As regular readers know, I haven’t used my third-generation Apple TV for several weeks. It was hooked up to my VIZIO 4K TV during the installation process. I checked the input to make sure it was fully operational, and seeing that it was, I never used it again.

I’m even thinking about selling it on eBay.

This all comes as a pretty new development to me. I’ve had so-called “smart” TVs for a number of years. The first, a 50-inch Panasonic plasma from the last decade, had an interface that was dead slow and almost unusable. Similar to car makers, the TV industry was slow to recognize the need to perfect embedded software beyond the basic setup screens.

The 55-inch VIZIO E-Series, acquired at a professional discount in 2012, had a more up-to-date smart TV feature, with dedicated buttons on the remote for different services. Only it barely worked, even though all of the settings were correct. The firmware was up to date and all, and I had the option of having the set repaired under warranty, but I didn’t bother. The interface just wasn’t ready for prime time, and I had that Apple TV on which to rely for iTunes and Netflix content.

Beginning in 2016, VIZIO evidently realized it wasn’t worth crafting its own smart TV features and thus switched to Google Chromecast. For that year, a small Android tablet was offered as an alternative to the standard remote. This year, it’s just the remote, no doubt to keep costs down.

The remote has six embedded buttons for different services, including the three that may be essential: VUDO, Netflix and Amazon. Several others, including Hulu, are featured when you access the SmartCast input. Additional apps can be “cast” via the SmartCast app on iOS and Android gear, which can also double as replacements for the remote.

A recent article in TechHive explains how smart TV has improved greatly in recent years as TV makers rely on the companies making streaming set-top boxes to deliver apps and interfaces. So you can buy sets powered by Android TV, Roku and even Amazon’s Fire TV.

This way, the set maker doesn’t have to concern itself with developing its own software, which is usually inferior. While most TVs above the very cheapest now feature 4K, and HDR is spreading, they have largely become commodity products. You probably won’t find a picture that’s less than acceptable. There are very affordable models from VIZIO and TCL that offer picture quality very close to models costing hundreds or thousands more.

Regardless of which ecosystem you prefer, you’ll find user interfaces that are relatively easy to use, and performance has become far better as TV makers use faster CPUs for their smart TV apps.

So where does that leave separate streaming set-top boxes?

Well, if you have an older set, or the one you bought recently doesn’t have the interface you prefer — maybe you’d rather have Apple TV instead of Roku, Google or Amazon — you’ll still want to buy a separate box. But if you’re willing to be a little open minded, it may well be that the set you have will deliver just about all the streaming content you want with decent performance. Even though there are thousands of streaming services, most people stick with Netflix and Amazon, and possibly a smattering of Hulu and YouTube.

No, that’s not a survey, but clear from the current state of the streaming industry.

It goes back to my original comments about my Apple TV. If you are at all involved in Apple’s ecosystem, particularly iTunes, you may still prefer Apple’s streamer. The same holds true for exclusive Apple TV apps, although I doubt that many have taken off beyond the old standbys.

The advance of smart TV only reduces Apple’s prospects, but what does it do to get back in the game? Can Apple conquer the living room, or is that a failed dream?

Well how about making deals with some TV makers to embed Apple TV in some premium models?

It may seem against Apple’s DNA to want to control the whole widget, but what about CarPlay? Hundreds of motor vehicle models are set up to allow you to cast iPhone apps in the infotainment system. Apple is obviously limited by the quality of the audio and the flexibility of the auto maker’s interface, but that hasn’t prevented them from integrating the iPhone experience.

To be fair, many of these vehicles also include Android Auto.

It appears to work all right, though I don’t like the fact that only a few models, so far, allow you to do it wirelessly, and they tend to be luxury vehicles priced out of the range of most of you.

To my way of thinking, such as it is, it makes perfect sense to embed Apple TV hardware and software into a TV set. Apple ought to consider the possibilities before the remaining TV makers adopt other platforms. Ir would not only provide a familiar interface for TV viewers, keep customers from exiting Apple’s ecosystem and perhaps acquaint new customers with the company’s gear.

I don’t really see a downside. Do you?

Well, one, perhaps. As streamers become more powerful, the one in your TV set will be stuck with the original hardware. But regular software upgrades might keep it current for at least a few years.

Since the GOP’s tax cut was passed last year, some companies have come out and, more or less, announced higher wages and special bonuses. It all seems to be developing nicely, regardless of your political leanings. But some of those announcements have fine print you might not appreciate.

So AT&T announced last year that it was handling out $1,000 bonuses to some 200,000 employees. All well and good, until it turned it that this had already been arranged with its union. Then the ax fell, as some 2,000 employees received their pink slips. Not the Christmas present they expected.

Walmart didn’t do much better. So their U.S. employees will receive a minimum wage of $11 per hour. But a third of the states have already increased minimum wage to $10 per hour or more; in Arizona it rose to $10.50 as of the first of the year. So Walmart didn’t really have much of a choice in those places, and getting 50 cents or a dollar above the lowest wage hardly comes across as much of a raise.

At the same time, Walmart closed 63 Sams Club warehouse stores on very short notice. To some employees, it was akin to driving to work only to see the sign on the door. Four of those stores are in Arizona. So does Walmart use its savings to help fund those small wage increases?

But not all the news was so mixed.

So there’s also news that Apple is planning on contributing some $350 billion into the U.S. economy over the next five years. Depending on which cable TV talking heads you listen to, this may be a momentous announcement, or just a modest improvement, much of which was in the works already.

When you look at the fine print, it is good news, just not quite as good as it seems at first blush.

So Apple plans on hiring 20,000 people over those five years. Again, how many would have been added anyway? A key reason is the decision to take advantage of the new tax rate to repatriate an estimated $245 billion in overseas funds, a hefty portion of its cash hoard, which would be subjected to taxes of $38 billion, or 15.5% of the total.

The plans include opening a new campus at a location not yet announced. Actual additional investments and capital expenditures will total $75 billion. It’s still quite a bit of money, but rather less than the headlines demonstrate. It also includes a restricted stock bonus of $2,500 to employees below the director level, and a special program for charitable donations in which the company will match employee donations of up to $10,000 per year on a two-to-one basis.

Are you with me so far?

Now Apple is a hugely profitable company. It’s certainly promising to see at least some of the money repatriated to the U.S. go to company expansion. The rest, I fear, will largely apply to the usual stock buybacks and shareholder dividends. Not said is whether employee salaries, aside from the stock grants, will also increase beyond what you might expect from the tax cut.

Regardless, this is certainly good news, and it demonstrates that Apple is making, at the very least, a reasonable effort to invest in this country. But will any of those investments mean new factories in which to assemble some of Apple’s products? I suppose it’s possible, and, even after taxes and the announced investments, the remainder of the $245 billion can go a long way. Maybe it’ll allow Apple to absorb a hefty portion of building out an American supply chain.

Will it also allow Apple to perhaps lower prices on some products? Probably not, since Apple is still judged by Wall Street on the basis profit and loss, not on whether more of its bankroll is used to finance lower prices?

Regardless, Apple’s stock price has continued its upward path, closing in on $180 per share in after hours trading.

Beyond the money manipulation, Apple appears poised to report a stellar quarter on February 1st. There are already reports of higher Mac sales from Gartner and IDC, firms that tend to undercount sales from Apple’s personal computers. Although there have been claims that iPhone X sales weren’t so terrific, yesterday’s column reported higher sales of iPhones compared to Android gear for the December 2017 quarter in the U.S. Better sales are also reported in China and elsewhere.

Obviously, these are all surveys, and surveys can be wrong. So some of the key information you might look for from Apple covers more than total iPhone sales. They won’t be broken down by specific models, though it’s possible Apple executives will extoll the unexpected or huge success of the iPhone X. If average sale prices are noticeably higher, that will indicate that sales tended to lean towards the more expensive models.

It’s also true that the iPhone 8 Plus appears to be another star from Apple’s current lineup. And here I thought that more people would prefer the smaller iPhone, although I have to admit I do see quite a few of the Apple phablets in my ride hailing travels around Phoenix. And those critics were complaining that Apple was charging too much for its gear.

So here’s where it stands: During the December quarter, there were two diametrically opposed versions of iPhone X sales. One was that it did really well, the other not so well, maybe even terrible. But the unfavorable spin was clouded with the usual stuff about Apple cutting back on orders from the supply chain at the end of a year. What the people who spread such stories forget is that March sales are normally lower for Apple, so components will be ordered in smaller quantities. It’s only logical.

Unfortunately, such reports are not uncommon. It’s meant to convey the illusion that an Apple product is a failure even when the company reports really good sales.

So what did happen with the iPhone X, and, in fact, the iPhone 8 family? Did they do well? Are there any indicators of success?

Well, one survey, from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, reveals that Apple’s market share compared to Android in the U.S. grew by a decent margin.

So in the December 2017 quarter, iOS accounted for 39% of mobile phone activations. That compares to 34% in the year-ago quarter. In comparison, Android’s share was 60% for the last holiday quarter, compared to 64% in the comparable quarter in 2016.

What you’ll notice here is that the percentage of activations for other mobile platforms, such as they are, fell from a tiny 2% over the year to near-insignificance. These numbers confirm the ongoing two-horse race, with no indication that any other mobile platform is poised to gain traction.

Among Android devices, Samsung’s share was 32%, LG was 13%, and the other companies fought over the remaining 15% with no indication of any breakout brands. So Samsung is still the Android leader but, as you’ll notice, the iPhone leads the overall smartphone market in this country.

In the meantime, the iPhone X is pretty much available for quick delivery as Apple has apparently caught up with demand, though things were pretty much moving in that direction just before Christmas.

In the meantime, speculation has already begun about the 2018 models. According to Ming-Chi Kuo, of KGI Securities, Apple will deliver two versions of the iPhone X this fall. One will be an update to the existing model, the other will be a “Plus” version with a 6.5-inch display.

A third new iPhone will sport the standard TFT-LCD display rather than OLED, and will thus be cheaper. It will have a 6.1-inch edge-to-edge display and Face ID, same as the iPhone X.

Now the KGI Securities analyst’s predictions are extremely credible, so this is something you should take seriously. The big question is whether there will also be straight up upgrades to the iPhone 8 family. I suspect there will be, since Apple will probably want to continue to offer more affordable gear. Consider a report that the iPhone 7 Plus, first released in 2016, was the number two smartphone in China.

I do wonder what an iPhone X Plus might cost, or will Apple be able to take advantage of improved production of OLED displays and other components and reduce the price, say by $100. That’s not uncommon for Apple, and it would mean the larger version may sell for the same $999 as the original. Otherwise, the larger model could list for $1,099 or more in its entry-level configuration.

Can you hear the complaints if that happens?

All this positive news comes at a time where Mac sales were reported to be higher worldwide according to both Gartner and IDC. These two companies often undercount those sales, so it may presage some really great numbers. Consider the previous quarter, where they reported flat or somewhat lower Mac sales, whereas Apple’s actual numbers demonstrated an over 10% increase.

Apple plans to release its quarterly numbers on Thursday, February 1st. If iPhone sales end up in the expected positive territory, it’ll all come despite the constant fear-mongering about every little feature and Apple’s alleged lack of attention to detail. Face ID was supposed to be a huge failure maybe because Samsung couldn’t deliver a secure facial recognition feature for the Galaxy S8.

No doubt Apple’s competitors are busy improving their own biometrics so facial and iris recognition features will no longer be easily defeated with simple digital photos. In contrast, it appears that you need to create an elaborate 3D photo to get past Face ID, shades of Mission Impossible.

What I’m wondering is when or if an iPhone with an OLED display will become the standard iPhone, listing for no more than today’s mainstream models. At the very least, Apple might continue to sell the original iPhone X this fall for less money.

But OLED’s lifetime may be shorter than you expect. There’s yet another new LED technology dubbed MicroLED, which is under development. Samsung has already displayed a prototype TV with that technology that it expects to sell in 2018. But it won’t come cheap, since the screen will measure 146 inches.

Apple is also looking into the new display technology, having acquired a MicroLED company, LuxVue, in 2014. So will it replace OLED in a few years? Will any tech company soon overcome the obstacles in manufacturing the flat panels, which require assembling one sub-pixel at a time?

Right now an affordable OLED iPhone would be good enough until something else takes over.

It is curious that the infamous CPU bug was identified by some members of the media as an Apple problem. Even though it impacted most CPU chips produced in the past 21 years — perhaps even the PowerPC — somehow it was strictly about iOS and Mac users facing danger when browsing in Safari, or potentially suffering from a serious performance slowdown after installing Apple’s patches.

To its credit Apple did get out fixes that reportedly “mitigated” the Meltdown and Spectre bugs, at least for recent OS versions. Microsoft was also quick on the draw, but with less success. Some older PCs with AMD processors were essentially bricked, being unable to boot past the startup screen. While recent PCs didn’t reveal much of a slowdown in posted benchmarks, some cloud services appear to suffer.

Our Linux web server uses a pair of Intel Xeon processors and was updated last week, apparently, but I’m not at all certain if there’s much of a change in CPU usage. Traffic tends to be high on Sundays and Mondays, although system load dos appear to be somewhat higher than usual. I’ll have a better indication of the impact in a day or so.

Update: After a few days, CPU use, overall server load, remained way above the usual level. But after installing yet another update that required a restart, server load seemed back to normal.

As you might expect, Apple is already facing a class-action lawsuit asserting that the company has failed to properly deal with the problem. That doesn’t appear to be the case, but if the legal firms specializing in actions of this sort expect a payday, facts may not matter. Several dozen actions have already been filed on the iPhone battery slowdown (Throttlegate) issue.

What this goes to show, however, is that no computing product can ever be totally free of potential security leaks. The best companies can do is to address the problems in timely fashion as they are discovered and find ways to make their products more secure. Despite the problems with the Microsoft patches, I have no doubt the company had good intentions and just goofed. It’s not as if Apple hasn’t confronted some boneheaded bugs and fixes.

In a published report, a new strain of Mac malware named MaMi, has been discovered. It reportedly hijacks DNS, which can, I gather, send you to the wrong site and thus become susceptible to an online infection. It’s supposedly based on a strain of Windows malware from 2015, dubbed DNSUnlocker.

When such reports emerge, some misinformed online pundits claim that Macs were supposed to be immune to malware, and thus this represents a serious problem for Apple. But the company has never claimed freedom from malware, never.

Indeed, Mac malware has existed from the early days of the platform. My very first Mac was infected by a virus within just a few weeks after I set it up. It was caused by a tainted floppy disk for an app I had purchased from a legitimate local vendor, a computer software store. They used to have those things.

I had to basically restore the computer. Fortunately, I hadn’t created too many documents, and they were all backed up on floppies. We did that then, too. It never happened to me again, because I installed a shareware app to protect the computer.

Once Mac OS X arrived, I never considered security software. Over the years, I’ve tried a few apps, but the ones that perform background scanning almost always reduce performance somewhat, even though I had some pretty powerful Macs over the years. Apple didn’t help matters by not always being prompt about posting security updates when security flaws were discovered. But in recent years, it has been more proactive. Even silly glitches, such as the ability to access root privileges without a password, were addressed in pretty short order.

Over the years, it was asserted that Macs were safer through obscurity. With Windows garnering over 90% of the personal computing market, it was almost always the target, even after Microsoft became more proactive about protecting its customers.

These days, malware is often installed through social engineering. You receive a notice, for example, from a financial institution you may or may not deal with claiming you need to click a link to login and fix your password, or perform some other online action. Even if the correct URL is shown, hovering your Mac’s cursor over it may reveal a totally different destination — or perhaps not. But just to be sure, it doesn’t hurt to login directly to that company’s site and check the status of the account.

Or just contact customer service if need be.

It’s also possible to infect your device when visiting a site that appears to be safe. You see a message that the macOS or iOS must be updated, so you must click on a link. Or maybe Adobe Flash, a common source of security vulnerabilities, must be updated, and there’s a handy link for that too. But you can go direct to Adobe to be sure you even need an update. At least there is no Flash for iOS or any other mobile platform.

So is security software necessary on Macs? If you regularly interact with Windows users, maybe. Some Mac antivirus software will eradicate Windows viruses so you don’t accidentally infect someone. Otherwise, probably not right now, at least so long as Apple continues to fix problems as they occur. Remember, too, that security software cannot protect you against malware that hasn’t been discovered and addressed in a “signature” update.

In the meantime, you can be sure that the fear-mongering will continue whenever some new security flaw appears on the Mac. Remember, too, that Apple also releases security updates for iOS, but it remains a much more secure platform simply because Apple curates all the software you’ll download. Well, at least if you don’t jailbreak your device, in which case you’re on your own.