page), but if you were careful about what you put on there, you’d have a pretty complete, reasonably powerful note-book for a surprisingly affordable price.

Certainly the public noticed. The MacBook Air became amazingly popular, with loads of customers willing to trade CPU horsepower, a decent number of internal peripheral ports, an optical drive, and expansive hard drive storage, for a slimmer form factor. The PC makers couldn’t match Apple’s amazing supply chain and manufacturing efficiencies, and were thus forced to charge higher prices.

So Intel, who continues to supply the chips that power Macs, created an Ultrabook reference design, helping to subsidize PC makers to build their own equivalents to the MacBook Air at similar prices. There’s even a dual-mode version that will offer a display that can be popped off, supposedly turning the computer into a traditional Windows tablet, though at a far higher price than the model with a fixed display.

Although Ultrabooks were present in earnest over at the CES, it doesn’t seem as if any of the PC makers are able to provide credible alternatives to the MacBook Air. At best, they can match Apple’s price, more or less, though they won’t receive anywhere near the same profits generated by the MacBook Air.

But to say this is something new and different is a big stretch of logic. It’s nothing more than a confession that no single PC maker can match Apple’s design flair or ability to deliver affordable gear and still make great profits. Instead, they had to depend on Intel to do the hard lifting for them.

With the Ultrabook reference platform, a PC maker can simply take the basic design, slap their own brand name on it, make a few minor case design or color changes, and claim they’ve got something new and original to sell you. I suppose, lacking a talented in-house design team, they have no choice. Besides, it’s not as if they actually have to spend much adapting the platform to their own needs. You’ll see the same situation that already plays out in the PC note-book space these days. Most models look nearly the same if you stand back a few feet, and ignore the manufacturer’s labels, assuming they’re even visible.

But I have to wonder how any member of the media can look at the Ultrabook, examine the specs of the MacBook Air, and somehow believe the former is an innovation and not a desperate attempt at copying the latter. That doesn’t mean that a PC note-book adopting the Ultrabook form factor will necessarily be a bad product. Other than the size and slimmed down internals and missing features, though, will they differ all that much from a traditional PC note-book? More to the point, will people who might otherwise be considering an iPad choose one of them instead? If they really wanted a traditional note-book computer, wouldn’t they consider the original, the MacBook Air? Just wondering.

When Apple released a totally new version of Final Cut Pro last spring, at a bargain basement price of $299.99, a frightening number of video editing professionals howled. How dare Apple destroy their work tool in order to expand the market to consumers?

This unfortunate decision struck many as similar to what Apple did when they totally overhauled iMovie several years ago. As with that switchover, critical features that loyal users depended on were lost, with only vague promises that some might return in a future update. You couldn’t even import projects from the previous version, Final Cut Pro 7.

A blog from Danny Greer summarizes the worst of Apple’s lapses in reinventing FCP. Apple clearly was tone deaf about the potential impact, because they stopped selling the previous version, so customers who couldn’t wait for FCP X to be fixed would still be able to purchase a version that would suit their needs.

Into the breach came Avid and Adobe, with special deals to entice customers to switch, and I suppose they were able to boast some success. You had to wonder just what went wrong here, and was it true that Apple no longer cared about the movie and TV industry? Is the Mac Pro, a staple among content creators, also an endangered species?

Well, with iMovie, Apple simply left the previous version, iMovie HD, as a download if you didn’t want to switch. Faced with a level of protest that they clearly didn’t anticipate, Apple soon restored FCP 7 to the lineup. But was it a case of too little and too late?

Looking back at the entire episode, it’s clear Apple screwed up big time. Maybe they even released the FCP upgrade prematurely. Had they waited another year, most of the critical lost features would have been restored and updated. At the same time, it is clear that Apple failed to be proactive about explaining to the industry the reason for the changes, and assure customers that the feature set would be fleshed out over time. Sure, it makes sense that Apple wouldn’t want to add critical features to a professional app before they are ready, but a White Paper or two explaining the logic behind the changes and plans for the future would have reassured lots of customers before they jumped ship or just stood on the sidelines.

Understand that I’m not a professional video editor. I have used FCP and other video editing software from time to time for simple projects, so I’m not totally ignorant of the editing process. But some candid communication would have avoided many of the problems. Certainly the existence of a new version of FCP didn’t somehow render the previous version nonfunctional, nor did it mean that Apple wouldn’t release bug fixes as required. Nothing stopped customers from simply waiting until the new version was ready for prime time.

This week, FCP X took another step towards becoming a credible replacement for the previous version. The 10.0.3 update, available free to existing users, includes two of the mission critical features promised last year. With multicam editing and broadcast video monitoring, post-production specialists may begin to feel more comfortable about upgrading. There are also significant improvements to the Chroma Key feature, and other essential enhancements.

There also appears to be an increase in third-party support. For example, FCP 7’s XML 1.1 enhancement brings with it more tools for video editors. The 7xX app, a $9.99 download from Intelligent Assistance, exploits XML to import FCP 7 projects into FCP X. That appears to remove at least one key objection from the existing user base.

Now I wouldn’t presume to say that the changes and the enhanced third-party tools have, at last, removed all the obstacles for potential upgraders. This is a ground-up reimagining of a video editing app, which means that users will have to learn new skills or adapt existing techniques. Certainly folks who are immersed in an editing project aren’t going to want to switch and cope with new quirks and new workflow strategies. To think they’d just switch without planning is absurd.

Even with a more compelling package, it’s not at all certain if customers who have already gone elsewhere will ever return. Those who are accustomed to the FCP 7 way of doing things are also not apt to want to switch right away, or ever.

On the other hand, the low price of FCP X and its add-ons make it possible for more and more students and others entering the industry to acquire professional tools to help perfect their skills. In the end, Apple might actually build a much larger user base, and those users will, of course, continue to buy the most powerful Macs to handle video editing chores. There’s even third-party support for Thunderbird peripherals, meaning that you won’t need to drag a Mac Pro with you on a remote shoot. A MacBook Pro may be just fine.

All in all, despite taking a short-term hit, maybe Apple’s long-term plans will be vindicated. But it would have helped if they had done the right thing on the very first day, making sure that loyal customers knew what was happening and what to expect before they were struck with an unpleasant surprise.