I saw a perfectly dumb Best Buy TV spot the other day, basically touting the arrival of a special tablet section where you can get the latest and greatest contenders in the new wave of mobile computers. The clear message conveyed is that tablets are taking over, and you might as well go to the U.S.A.’s largest consumer electronics retailer to make sure that you get the one you want.

Certainly the arrival of the tablet has been heralded for years. Both Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer have offered Microsoft’s vision of the tablet, which was basically a note-book with a touchscreen that ran a version of Windows. The original concept had those portables using a stylus to direct onscreen functions of one sort or another.

In the real world, it went nowhere, except for adoption in some vertical markets where the awkwardness of switching from screen and stylus to keyboard was deemed useful. I know our family doctor as several at his office. He uses one, his wife, the office manager, has another, and so do the various physician assistants. But they clearly aren’t fully satisfied with the software or the interface, and it seems that office visits take far longer than they should. What that means is that fewer patients are served, which means less income for the practice.

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I suppose some industry analysts who forecast extremely rosy sales for the iPad during the March quarter this year were somewhat disappointed that less than five million were sold. Apple’s response, which seems sensible enough in light of the ongoing backorder situation, was that they were building as many as they can, but struggling to meet demand.

Even as the iPad 2 has become available at more and more dealers, in more and more countries, you may still have problems getting the model and color you want. Apple’s online store is still reporting a wait of from one to two weeks on all configurations. At the same time, there are rumors that they are having problems getting the components they need, because of the ongoing supply disruptions in Japan.

So whatever the demand for the iPad 2 might be, Apple can barely keep up. I think that’s a given, but it doesn’t stop some so-called tech pundits from imagining all sorts of dire sales problems for the iPad.

Consider a recent report, which shall not be linked here, because the author doesn’t deserve the hits, where the possibility that iPad 2 sales will be way below expectations is regarded as an absolute certainty. Citing the figures in the March quarter, the author (make that hack) concludes that no more than five million will be sold in each subsequent quarter, based on little or no evidence. Now five million, more or less, would mean that a total of 20 million iPads will be moved in 2011. That’s not too shabby, although it would fall way below the original expectations of 30 to over 40 million. This lower figure also wouldn’t account for the usual bumps for back-to-school purchases or the holidays.

If that figure holds true, you wonder how the writer in question concludes that only some ten or 12 million will be sold this year. If it doesn’t add up to you, it surely doesn’t to me. That takes fuzzy math to the limits of absurdity and then some.

Now the real test of the iPad 2’s potential will be the results from the current quarter. Assuming high demand continues, and Apple is ramping up the production lines as rapidly as possible in light of potential parts constrains and so on, the figures will be closely examined for trends. If Apple moves some eight or ten million iPads, you can bet that those projections of 2011 totals in the neighborhood of 40 million might be realized, assuming sales continue a steep climb.

If there are ongoing production shortages, maybe sales won’t be much better than the last quarter. You’d have to wonder, though, why Apple continues to add dealers around the world if they can’t meet demand. Well, I suppose the critics might suggest, and without evidence, that demand is flagging and Apple is adding outlets to compensate. Again, you won’t know the final answers until the quarterly financial figures are out, although such industry analysis organizations as the NDP Group would have a reasonable handle on demand for the iPad in the U.S. That will provide an early clue.

All this is happening while it seems that every single iPad wannabe is failing. The latest reports have it that RIM has sold (or at least shipped) 250,000 BlackBerry PlayBooks so far this quarter, with an estimate of a potential of 500,000 by the end of June. That’s probably better than the Motorola Xoom and other tablets, but obviously a fraction of what Apple is doing.

I also wonder what sort of customers are gravitating to the PlayBook. Without surveys to go by, I rather suspect most are existing BlackBerry customers, because you need to bridge to a BlackBerry to use an email client; that limitation will supposedly be fixed one of these days. Potential customers who don’t own a BlackBerry are hardly inclined to one to buy one just to gain this capability, which will still be blocked by some wireless carriers without an extra data plan, since it amounts to tethering.

It didn’t help RIM’s situation to have to recall some 1,000 units, mostly distributed to Staples office supply chain stores, because a defective version of the operating system was installed. As I suggested in my column on the subject earlier this week, RIM cannot afford to make a bad first impression if they hope to sell lots of PlayBooks. The ads for the product that I’ve seen so far, apart from the noisy special effects, curiously tout the ability to multitask by playing multiple videos at the same time. You wonder why anyone would want to do that on a gadget with a seven-inch display. Other than looking cool in a TV ad, well I suppose it is intended to look cool, in the real world, you wouldn’t want to waste resources running all those videos at the same time. The iPad 2’s smarter multitasking would suspend all but the one video you’re actually watching.

But that feature, such as it is, gives RIM the ability to call their version of multitasking “true” as opposed to Apple’s which is, to them, false, although it does cover the needs of most users. And, no, I won’t get into the argument about whether the iOS limited multitasking scheme might be enhanced in some ways. I’ll just say that I agree that it can be made better, but that unfettered is not a viable option. Besides, I don’t think most potential tablet customers are going to care about the fineries of multitasking.

In any case, there’s no evidence that the burgeoning tablet market is anything more than an iPad market, more or less. It may be the iPod experience repeating itself, which may not please Apple’s competitors, but that’s the way things are, at least for now.

It’s easy to become complacent about Apple. You know, for example, that the iPhone has received upgrades in June or July each year from 2007 through 2010. So it was only natural to expect a similar upgrade this year, although there are now growing indications that it’s not going to happen. Instead, the talk now suggests there won’t be a new iPhone until September, perhaps coinciding with the release of a revised iPod lineup.

But how do we know such a thing? Therein lies a tale.

You see, except for first-ever products, such as the original iPhone, or perhaps a new OS release, Apple rarely announces a major product upgrade much before you can actually place your order. The reason is that sales of existing product would simply dry up, and Apple would be left with loads of unsold inventory. That doesn’t look good on the bottom line, nor to the investment community.

Instead, in the weeks prior to the release of a new model, the production lines will slow. Now this sort of thing isn’t signaled by any official announcement. It all comes in the way of reports that supposedly originate from one source or another close to the manufacturing plants, and leaked to the tech media, usually an Apple-related rumor site. A second development is the inability to order the current model, or a sudden backorder situation, where shipments are delayed a few days or weeks. That’s something that might happen with a new model, but not necessarily with one that’s been out for a while, where you expect decent supplies to be available.

While I realize you shouldn’t take rumors as gospel, it’s also true that such reports are often correct. Within a few weeks after existing inventories begin to run dry, Apple will announce the new model. Whereas an iPhone, iPad, or iPod will still usually garner a special press event, most Mac hardware upgrades, other than the OS, barely merit a press release.

So that returns us to the iPhone. If Apple planned on a new model in the June or July timeframe, the production lines would already have geared up to produce decent quantities of the successor. Instead, the stories still speak of a possible initial production slowdown.

But that’s part of the equation. Apple has done something important that appears to be an admission that the arrival of the next iPhone is still a few months away, and that’s last month’s release of the long-delayed white iPhone 4. Now it doesn’t matter why it took so long, although it was mostly due to problems with the manufacturing process that wouldn’t have prevented a lesser consumer electronics company from releasing the gadget anyway. But Apple insists they want to adhere to a higher standard.

More important, if a new model is only a couple of months away, it would make no sense whatever to make the white iPhone available after all this time. Why not wait until the iPhone 4GS, iPhone 5, or whatever it’s going to be called, and produce a white version of that model? Indeed, the latest issue of Time magazine has a back cover ad featuring, you guessed it, the white iPhone 4, entitled “Finally.”

Well you get the picture.

The real issue is why would the next iPhone be delayed, and the answer is that Apple shouldn’t be expected to follow timetables created by outsiders. Implying there’s a delay is primarily an invention of the media. If there is truly a delay, perhaps it has taken longer to complete the design of the new version, or perhaps the problems caused by the massive earthquake in Japan have made it more difficult for Apple to get ahold of critical parts in the quantities they need.

The other question is whether iPhone sales can be hurt because you have to wait two or three months more for the next version, and that’s difficult to say. In the last quarterly conference call with financial analysts, COO Tim Cook was still saying that Apple could barely keep up with existing demand for the iPhone 4. They arrival of the white version might also satisfy pent-up demand from an unknown number of customers who sat on the sidelines.

I don’t pretend to know the final answers, but it’s also important to consider what the next iPhone would be like. If it’s truly an iPhone 4GS, it would mean that, from the outside, the changes would be relatively minor, similar to the enhancements that were added when the iPhone 3G was replaced by the 3GS. Internally, Apple would likely add the A5 dual-core processor, the same one now featured in the iPad 2. Some published reports suggest increasing the five megapixel camera’s resolution to eight megapixels, and perhaps making other internal refinements. Perhaps it will be a world phone, which could be activated on either a CDMA or GSM network. It’s even possible Apple is redesigning the antenna system to be less susceptible to that alleged “Death Grip.” The ongoing criticisms, however wrongheaded, by Consumer Reports, have to hurt, even if the possible sales impact seems minimal.

More to the point, Apple is likely going to avoid LTE (4G), the next generation network, this year, if you consider Cook’s statements about problems with current chipsets. Apple was late to the game with full 3G support too, lest we forget. But it will take another year or two for a large number of potential customers to even have LTE in their cities, so Apple has the luxury of time.

Meanwhile, if iPhone 4 demand remains high, a supposedly delayed release of a new model shouldn’t be a serious problem. Then again, the rumors may be wrong, and there may yet be a new iPhone on tap for this summer.

This is something I learned as a child, though I didn’t always observe the caution, and that is to try to make a good first impression. That’s particularly true when you are being asked by a company to spend your hard earned money on a product or service. Assuming you have other choices — which isn’t always the case with broadband Internet access for example — you are apt to go elsewhere next time around.

This is the sort of lesson Apple has learned over the years. If the first Mac was a perfectly awful product, the company probably wouldn’t exist today. It could never have survived on the strength of the Apple II. Sure, that original Mac lacked software and even the ability to increase RAM, but it delivered an elegant solution to bring personal computing to the masses. Indeed all graphical operating systems still surviving, be they Windows, Linux, or even Mac OS X, remain heavily influenced by that first Mac.

Surely the original iPod also had to be right the first time. Apple had no discernible history building digital media players, the modern day equivalents of the Sony Walkman. But in one fell swoop, Apple solved many of the problems that existed on similar gear at the time, and the rest is history.

The 2007 iPhone, although it lacked an App Store, cut, copy and paste, and other important features, still worked great within its narrowed confines. No other smartphone sported a similar level of elegance, and thus the iPhone became a cultural icon almost overnight. Most of the more successful imitators sport interfaces and features that, to a large degree, attempt to ape Apple’s vision. Although features may differ — and may be better implemented in some cases, such as the way the Android OS handles notifications — Apple rates best in spit and polish.

Now as far as the wireless phone companies are concerned, a contract is a contract. It doesn’t matter to them if the smartphone you buy at a subsidized price is built by Apple, HTC, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung or any other company. Once they get your business, job number one is to make sure you pay your bill, and that they can renew your contract when it expires. If you don’t like the service, or the handset selection, you’ll probably go elsewhere.

To the carriers, however, the handsets are just commodities used to sell contracts. The iPhone is one of the few exceptions, since Apple provides a level of support that is absent with other products. If you have a problem with your iPhone, you call Apple. If you need a software update, Apple will push it to you via iTunes — and that service may also reside in the cloud some day soon.

When it comes to tablets, there’s a report about consumer electronics retailers adding a special tablet section, mirroring the one available for PCs. You will see all the latest and greatest gear, and be able to pick and choose the one that suits your needs. Well, except for the iPad, which gets its own section.

Yes, they want you to believe that the arrival of the iPad triggered a tablet revolution. For a decade, they’ve tried to sell you tablets, mostly modified Windows PCs, with little success outside of a small portion of the business world. “This is the year of the tablet,” you were told over and over again. But it made no difference to the public at large until the iPad arrived.

Certainly if you examine the competition, they all attempt to bathe in the iPad’s glow. They are thin, light, with touchscreen input capability, and they afford the promise of loads of apps with which to spend your leisure hours, although that promise has yet to be realized. Some might even pretend to offer a degree of productivity.

Unfortunately, none of the makers of those would-be iPad slayers seem to have a clue about what they’re selling. Most of the dreadful ads you see on TV tout meaningless hardware features, or attempt to overwhelm you with loud music and fancy special effects. But they can’t even respond to the question of what you’re supposed to do with that gadget once you buy it.

Worse, such tablets as the Motorola Xoom, and the RIM BlackBerry PlayBook, are unfinished, buggy. The Android OS is still undergoing revisions to fix the various and sundry stability problems. RIM suffered the embarrassment of having to recall some 1,000 units that shipped with defective versions of the OS. And you have to wonder why all of them weren’t imaged with the very same content. Curious. However, a small number of defective products isn’t the issue. The real issue is that the product has garnered tepid reviews because it’s not a fully realized device. RIM cannot even sensibly explain why you should be required to “bridge” the gadget with a BlackBerry smartphone to use an email client. And don’t forget that AT&T and other carriers aren’t supporting that feature, or whatever it is, because it’s the equivalent of tethering two mobile devices, which usually requires an optional service plan.

No wonder the co-CEOs of RIM cannot express a consistent, forget about logical, vision for the company. When it comes to first impressions, the PlayBook has serious problems. That’s no way to compete with Apple.