So when the iPad 2 arrived earlier this year to rave reviews, some critics said it wasn’t the “real” iPad that Apple was supposed to release. The real product, allegedly, was meant to have a higher resolution display, an equivalent to the iPhone’s Retina Display. It would afford incredibly sharp images, perfect for reading books and magazines. Amazon’s E Link and its picture perfect text display would be yesterday’s news, even if that gadget is cheaper and only excels at one task.

Yes, there were rumors that Apple was testing higher resolution displays, and also rumors that they weren’t able to bring the costs down to be able to deliver such gear at the current price. All of this was reported against a background of a growing number of competitors, most using the Android OS.

However, when the iPad 2 came out, with essentially the same display as the previous version, the critics were disappointed. They wanted their Retina Display, even though no smartphone or tablet maker, other than Apple, has made it work successfully and affordably. But Apple never promised such a thing; it was all speculation and nothing more.

So even though the iPad 2 took off like wildfire, some reporters felt it wasn’t enough, couldn’t be enough. There had to be more. Buttressed by rumors that Apple might be testing higher resolution displays, it was decided that this wasn’t going to be just the year of the iPad 2, but the year of the iPad 2, plus an iPad 2 Plus or whatever an enhanced model might be called. The theory went that the current product would coexist with a more expensive version. If you want more pixels, prepare to spend maybe $100 extra for the privilege.

Now one thing is certain about Apple, and that is that simplicity is mandated. There are already more versions of the iPad 2 than they might like. In addition to the Wi-Fi model with three storage capacities, there are separate 3G products for AT&T’s GSM network, and Verizon’s CDMA network. That’s nine models, each available in black or white, making a grand total of 18. That’s more than the usual Apple product lineup scheme, so I would imagine that forcing dealers to stock another 18 configurations of a “Pro” version would be an imposition, even if potential sales were huge. At the very least, consider those locked display cases and the need to buy extras, for example.

From a customer’s standpoint, I wouldn’t hazard a guess how many of you would have been willing to pay extra for an iPad with a Retina Display. In the end, maybe Apple would simply cannibalize their own sales, rather than pick up much if any market share against those failed contenders. Consider, too, that the iPad’s piece of the pie actually grew in the last quarter, even though there were more competing tablets around. There’s hardly any incentive to complicate the lineup with something that’s already trouncing all comers.

Forgetting the marketing issues, there’s one more thing: Some reports indicated that Apple just couldn’t raise the yields of high-resolution displays to sufficient levels regardless of price. So that, as they say, is that. But the same sources are also now suggesting that the iPad 3, due early in 2012 if one wants to predict any Apple product as due at any particular point in time, will be the one to have a Retina Display. More to the point, that Apple will reserve sufficiently high qualities of those enhanced displays to keep prices at their current levels. That means more misery for the companies who hope to gain some traction in the alleged tablet market.

Understand that I am not saying with 100% certainty that the display of the next iPad will necessarily be of a higher quality than the current model. Again, you never know with Apple. But even if that reported Apple media event does occur on October 4, the bill of fare will not include the introduction of a new iPad.

As far as the market for other tablets is concerned, it’s still essentially a lost cause. That hasn’t stopped retailers from pretending that the iPad is just one of many tablets. Many Best Buy electronics stores have already converted the signs for the PC section to include “Tablets,” even though it hasn’t been proven that the market exists for anything other than an iPad.

Sure, those other companies may sell a few hundred thousand units here or there, which may be an adequate quantity for them. Samsung claims to have shipped a few million Galaxy Tabs, though it’s not at all certain just how many are actually being shipped to real customers and not just sitting in large storage boxes at dealer or distributor warehouses. Besides, with Apple gaining some victories in their ongoing legal fight to stop Samsung from selling what they regard is iPad copies, you wonder whether customers will even seriously consider buying something that may be discontinued in the next week or the next month.

Moreover, HP’s decision to dump the TouchPad so quickly at fire sale prices has gotten some to believe that the new price point must be $99 for a credible iPad killer. Unfortunately, companies will be losing hundreds of dollars on every sale, so that’s hardly a sensible way to build market share. And I doubt many potential iPad customers are simply going to sit on the sidelines and hope for a better mousetrap; maybe next year.

So the news came this weekend that Netflix is not just increasing your monthly fees by some 60%, but basically dividing streaming and DVD distribution operations into two separate Web portals. In an email to members, CEO and co-founder Reed Hastings said, “I messed up. I owe you an explanation.”

Well, the mess up wasn’t this ill-considered decision, but the way it was originally explained. Talk about failing to own up to the consequences of one’s actions. All this means is that you will not only have to pay more if you want both services, but deal with separate sites, separate content queues, and separate billing entries on your credit card. Is that supposed to be something better?

If you care, the DVD/Blu-ray distribution operations will be rolled into a service called Qwikster over the next few weeks; you’ll also be able to rent games for some of the more popular gaming hardware. I don’t presume to guess why they chose that curious name, except, perhaps, to pay homage to one of the original digital distribution services, Napster. Then again, until they mended their ways in the face of an onslaught of lawsuits from the entertainment companies, Napster was a repository for pirated content, while Netflix/Qwikster is profoundly legal in every respect. Or maybe they were inspired by the word “gangster.” I don’t pretend to know why company or brand names are selected, except that Qwikster doesn’t quite deliver the image of movies and TV shows. At least, with Netflix, you had “flix” to indicate flicks. Oh well.

Sure, Netflix has its troubles, as they struggle to compete with more and more online streaming or on-demand services. A key reason is the single price scheme for streaming, and fixed price plans for rentals, depending on the maximum number of discs you want at the same time.

Now the entertainment industry has forced Netflix to delay distribution of new DVDs by up to a month to offer a longer window for sales of physical media and on-demand rentals from cable, satellite, iTunes, and others. I understand Hollywood’s desire to monetize their product in every way possible, but it also means that with Netflix, make that Qwikster, customers have been shunted to the back of the line for many new releases.

When it comes to the streaming, Netflix has already confronted problems with their buffet trays. Just recently, Starz, owners of lots of movie and TV content, decided to end their deal with Netflix early next year, after the two failed to agree on a new contract. Starz reportedly wanted a multiple tier pricing plan, so that Netflix would be forced charge higher fees for streaming more recent A-list movies or TV programs to your computer or TV. This is sort of what Apple confronted with iTunes music when a deal to remove DRM was consummated. Today, you pay different prices depending on a song’s popularity or release date.

I wouldn’t pretend to know enough about the online streaming and DVD distribution business to guess what Netflix ought to do next, but I will make suggestions. The one-price scheme may be passé. Indeed, if Netflix wants to make the streaming shine, they might have to consider offering a higher-tier service, and even on-demand content offered ala carte. Yes, it would put Netflix in the same business as iTunes, but it would also allow them to offer a one stop shopping service. When it comes to DVDs, same answer. You want current releases, pay a little more.

Yes, the Hollywood moguls are super greedy, but as long as content delivery services, such as cable, satellite and the online alternatives, are willing to pay the piper, that’s what Netflix may have to consider. As it is, they may be in danger of becoming less and less relevant if they don’t make a few rapid changes. I hope they can also do it without angering customers any further. The changes could have been handled more gently, but sometimes egos get in the way.

Speaking as a long-time Netflix customer, I am not happy with the new price structure. Even if I were to tolerate having to deal with basically two services from one company, I have already cut down on the number of DVDs I receive, to one. I can just rent current movies from iTunes weeks before Netflix offers them. But streaming has been a very mixed bag for me. After trying it a few times, with one notable exception (below), I’ve opted to let it sit on the back burner simply because so few recent quality movies are available.

Sometimes why some content is available and some isn’t makes doesn’t even make sense. So, for example, you may find a sequel to a popular movie available for streaming, but you have to rent a DVD of the original. All right, perhaps that’s because the sequel bombed at the box office, and Hollywood was content to accept anything to help recover their losses.

I’ll give you another example: Only recently, I decided to watch the cult sci-fi series, “Farscape,” which combines live action and muppets. Don’t ask if you haven’t heard of that show. Well, this genre series lasted four years, 88 episodes in all, between 1999 and 2003. The fourth season ended with a cliff hanger, but the network cancelled the series, which is typical of the foolish fashion in which the industry works. After loads of complaints from fans, they produced a mini-series, “Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars,” in which to wrap up the show’s loose ends.

Well, all of the regular episodes of “Farscape” are available for streaming from Netscape. If you want the mini-series, you have to rent a DVD. Does that make sense to you?

I do hope that the management at Netflix will find a way to sort this all out before too many members simply go elsewhere. And don’t think I’m not tempted to follow them.

It must be frustrating for Microsoft. Apple gets nearly all the attention these days, even though Windows still dominates the world’s PC desktops by a huge margin. Yes, the share is eroding somewhat, mostly because the Mac is growing faster, but Microsoft still makes loads of money from Windows licenses.

At the same time, Microsoft has failed to spread the joy to other markets. Although the Xbox has done all right in the gaming business, Microsoft has struck out when it comes to tablets and smartphones. These days, Windows Phone 7, though praised for a good-looking user interface, is essentially a non-issue. It’s all about the iOS and Android.

When it comes to search, Bing’s market share has increased, but largely at the expense of Yahoo!, which continues to flail after agreeing to use Microsoft’s search engine. In the wake of the sudden firing of their CEO, Yahoo! is reportedly looking for merger partners in the hopes of staying afloat.

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Years ago, Microsoft would respond to serious competition by assuring everyone that they were working on an even better product. You’d even see it some day, but maybe they could interest you in the stuff they were working on now. This comes across as a classic bait and switch scheme, particularly when those promised products would seldom arrive in the promised condition, and sometimes would never arrive at all.

Microsoft is very much the opposite of Apple in this respect. When there’s a new product or service under development that they think they can sell, Microsoft will shout it to the rooftops. The media will get early and ongoing previews until it finally ships. This can be a blessing or curse, depending on whether they can fulfill all their promises.

Apple is notorious for saying little or nothing about future products. Sometimes they will even put down a product category in a very blunt fashion, only to enter that market later on. So we had Steve Jobs poo-poohing the idea of Apple making a mobile handset some years before the iPhone debuted. Well, their excuse would be that they looked at the market, saturated with handsets and smartphones, and had to devise a way to make a difference and make a profit. If they couldn’t, there would have been no iPhone.

And don’t forget that the Mac mini came out only months after Apple announced, at one of their quarterly conferences with financial analysts, that they would never build a low-cost Mac, and that cheap PCs were junk. At the point, the Mac mini was already in the final stages of preproduction, so they knew full well when it would arrive and where it would stand among cheap personal computers.

More often than not, however, Apple tells you nothing. Advance previews seldom occur, and when they do, it’s to give developers a chance to make their products compatible. So you’ll always hear about the next version of Mac OS X or the iOS. Besides, once developers get their hands on preview releases, you’ll know about it anyway. Too many developers talk to too many members of the media to stop the practice and, besides, it does generate plenty of hype and anticipation, even though Apple doesn’t say much beyond posting some preview information on their site.

With Lion, Apple began to meld certain visual features of the iOS in Lion. This sort of thing is to be expected, and it will surely help users of iPhones and iPads migrate to the Mac and find the surroundings easier to grok. Indeed, Mac sales continue to soar past the flagging PC market, so Apple has a good strategy here.

At the same time, although based on the same core, Mac OS X and the iOS are very different, since they cater to very different markets. On a Mac, you are getting an OS that still adheres to the traditions of graphical operating systems pioneered by Apple in 1984. You have menu bars, you can point and click with your mouse and trackpad, manage a hierarchical file system, and run multiple apps and documents on multiple displays. In observance to those who are becoming very accustomed to touchscreens, there is support for gestures. But merging the two operating systems wouldn’t make sense, since Apple’s Macs and mobile gear are not meant to work the same, and have very different hardware capabilities.

Microsoft, of course, wants desperately to trump Apple. So what do they do? Well, they have decided to essentially develop a unified version of Windows that will, or should, work essentially the same on a tablet as on a standard personal computer (be it a note-book or desktop). Both will sport a theme inspired by Windows Phone 7 , called Metro, which uses tiles instead of icons in the Start menu to display links to apps, status displays, or just general messages about the services you’re using, such as email, Face-book and Twitter.

Dubbed Windows 8, in theory this OS will work well on the standard Intel and AMD processors, plus the ARM processors installed inside hundreds of millions of mobile gadgets, including the iPhone and iPad. There will also be a new class of Web-based apps that are supposed to adhere to current standards, such as HTML5, and run on all supported platforms. How traditional apps will fare is murkier, though I suppose Microsoft’s developer tools would be updated to allow you to compile an app for either or both processor families. That’s similar to Apple’s original Universal app scheme, designed to support the PowerPC and Intel.

Of course, Apple knows how to develop apps to function on different processors, along with emulators to serve as a crutch for customers and developers until most software is updated for the new chips. But this is new territory for Microsoft, having used AMD and Intel hardware for years. Also, it’s not at all certain how well a full-bore Windows 8 will run on ARM, or how easy it will be to get regular Windows software to function efficiently.

This week’s demonstrations involved giving reporters tablets that used regular Intel-based parts. ARM-based hardware wasn’t distributed, although Microsoft boasts that Windows 8 will work just fine. But it’s also true that the developer preview has huge processor demands, causing the demonstration tablets to run hot. They were also equipped with hefty batteries because of the system’s huge power requirements.

So is Windows 8 just another Microsoft vaporware scheme to deflect interest from Apple? When 2012 arrives, will Microsoft’s promises of an all-in-one OS be fulfilled in the real world? Perhaps, in one form or another, but I expect some of the claims being made now will be shown to be, shall we say, a little shaky.