The PC industry is in a tizzy in the wake of the unexpected success of the iPad. Where alleged tech industry analysts were talking of tablet sales of as little as five million for all of 2010, Apple moved 3.27 million units during the first three months. In each the next two quarters, sales may more than double that figure, as the iPad spreads into more countries and production levels improve.

Estimated sales for 2011 are in the 28 million range. But there’s a huge caveat.

You see, most of those experts insist that Apple’s sales are fated to flatten (maybe even decline) because there are iPad killers coming — eventually. Now when Apple blew away the portable media player market with the iPod, lots of competitors arrived from Day One. But few of them gained more than a few percent market share. Even though the market for such products has declined somewhat, Apple remains on top by a huge margin.

With the iPad, there have been announcements of tablet-style PCs that supposedly emulate the iPad, but, for the most part, they appear stillborn. Manufacturers stage elaborate presentations boasting of the impending arrival of touch-based tablets as part of their latest and greatest product lines, but how many can you actually buy?

The next version of the HP/Palm WebOS isn’t due until 2011, and it’s not at all certain of that OS can scale up to a larger screen. I suppose the same can be said about the Android OS, which is surely doing nicely in the smartphone space.

Meantime, every single day you see TV ads for the iPad. The only thing to come from a competitor is Microsoft’s supremely lame Windows 7 ads, or one of their inscrutable Bing promotions that fail to define what they’re about; that is, unless you know Bing is a search engine that competes with Google.

What’s worse is that most of the promised iPad killers also use the name “Pad” in their name, basically ceding to Apple the right to define a tablet computer as some sort of “Pad.” Indeed, when Apple first revealed that name, some suggested it didn’t make a lot of sense. Maybe an iSlate? But Apple has had great success with names that contain the letter “P,” such as the iPhone and the iPod.

At least you have a sense of what they’re about, though I grant Pod doesn’t readily signify a digital media player based on the word’s usual definitions. Of course, if you hadn’t heard of RIM or BlackBerry, would you know the Torch is a smartphone? What about a Droid, any Droid? Would you realize that’s a play on the name Android (or Android OS), rather than some ugly robotic creature? Or a play on anything?

Then again, how do you explain to a visitor from another world that a McIntosh is an apple, and also a consumer audio product, but a Macintosh is a personal computer? Assuming they don’t have words with similar murky definitions in their native tongue, they might regard Earthlings as mighty peculiar. Of course, they’d be right.

But let’s move past the names and consider the sort of product the iPad represents, a 21st century version of the personal computer that has taken the consumer electronics world by storm. Even people who don’t normally ask about getting a PC — such as my loyal spouse, Barbara — have become intrigued by the possibilities of the iPad.

These days, there’s also more and more talk that the iPad may be the savior of the newspaper industry. There are recent reports that publishers are talking with Apple about ways to establish subscription programs. And no wonder. Printed newspapers are on life support, and a profitable online business plan is still a pipe-dream. Besides, making a newspaper all electronic would save a tremendous amount of money in production expenses. Maybe the industry could use the savings to hire more skilled reporters; it’s not that I’d like to see the production and delivery people looking for work. Also imagine how many trees are going to be saved.

On the other hand, I’m rather disappointed that the iPad hasn’t taken hold as a replacement for school textbooks. When Apple first announced the iPad, I expected agreements to be signed with the major publishers pretty quickly, and I even imagined that the fall 2010 school year would feature loads of students carrying their entire collection of books embedded in an iPad rather than heavy backpacks. Imagine doing all their homework on that singular device? With the forthcoming ability to print your documents in iOS 4.2, they’d even be able to hand in physical copies of their work rather than, say, email them, without having to return to a Mac or a PC.

But the textbook capability remains a product of one’s imagination, since no such deals have been announced, or at least any that I recall. Well, maybe in 2011.

But the tablet-based PC has become a rich market that Apple has largely assumed for itself not just by delivering a superb version 1.0 product, but also because the rest of the PC industry has remained strangely silent on releasing competing products.

Is there a real iPad killer? I haven’t seen it, not even one that has the potential of becoming successful. Maybe there will be some before the holiday season, but I rather suspect that the real competition may not arrive until 2011. By then, it may just be too late for them!

It comes as no surprise that, when the head of a computer company has been portrayed in a movie or TV show, he’s apt to resemble Bill Gates, a nerdy caricature with the tousled hair who engages in evil behavior on a computer to cause havoc. I rather suspect that, when the U.S. Department of Justice, and the European Union, went after Microsoft, loads of people were applauding.

Certainly, the big bad Microsoft, the largest software company on the planet, had taken a dominant share of the PC operating system market and destroyed Netscape as a viable browser.

But that was then and this is now.

It’s fair to suggest that Microsoft got off easy. Paying fines and making some token concessions didn’t mean much. It’s not as if the company was split into two, a threat (or hope) that arose early, but was abandoned. Besides, the marketplace has decided that Microsoft is essentially irrelevant except in operating systems, office software and server software. The company’s efforts to break into the burgeoning mobile space, and pretty much all consumer-oriented ventures, other than gaming, failed to gain traction.

These days, Microsoft appears to be standing still. The new search engine, Bing, has gained market share, but largely at the expense of Yahoo!, whose search is also powered by Bing. Talk about going nowhere fast. Google remains solidly entrenched with nearly two-thirds of the market, including two percent from AOL, which uses Google’s search technology.

Apple seems to be getting on better with Microsoft nowadays. Bing recently became an option for Safari on the Mac, PC and iOS. Office for Mac 2011, which will be released next month, promises greater compatibility with the Windows version. Internet Explorer 9, now in beta, may actually be a decent browser with faster rendering speeds and better adherence to modern Web standards, at least according to early tests.

These days, it appears that Apple and Google are fighting it out to be the tech villain of the 21st century, but I think Google will win.

Yes, Apple gets lumps for building products with a closed, or relatively closed, ecosystem. Except for music and media players, however, Apple’s market share is far from dominant. Just recently, the restrictions for using third-party developer tools for iOS apps were loosened, and a set of standards was posted for the apps themselves. Sure, some developers might still consider them too restrictive, but at least you know where you stand before you waste development resources creating something that will never get past the front door.

Even though Google’s Android OS is supposedly open, what is really happening is that the wireless carriers are exerting control over the products. There’s no guarantee that any two Android smartphones from different manufacturers, or purchased from different wireless companies, will have the exact interface or support the same features. That can certainly make it difficult for the enterprise to deliver proper management, unless they are quite restrictive over which models they choose to support.

But the real problem with Google is that they are almost always in your face, and it’s not just Google’s number one search engine. Millions and millions of people use Gmail, or Google Apps. There is the mapping service, YouTube and loads of other offerings. In each case, you are surrendering some of your privacy for the “privilege” of using a free service. It may not seem like much, but when you add all of the features together, a little means a lot. Of course, you can purchase a premium version of Google Apps with the promise of greater security.

Consider, however, that incident some months back, where vans dispatched by Google for street mapping purposes, were found to be collecting information from unprotected Wi-Fi networks. Don’t forget the Buzz social networking service that was activated with people from your contact list following you without your permission. Sure that bone-headed move was halted, but what about the people who were part of the initial automatic sign-up process? Yes, you can disable Buzz, but I’ve done that twice already. The first time, it was mysteriously enabled all over again, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Worse, why isn’t Google spending at least a few minutes looking for common sense reasons not to force you to surrender more of your privacy to them? Perhaps they’re too busy finding ways to boost the bottom line.

In years past, many people boasted of having a Microsoft free system. The easiest way was to buy a Mac and stay clear of Office, Messenger, and the Microsoft search engine du jour. On the PC, there was always Linux, or perhaps an hacked installation of Mac OS X.

When it comes to using free online services, it may take a little time and effort to find alternate mapping services, free email services and so on and so forth. But it is possible for you to live in an efficient online universe where you are seldom saddled with a Google product or service.

If you don’t like what Apple does, don’t buy their product. Google is far more pervasive, but at the end of the day, you can ditch them as well.

But they say you should be kind to your elders, which may be why you might also want to be a little more respectful of Microsoft these days.

Now that so many members of the media are recalling their first exposure to Mac OS X, I remember a few things too, particularly when it comes to features that vanished in the transition from Classic to Mac OS X.

Now I should point out that Apple doesn’t attempt to ape Microsoft and keep features in a product even when they are shown to be useless, or not as well-baked as they might be. So you have the latest iPod nano that lost the ability to watch movies and take videos. While that appears to be a significant loss of functionality, I haven’t seen many complaints about it — at least not yet!

That said, since the early days of Mac OS X, enterprising shareware developers examined what was missing and tried to restore all or most of the functionality.

Consider the Apple menu. Under the Classic Mac OS, it was highly configurable. You could use it as an app or document launcher simply be adding the original, or an alias, in the appropriate folder. For Mac OS X, Apple retained the Recent Items feature, limiting it to apps and documents, and removed the customization. The Special menu functions, which include Restart and Shut Down, were added, but the Apple menu went largely unchanged thereafter, except for the modification of the legendary Apple icon from rainbow to shades of gray.

Yes, you can get third-party utilities that will restore the missing functionality of the Apple menu, but I wonder how many of you bother.

There was also the famous WindowShade, where you double-clicked on a document or app’s title bar to collapse it to just the title. Under Mac OS X, that act minimizes the window to the Dock. But WindowShade X restores the missing functionality, if you still lust for it.

The Launcher utility can be replaced by loads of app and document opening utilities. The rest of us rely on the Dock, despite complaints that the interface was clunky and confusing, or perhaps Spotlight. But I’ve yet to meet anyone who couldn’t figure out the essentials of the Dock with just a few minutes of experimentation.

One over-simplified feature of Mac OS X is the Location component of the Network preference pane. You can add presets for wired and wireless networks depending on where you’re connected. The old Location Manager, however, also let you add printer configurations and other settings, so you wouldn’t be saddled with printer choices and network setups that you weren’t actually using.

Again, there’s a third party alternative, Locations for Mac, which allows you to customize all sorts of configurations, including startup apps, desktop backgrounds and even your iChat status, and switch to them simply by choosing a different location.

The Finder’s Label feature also retains but a subset of the original Mac OS functionality.

But I don’t need to go on, except to say that I haven’t felt the need to explore any of the shareware replacements for that which Apple never restored when they moved to Mac OS X. I’m sure many of you can offer a detailed list of the ones I didn’t mention, but that’s not the issue.

If the core Mac OS X doesn’t have every little feature you want — whether it existed under the original Mac OS or not — that’s probably a shareware or freeware substitute. So even if Apple decides to go elsewhere when looking for features to add, you probably won’t suffer all that much.

When moving to Snow Leopard, Apple did most of the work on the plumbing; there wasn’t much in the way of new functionality. Indeed, Apple called the visible changes “refinements,” rather than features, to show how insignificant they were in the scheme of things. Of course, the cynics in our audience will remind me that such alterations would have been called features in other Mac OS X releases. Apple was just playing the spin game.

For Mac OS 10.7, I assume Apple will focus on feature improvements, adding another 200 or 300 so you will be tempted to pay the full $129 price for the upgrade. I suppose the real question is whether Apple has run out of significant stuff to add without starting from scratch and building something totally new.

Now with the iOS, most of what’s new and different merely duplicates that you could already do on a regular Mac, such as cut, copy and paste and multitasking.

For the next iOS release, version 4.2, you’ll be able to print wirelessly, rather than have to rely on a third-party alternative. The main question mark is whether the feature will work directly with the printer, or you’ll have to share the output device that’s already hooked up to your Mac or Windows PC.

By the same token, some are suggesting that elements of the iOS might find their way into future versions of Mac OS X. Certainly the new QuickTime Player in Snow Leopard is a lightweight app that offers an interface not dissimilar from the mobile version.

Will such cross-pollination mean touchscreens for future Macs? Well, Apple applied for a patent that covers such technology, but that’s never a guarantee that it’ll actually appear in a shipping product. Besides, how many people really want to make a 27-inch display serve as a touchscreen?

Although most of you didn’t get your hands on the Public Beta of Mac OS X until September of 2000, I actually saw it a month earlier. You see, I was working as a Contributing Editor for CNET in those days, and one of Apple’s PR people met me in San Francisco to deliver the CD and — if I wanted — a Power Macintosh Cube to take home to give it a whirl. I opted to let my own Macs suffer the abuse and went home with the CD.

However, after playing with the spiffy (if somewhat overwrought) Aqua interface, I found myself sitting back and wondering what to do. Sure, the few apps that supported Mac OS X worked all right, although rather leisurely, even the supplied Microsoft Internet Explorer. But my printers remained unsupported, and forget about CD burning.

It was, I thought at the time, lots of flash and not a whole lot of useful substance. Of course, that was before I discovered the doorway to Unix underbelly, Terminal. Not that I was concerned so much about command lines and all, but it was fun to discover — or rediscover — another way to manipulate data and access hidden programs.

But wasn’t oblivious to the possibilities. This was the genuine article, the long-postponed replacement for the aging Mac OS and it was time to get with the program. I even set my literary agent to work getting me some book contracts, so I could at least make some money using the operating system that, as yet, wasn’t ready for prime time.

There wasn’t even a real Apple menu, just an icon stuck in the middle of the menu bar. Where’d Apple get the idea that such a silly maneuver wouldn’t be ignored?

March of 2001 found me traveling to Apple’s Cupertino, CA campus to join the rest of the media for a full briefing, and a copy, of the final release of Mac OS X. I had hopes once the Apple menu was restored to its rightful location, if not full functionality. But Steve Jobs delivered the disappointing reality check near the end of the presentation, that Mac OS 10.0 was meant strictly for power users and early adopters. It was somewhat more functional than the Public Beta, but there were still missing features, such as CD support, which would be restored in a future release. And, yes, it was still dreadfully slow.

Mac OS 10.1 arrived several months later, and Apple opted to make it free, sort of. If you actually went over to a Mac dealer, they’d give you the CD. Otherwise you’d pay $19.95 for shipping and handling.

Now the price for the update seemed trivial enough, but you cannot imagine the complaints Mac users made at the time. How dare Apple charge such a high fee for an upgrade that was essentially to fix bugs and add missing features? Obviously, fulfillment of those orders cost a whole lot less!

Well, forget about the early grumbling. It still took several releases for Mac OS X to become ready for prime time. Some suggest the watershed occurred with Tiger, also known as 10.4. Most of the performance issues were history, and Mac users no longer had to apologize for missing features, well mostly.

With the arrival of Snow Leopard in August 2009, Apple even dropped support for PowerPC models. It was now all Intel, which made sense since the majority of the Macs still in use also used the newer processor family.

Despite the gains made by Microsoft Windows, most who evaluate both in a truly fair and balanced fashion will admit that Mac OS X is far more elegant and easier to use by regular people.

Now in retrospect, I think most of you will agree that Mac OS X actually saved Apple. Through a large part of the 1990s, fruitless efforts were made to replace the aging Mac OS, and deliver such industrial-strength features as preemptive multitasking and protected memory. In those days, if an app crashed, you’d have to restart, whether by clicking a button on the screen or (usually) via brute force, by pressing the Reset button on your Mac. Not pretty, and there was always the danger of data loss in the process.

The first effort was something called Copland, which never passed successfully through the beta stage before being cancelled. So Apple went on a shopping trip in order to acquire another company, or at least another company’s technology. They ended up buying NeXT, Inc., which brought Steve Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and within short order, Jobs took control and declared himself iCEO, before becoming CEO for life when Mac OS X was first demonstrated at a Macworld Expo.

As I write this, I wonder if it isn’t time to speculate when Mac OS 10.7 will arrive, and what features it might offer, and, later, if there’s actually going to be a Mac OS XI (or 11) some day. Or maybe it’ll all be iOS.