There are more and more reports that Apple is going to “miss” the presumed schedule for releasing the next iPhone, which is being conventionally referred to as the iPhone 5, as opposed to iPhone 4 Pro or any other possible designation. But the name doesn’t matter in the scheme of things. The question is when it should be arriving, and is there actually a delay?

The most obvious question is this: When did Apple announce a shipping date for the iPhone 4’s successor? Exactly! They didn’t. We only assume it must arrive this summer, because that’s the history of this product. But one thing’s sure about Apple, and that is that assumptions do not necessarily apply to their actual product release strategy. The other question is whether an iPhone 5 is truly needed? It’s not as if sales of the current model are lagging.

Of course, we’ll all learn more about Apple’s sales picture during their quarterly conference call with financial analysts on Wednesday. Before that, it’s all speculation, even those reports about the total sales of Macs during the last quarter, or the sales of any other Apple product. I’ll repeat that: It’s still speculation until the actual numbers are released by Apple.

So without the real information, Apple watchers in the media and the financial community are looking at tea leaves, rumors, surveys, and other signs of what Apple is up to. Possible sources of information include those who provide information about the manufacturing plans by some of Apple’s component suppliers. If they appear to be gearing up to provide a large shipment of parts to Apple, by way of their contract manufacturers, it might indicate that the production lines are gearing up for a new model.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing coming from the supply chain to offer a clue about possible production ramp ups right now, even though you’d expect such signs if a new model was arriving in June or July. Instead, the reports point to a possible fall release instead.

At the same time, there was that Tweet from Apple VP Philip Schiller stating that the long-delayed white iPhone 4 would be arriving this spring. Rumors have it pegged for next week, but that remains to be seen.

This puts the entire situation of iPhone updates in a curious state. If there’s going to be a new model this summer, does it make sense to release the white version now, since it’ll have a shelf life of only two or three months? Is that worth even the bother of building them? It made more sense for Verizon Wireless to release the CDMA version of the iPhone in February, because that will count for millions of sales whenever the next iPhone is released. I mean, is the world clamoring for a white iPhone 4?

That Apple is willing to bother with a white iPhone 4 at all clearly indicates, to me at any rate, that they expect that model to remain viable for a longer period, to justify the long-term investment in getting it to market.

Of course the real question is why Apple would choose to release the iPhone 4’s successor later than you and I might have expected. One possible reason is the possible production slowdowns in Japan that might impact certain components Apple needs, such as batteries. Again, how the situation actually hurt Apple’s supply chain ought to be known Wednesday.

Another issue is what changes Apple might plan for the new model. At the very least, Apple would want to upgrade the processor to the A5 that now powers the iPad 2. But don’t forget that Apple can’t keep up with demand for the new iPad, and maybe getting enough processors is one reason. But I’m just speculating. Other changes might include using Qualcomm’s baseband chip, supporting both GSM and CDMA, which debuted in the Verizon version of the iPhone 4. Having a single chip for both models simplifies production and cuts costs. Whether it’s going to be a world phone, supporting both protocols, is another question. But there’s also the possibility that Apple is considering adding support for the new and much speedier LTE networks, and that will require further engineering, not to mention getting reliable chips with low power requirements, and maybe that hasn’t happened yet.

The last factor is iOS 5. Right now, Apple is clearly moving to finish up Mac OS X Lion. Since they share code, they likely share developers, in which case the arrival of iOS 5 might also be moved to the fall. That would make it more sensible to release the iPhone 5 at the same time, rather than deliver a product that’s sort of unfinished, meaning that the OS upgrade that makes it work best will arrive later on.

That ship now/upgrade later policy is what other tech companies do. Yes, I grant that the original iPad didn’t receive iOS 4 until several months after it arrived for the iPhone 4. But the iPad was hardly impaired with it, except for the lack of enhanced multitasking support. Otherwise, it was a fully functional product.

Certainly, if Apple demonstrates iOS 5 at the WWDC in early June, and pegs a release date, you can mostlikely bank on the next iPhone arriving around that time.

I realize my speculation is no better or worse than anybody else’s. I reserve the right to be wrong. But I do feel that the iPhone 5 will, as other suggest, not arrive till fall, along with iOS 5. Let’s see how the chips fall.

Put yourself in the shoes of a typical software developer who wants to make a living from the sale of apps for mobile gadgets. If it’s for a smartphone, that developer will need to decide which of the various online repositories to use, not to mention the platform that’s most appropriate to garner the highest number of actual sales.

For the iPhone, you have a choice of one. Sure, some people jailbreak their iPhones to be able to install apps and features that Apple won’t permit, but that’s a fairly small number of potential customers. The vast majority depend on the App Store for the stuff they want, so that’s probably the best place to go to make a living. However, you also have to compete with over 300,000 apps, with thousands more going up all the time. Do you even stand a chance finding a place in the sun?

So what about the Android OS? Isn’t that platform growing faster?

There’s where the rubber meets the road. Yes, it is clear that dozens and dozens of Android handsets, from several large smartphone makers, are moving at a pretty rapid clip. They cover a host of price ranges, so people who find the $199 or $299 subsidized price for an iPhone 4 a bit daunting — and don’t want to settle on the 2009 iPhone 3GS — have loads of affordable options. Some are even free, but don’t forget that two-year contractual obligation.

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So this week came reports that PC sales, both in the U.S. and worldwide, had declined for most companies during the last quarter. Well, that is except for Apple and a few others. Sure, these are surveys that may not reflect the entire sales picture, but it’s not the same as a long-term forecast, where accuracy often goes down the tubes.

While Apple’s actual total sales won’t be known until next week, early reports indicate that loads and loads of MacBook Airs and the refreshed MacBook Pros are still being shipped to customers. All this despite whatever impact the iPad 2 is having on the PC industry.

Now a single quarter may not necessarily indicate a permanent industry trend. It may well be that, with the dreadful effects of the worldwide economic slowdown still being felt, there must be an ebb and flow of PC sales. But I rather think that the era of juggernaut PC sales increases are becoming history, but it may be an extremely slow trend downhill, and it’s not yet certain how much impact the iPad has had, though, it might be a lot.

Of course, many of the so-called analysts in the media and financial community will talk about tablets as if it’s some ephemeral category that’s being embraced by loads of players in the industry. But the sad, to them, reality is that nearly all that traffic is being directed at the iPad 2. Apple is still struggling to get them into the stores. The delay in online orders from Apple has halved, estimated now at two to three weeks, with no sign demand is abating anytime soon. The impact to raw component supplies for Apple as the result of the Japanese earthquake isn’t yet certain.

Sure, there are lots of tablet contenders out there. Just this week, the first reviews of the long-promoted RIM BlackBerry Playbook appeared, and they don’t auger well for its success. This after one of RIM’s co-CEOs staged a meltdown during an interview show, where he was was asked software questions, and demanded that it stop.

Now I have nothing against RIM, but I see trouble afoot. Their executive team is completely unable to enunciate a coherent strategy for the future. They announced the PlayBook months in advance, while disputing reports of battery life troubles and other difficulties.

Although the PlayBook essentially matches the price of the Wi-Fi versions of the iPad, RIM is charging that amount for a 7-inch version, not the iPad’s 9.7 inch form factor. So you get less value for the same money. If that seems ludicrous to you, stay with me. I’m just getting started.

Despite RIM’s denials of sub-par battery life, they’re delivering 50% to 60% of what you get on the iPad and iPad 2. Maybe five to six hours isn’t so bad, but you’d think power requirements of a smaller display ought to offer enough power savings to allow the PlayBook to manage ten hours. But it can’t.

The reviews, from the likes of David Pogue of The New York Times, Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal, and Ed Baig of USA Today, all describe a product that has the inevitable beta stench to it, a gadget clearly rushed to market before it was ready. There’s not even an email app. For that, you have to create a “bridge” to a regular BlackBerry. I suppose you could say that RIM is hoping for two sales, rather than one. But the long and short of it is that you may not expect the first version of a new computing device to be perfect, but it ought to do the basics reliably, and missing features and OS instability don’t make a good first impression.

Does RIM believe that millions of potential customers are going to tolerate an unfinished device when they can buy something with a larger screen, more spit and polish, and a huge repository of ready-made apps that support the tablet form factor? And at the same price?

Yes, I suppose there are positives about the PlayBook. The reviews describe a snappy, well-designed interface, with credible performance. The case is attractive enough, so you wouldn’t feel embarrassed to carry one into the living room or office. But RIM should be embarrassed about foisting the PlayBook on the public before it was ready. Did they really expect few would notice?

I suppose you could argue that the very first iPhones and iPads needed a little work. But they were both fully functional out of the box, and all of the essentials in terms of built-in apps were already working reliably. Let’s call both 98% solutions, knowing it will take a few months to deal with the remaining 2%. But if you want to accept those numbers, PlayBook comes in at, well, maybe 75% or so.

This puts RIM in an uncomfortable position. They can’t pretend the PlayBook can match the iPad 2, let alone beat Apple at their own game. Instead, the PlayBook smacks of a product that RIM felt they had to push into the stores, for otherwise they’d be left out of the unstoppable march to tablet adoption.

Perhaps existing BlackBerry users will be willing to give RIM’s new gadget a try, particularly if they are highly satisfied with the smartphone they have now. Perhaps these same customers might also be willing to tolerate missing apps and other features, and have the patience to wait a few months for the software to be fleshed out. Others might just pass it by, or if they buy one, they’ll be more apt to seek a refund, and cross anything with the RIM brand name on it from their future shopping lists.

But if someone wants a tablet computer that just works, so far Apple’s iPad 2 is way ahead of the game. More to the point, it’s the harbinger of the future of the PC industry. Indeed, it may well be that the current sales slowdown is the biggest evidence to date of the beginning of the post-PC era.

All right, so Microsoft has finally released the Office 2011 for Mac Service Pack One. This is supposed to be a biggie, since it incorporates important security updates, along with some new features; well, make that new, plus some restored features, such as the ability to resend or redirect email in Outlook.

So far so good, but none of this amounts to anything if the app itself still isn’t working properly.

Now the regular readers in our audience know how I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Microsoft’s Mac email clients. In the days of Entourage, I struggled through damaged databases, scrambled messages locations, meaning hundreds were strewn among the wrong folders, and frequent crashes.

When Outlook 2011 arrived, I really had high hopes. After all, Microsoft claimed they had rebuilt the app in Apple’s Cocoa programming environment, the better to make it as fully compatible with Mac OS X features as possible. Yes, perhaps a feature or two didn’t make the cut, such as the redirect message feature now back in action. I was also encouraged by Microsoft’s decision not to use a monolithic database to store messages, relying on a much smaller one, and separate files for the actual messages themselves. This sensible solution also make it easier for Time Machine to perform backups.

Well, as those of you who have followed my columns know, Outlook represented one disaster after another. Maybe it was an all-new program from a programming standpoint, but that didn’t mean Microsoft didn’t migrate features, and, unfortunately, long-term bugs. I do not for a moment believe Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit rewrote Outlook from scratch. I’d think it would be closer to say they translated code from Carbon to Cocoa, and then modified and updated it in Xcode. But I’ll let the developers in our audience deal with the niceties of such a process. I’m more concerned with the results.

From the very first day, the mail folder scrambling issue persisted. It didn’t depend on whether the email was stored on my own servers or, for that matter, Apple’s MobileMe server farms. For those who explore the Linux universe, the outgoing (SMTP) servers I’ve used are Exim and QMail. The incoming mail apps are Courier and Dovecot. The rest of you will conclude that the distinctions mean nothing, and in the real world they probably don’t. They are all open source apps that follow industry-standard practices, and provide support for industry-standard email protocols.

The point is that Outlook failed then and, after installing the latest update, fails now.

Understand that I deleted the contents of the Office “Identities” folder, which is where all your messages and other data are stored. Preferences were zapped, and I recreated the accounts from scratch rather than rely on importing them from Apple Mail. I wanted as pure an environment as possible.

My email message allotment is roughly 40,000 or so, though I do make an occasional effort to nuke the older messages that I no longer need. I expect that, after accumulating this stash for over 12 years, I’m not unique. It’s highly likely that some of you store more than that, likely spread across dozens of custom folders, within several accounts on different services.

But it shouldn’t matter. Outlook is the supposed business alternative to Mail. There’s growing support for Microsoft Exchange, and it’s certainly clear that Microsoft is working  hard to clean up serious bugs. However, I do not believe that I’m the only one subjected to this folder scrambling phenomenon, nor the other areas in which Outlook delivers halting, flaky performance.

Certainly, it’s not the entire Office 2011 suite. Word seems to work quite well. Indeed it’s far snappier in most respects than any of its recent Mac predecessors. My main quibble is minor. When you open or create a new document, the window wants to pin itself on the left side of the screen, even though I continue to center them religiously. Maybe Microsoft is subtly reminding us of that highly promoted feature in Windows 7, where pinning your document windows on the sides of the screen is a feature everyone craves and continues to cherish.

To be perfectly serious about it, Microsoft is notorious for not letting the little things count. Word persisted for years with various and sundry bugs that were left unfixed. You may be surprised to realize that Word, and Excel for that matter, got their starts on the Mac. Yes, Microsoft ports lots of stuff from the Windows versions these days, but back in the 1980s, before Windows arrived, you could almost believe that Bill Gates was an ardent supporter of the Mac platform.

Now in the end, maybe my particular problems with Outlook 2011 for the Mac are unique to my system setup. But I don’t install exotic system add-ons. I buy my Macs to get work done, not to waste my waking hours filling my Mac with junk and playing around with this and that. That, to me, represents another era that’s long ago and far way.

However, I’m very stubborn, and I’ll continue to work with Outlook to see if I can find the magic configuration that addresses the most serious problems. Your advice — other than removing everything Microsoft from all my Macs of course — is welcomed.