In light of my peculiar line of work, I am one of the first on the block — at least my block — to adopt a new computer-related gadget, and certainly I’m pretty quick to install an upgraded operating system or application. Of course, this sort of behavior entails certain compromises.

One, of course, is that I am more apt than most to suffer from serious early release bugs, assuming there are any true show stoppers. So when I bought an original 17-inch MacBook Pro in May of 2006, I had to replace the battery just a few months later, because it would no longer sustain a charge. That particular issue was fairly common with that model. In addition, it wasn’t so cool running that you could call it a laptop computer. But if you live in a cold climate, maybe it didn’t matter.

Sure, Apple released updates to make the cooling fans run more efficiently, but the improvements weren’t so significant. With the Early 2008 version I have now, it feels warm at the bottom, but not uncomfortably so. Indeed, I can characterize it as a true laptop now, although I suspect if I did lots of processor-intensive stuff, even the cooling fans — which run twice as fast under normal circumstances as the ones in my original MacBook Pro — would be hard-pressed to tame the rising temperatures.

I also encountered a couple of iPods that had hard drive failures, but I can’t say if those symptoms were caused by the fact that they were early production units. In fact, I still have one of them, a third-generation model, which I might either fix some day or sell cheaply to a tinkerer to rebuild. I’m not sure.

When it comes to operating systems, I can tell you that the first release is always somewhat shaky, whether it comes from Apple or Microsoft. I can understand the criticisms that Apple’s marketing staff seems to have a greater influence on product release schedules than the engineering division. But only one Mac OS X release came back to bite me, when there was a bug that might cause a partition map failure on some FireWire 800 drives. It struck when I was selling a Power Mac G4, and had updated it to the latest and greatest Mac OS — I think it was the original release of Panther — and I’m sure you readers will correct me and chastise me appropriately for not doing my research first.

In any case, I was backing up data to the drive, which the customer was also purchasing. The drive failed, although a firmware update, and a quick OS fix from Apple, made it possible to continue to use the device. But having this happen when I was trying to make a sale proved particularly embarrassing. Fortunately, I was able to talk my way out of this dilemma.

As you recall, Apple delayed Leopard, ostensibly because they had to commit developers to finishing the iPhone version of OS X last year, but 10.5 had a serious Finder bug that could cause corrupted or lost data when copying data to a network share. That’s why there was a quick 10.5.1 update that addressed that problem and some others. The bug only appeared if you used an obscure Finder option to move rather than just copy the file, and some suggest it was a long-standing Mac OS X problem, but somehow it became worse — or was only noticed — with the arrival of Leopard.

In recent days, the iPhone 3G has gotten its share of lumps, ostensibly because of a problem with the 3G chips that may result in slower performance on a cluttered network or chronic dropped calls. I haven’t seen it, but certainly the issue is serious enough to have resulted in widespread coverage by the mainstream media. If it involves a defective chip, it could entail a major recall, but the published reports so far indicate that Apple is working on a near-term firmware fix that will address the issue. No recall necessary.

Of course, Apple isn’t saying, and AT&T, for example, claims that the iPhone 3G experience is excellent and that no fixes are required. It also seems that the issue may only impact areas where there are a lot of them in use simultaneously. So, if this is the case, people in the San Francisco area might encounter this problem more often than others, I suppose.

Once again, I don’t know, except that I expect that the first release of any major new product is apt to be fraught with problems of one sort or another. Certainly, Apple released a number of iPhone firmware updates to repair system and security issues with the first generation model. Within weeks after iPhone 2.0 came out (and there were actually two released versions with different build numbers), version 2.0.1 appeared.

In September, Apple is promising an update that will offer a push notification feature that will make it easier for instant messaging applications and other connectivity products to function. I suppose any troubles that might impact your ability to get a good wireless connection could be fixed then as well. But it’s not that Apple has been terribly forthright about such matters. Generally they’ll only comment if an issue is widespread enough to impact a significant number of customers.

I suppose if you want to be cautious about these things, you might hold off buying any new stuff made by Apple for a couple of months until things settle down.

But it’s not just Apple. Just the other day, I received a Panasonic Blu-ray DVD player for testing, one built in June 2008. When I consulted the company’s support site, I found there was already a downloadable firmware revision for it. The 2.2 update, for the DMP-BD30 player is designed to improve “playability and stability.”

So when it comes to an economy of words for product updates, Apple is clearly in good company.

I like to think that, aside from my unusual day job, I’m a fairly typical Mac user. Most of the time, the computers I’ve purchased have been supremely reliable. I actually had only two that had to be returned to Apple for repairs. One was the dreaded PowerBook 5300ce, a member of a product family that was doomed almost from the beginning to be endlessly defective. The other, a second-generation PowerBook G3 that required a new video cable. That, too, was a chronic problem with that particular product family.

Yes, there were two other issues, both involving Apple note-books, but I didn’t have to send them to the repair shop. The most recent involved a first-generation 17-inch MacBook Pro, where the battery suddenly became unable to sustain a charge. In that particular case, Apple support sent me a new battery, and that, as they say, was that. The early 2008 MacBook Pro I’m using now has performed like a champ, and my son’s Black MacBook has survived a trip to Spain and back without sustaining anything more than greasy surface blemishes that were easily vanquished with a cleaning cloth sprayed with some glass cleaner.

But every time I hang out at some of my favorite online watering holes, the news isn’t so pleasant. Take a recent story that appeared at Daniel Knight’s LowEndMac site. While most of the reader letters describe endless troubles with various iterations of the Power Mac G4, the G5 gets a few knocks too. Now I had two G5s in my time; the most recent was a G5 Quad with a liquid cooling system. No, I didn’t have any problems with it, nor have I heard any complaints from its new owner. But some folks do report incidents involving leaking coolant. While that is easily repaired on a car, when it happens on a personal computer, the unit is toast.

Through it all, it appears that Apple has had various ongoing extended repair programs to address the most consistent problems. A computer company doesn’t do that sort of thing unless a whole lot of products are encountering major failures that can be traced to specific parts, such as logic boards, LCD panels and power supplies.

Now I don’t know about you, but I can certainly feel a little jittery when I read such things. However, even where there was no warranty extension of any sort, AppleCare still comes to the rescue on occasion. Indeed, they are known to relent and fix a product just beyond the warranty period in the name of good customer service.

For the most part, I don’t recommend extended warranties. Serious defects are apt to show up early in a product’s lifecycle, and it would therefore be covered by the standard limited warranty. Dealers push those additional programs, which are essentially insurance policies, because they make good profits, and when competing in a cutthroat environment, it could mean the difference between profit and loss on some sales.

But there are notable exceptions. My son’s MacBook and iPod are both covered by AppleCare, and the same holds true for my iPhone 3G. I’m still debating whether to invest in an extended warranty for my MacBook Pro, but I have until next year to make that decision, since you can purchase AppleCare at any time before the original warranty has expired.

Does this mean I don’t have faith in Apple to make reliable products? Well, let’s just say I’m hedging my bets here. You see, portable gadgets tend to get a greater degree of use and abuse, and are thus subject to a higher level of failure. Sure, Apple isn’t going to cover something that is damaged by an accident or user misadventure, but still you can’t regard a note-book computer as anywhere near as robust as the desktop model that pretty much stays in a single location for much of its working life.

I’m also troubled by the constant need for special repair programs, because they signify chronic manufacturing defects of one sort or another that are serious enough to result in catastrophic failure. I’m not about to blame outsourced manufacturing for these ills because, if you search through much of Apple’s history, you’ll see chronic defects traced to certain models even when they were built in the U.S., such as the power supplies and floppy drives on the IIcx and IIci, which date back to the late 1980s and early 1990s.

I am sure that you can cite your own Apple war stories if you’ve used their products for any length of time. While consumer electronics can be subject to a decent degree of failure, the real question is whether Apple fares better or worse than its competition.

For example, does a Dell or HP, to name the top two PC makers, stand a better chance to survive the rigors of daily use over a period of, say, four or five years, or would you be forced to retire or recycle your computer after a couple of years and that’s that?

I have had great experiences with Dell’s large screen LCD displays, and the HP printers I’ve used over the years have impressed me as pretty robust. But I can’t tell you much about their computers except for second-hand reports that indicate that they do not generally fare as well as Apple.

As much as I’m concerned about first impressions, and how Windows switchers might react if their new Macs had to make regular trips to the repair shop for major overhauls, the real question is whether that’s the state of the art, such as it is.

I mean, you’re accustomed to installing software that, by and large, is riddled with loads of bugs, so you can certainly understand if the underlying hardware has its own share of ills.

But I do hope that Apple, which prides itself on building gear that just works, will strive to do better.

Well, despite the recent well-deserved rise in Apple’s stock price, it seems they can’t get a break. There are widespread reports in recent weeks of various and sundry problems with the iPhone 3G. On the plus side, this hot new gadget is selling out almost everywhere it’s on sale, and some 60 million iPhone apps were downloaded during the first month.

At the same time, teething pains are legion. Slow keyboard responsiveness, system hangs and application crashes are only part of the picture. That situation was at least partly resolved with the recent 2.0.1 software update and a slew of updates from third-party companies.

But is that enough?

That’s a good question, because I’m reading a number of troubling reports about problems with AT&T’s 3G network. Although download speeds are, as Apple claims, up to two or three times faster than the older EDGE or 2.5G system, it hasn’t come without glitches. Sometimes 3G download speeds are little better than EDGE, even though that setting sucks up twice the power on the iPhone 3G.

Worse, AT&T’s widely-advertised claim of “fewer dropped calls” isn’t always fulfilled. I have had some issues, but nothing significant, and probably no more than I encountered with my previous wireless carrier, Verizon Wireless. But the larger issue is whether some of the problems emerge from AT&T’s network or the iPhone 3G, or perhaps a combination of both.

Understand that the mobile phone system is first and foremost a two-way radio technology and highly imperfect. As you travel from one cell tower to another, the signal is passed off seamlessly. In theory, this scheme should work quite well, and it really does considering the billions of conversations that are handled every single day.

But since this is two-way radio, it also means that there’s lots of room for mischief. Buildings and natural obstructions can combine to impair signal quality. Moving your phone from pocket to your car may also change things for the worse.

I know that I have always had difficulty getting good signals in large stores, such as a Best Buy or a Wal-Mart, although even then the carrier’s signal fidelity counts too.

Another problem is more mundane. Carriers have invested billions of dollars in building cell towers, but at the same time, they will do what they can to compress the the signal to a fare-thee-well, which means that your calls may be immersed in a sea of digital haze. I often suggest that holding two tin cans, separated by a simple string, might deliver better sound. But so does an old-fashioned rotary landline phone.

Even where the carrier is making a genuine effort to add more cell towers, local zoning laws might intervene, and approval can be locked up in a bureaucratic nightmare that takes months or years to unwrangle. Consider that people in a neighborhood might regard the towers as unsightly, so the carrier has to promise to camouflage them somehow. Years ago, I covered local government affairs as part of my job as a broadcast journalist, and I can tell you from first-hand experience that deliberations can often get messy.

But enough political talk. Despite all the obstacles against the smooth transmission and reception of the cell phone signal, it really does work quite well most of the time. Some carriers are better in a particular neighborhood, of course, but it’s not as if you can just switch as the need arises.

I know AT&T is pretty decent here in Arizona, while I know signal quality might be pathetic in other locales. So while the iPhone 3G is a downright sexy smartphone, there may be very sensible reasons why it’s not for you, at least until AT&T improves its network in the areas you visit most often.

But what about the iPhone 3G? Is there something wrong with the chipsets or firmware that makes it function worse than other phones in the very same location? I can’t say that I have a definitive answer to give you. My son uses a Motorola RAZR with the AT&T network. Traveling with him, it doesn’t seem as if the signal quality he experiences is significant different from what I observe.

No, it’s not as if we’ve actually done an intensive investigation of the reception situation. More to the point, I live just south of an area that is anathema to good cell phone signals from every provider I’ve tried, and that also includes Sprint and Verizon Wireless. Driving through that area, or just visiting one of the fast food restaurants that fill the many strip malls, is sufficient to put me in a significant dead zone.

Well, maybe that’s a good thing. Sometimes I fret over the loss of privacy in this wired world of ours, and it gives me a little time to have a pleasant meal, catch up on reading, and not have to concern myself with email and phone calls.

As far as a latent defect in the iPhone 3G is concerned, I really don’t know. Reception is actually slightly better than the first generation iPhone it replaced. In areas where I would sometimes miss a call, it usually rings almost every time — except in that dead zone of course, where all bets are off.

I’m also certain that if there are glitches in the firmware or in AT&T’s network, they will be addressed soon. Both Apple and AT&T have an awful lot of money invested in the iPhone, and there are those 30-day guarantees to be concerned about. If new customers aren’t satisfied, they can return their iPhones and go elsewhere.

When it comes to Apple’s marketing team, they certainly know how to stoke the fires. Indeed, the tech press can’t stop talking about it. I can’t stop talking about it. In fact, I devoted a fair amount of time during my two-hour session on Craig Crossman’s nationally-syndicated Computer America radio show recently to what this major product transition is all about.

I don’t think I came to any hard or fast conclusions, but sometimes a little conversation can help illuminate the facts and separate them from the fanciful.

So let’s look at the prospects and see how whether they fit in with the concept of “major” or “significant,” with the requirement that they also encroach seriously on Apple’s profit margins for the current quarter.

Certainly, Apple doesn’t have a lot of time to deliver this magnum opus of a new product. They haven’t even sent out RSVP invitations to the press yet, although some suggest that’ll happen by early September.

For now, I’ll look at some of the products that appear to be in desperate need of some change, and then consider a couple of product segments where Apple has yet to venture.

There’s little doubt that new iPods are forthcoming. Some suggest a nano-flavored iPod touch, with a smaller touch screen, but the existing one is quite small enough, thank you. Then again, I don’t think there’s much Apple might do with the aging iPod line beyond giving it a shave and a haircut and keep it going till sales really begin to falter. Or iPhones fully take over.

With the recent introduction of some new, spiffier Intel chipsets, it would seem that the MacBook and MacBook Pro are crying for a product update. Speedier chips would make a nice dent in the usual canned benchmarks, but is that all there is?

Maybe not. Consider the case designs, which when it comes to the MacBook Pro, date back several years to the original models dipped in scratch-prone titanium. Where might Apple take its professional note-book, now that Windows PC makers are going after different colors to help their products stand out from the pack?

Certainly the fundamentals of note-book design are not going to change significantly, but a slimmer form factor, with the requisite beveled edges, might have greater sex appeal, particularly if the changes extend to the MacBook. And adding MultiTouch to the latter would help as well.

As far as touch screens are concerned, I don’t see it, because they aren’t quite as practical with larger displays, and all they’ll do is inflate the price by a fairly decent margin. If Apple decided to eat the price increases that would reduce the profit margins substantially, but is that truly part of the plan? Sure, it’s a fairly major product transition, but I’m just not impressed by this possibility.

A tablet computer? Well, those things haven’t really set the PC world afire, so does Apple have any incentive to start yet another note-book line? No doubt they’d deliver a design that really stands out from the pack, but I don’t think adding yet another note-book line is in the cards right now.

When it comes to desktops, what about the Mac mini? Is Apple finally going to give this forgotten product some attention? Would a combo Apple TV and fully-enabled personal computer form the next iteration of Apple’s entry-level computer lineup? At one time there were rumors that some media center capabilities would appear in the mini, so would that and a little rejiggering of the looks help?

Another possibility is that infamous midrange minitower that a lot of us have written about in recent years. For me, it all started with my concept of a headless iMac, meaning the basic components of the iMac in a compact standalone computer that also included a reasonable degree of expandability.

What do I mean by reasonable?

Well, the ability to add a second hard drive, perhaps a second graphics chip and surely more RAM slots. Apple actually produced something similar to what I envision way back in the late 1980s, with the IIcx and its successor, the IIci. They were light and powerful and great choices for graphic artists and other content creators.

I suppose such a model might cannibalize sales from both the iMac and even the Mac Pro, but I prefer to think the later caters to a specialized audience for whom maximum power and maximum expandability are both essential.

Moving beyond these essentials, would Apple consider some sort of major expansion to its Apple TV line? Just where would it go? One possibility is incorporating a TiVO-style DVR, designed to work with your existing cable or satellite connection. Here Apple would probably want to upgrade its high definition support from 720p to the maximum of 1080p, which is the Blu-ray DVD standard.

Another possibility is integrating this enhanced Apple TV into a full-fledged flat panel TV, available in the standard widescreen sizes of 42 inches, 50 inches, and perhaps 58 inches. Yes, the TV market is heavily saturated. Some companies are already cutting back. An example is Pioneer’s superbly-engineered plasma lineup. But don’t forget that I was just as skeptical about Apple’s potential entry into the highly-saturated mobile phone market.

And you know how wrong I was there!