For a product whose expected launch is nearly two months from now, one potential Apple gadget is getting an awful lot of publicity. Not all of it is good. In fact, quite a lot of it is quite negative for one reason or another, about it being buggy from the get-go, or destined to become a big fail.

Now with all that chatter about the iPhone 8, you’d almost think it’s been around of a while. Or that Apple has been making a huge deal of it, but that’s obviously not so. True, Tim Cook did blame somewhat tepid iPhone sales for the March quarter on speculation about the next model. But he avoided actually saying anything about it because, of course, Apple doesn’t discuss unreleased products.

Well, at least when an advance announcement doesn’t serve their marketing plans. So we know that an iMac Pro is coming in December. But that merely fulfills a promise Apple made during its roundtable with several tech journalists in early April, about forthcoming pro features for the iMac. In fact, Apple exceeded expectations. Some tech pundits, including yours truly, speculated about a few options with more powerful processors and graphics, not an all-new model with with the parts you’d expect in a Mac Pro.

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Let’s put this all in perspective, shall we? macOS High Sierra, sometimes known as macOS 10.13, is currently in the hands of developers and public beta testers. Assuming a high participation rate for the latter, the number of users may have reached hundreds of thousands of brave souls.

I say “brave” because it’s fairly buggy, particularly on my aging MacBook Pro. For me, and I gather others, Sleep mode merely freezes up the computer, requiring a forced restart. So when I’m done with it, I just shut it down. After three releases (including two public betas), I had hoped Apple would have eradicated that one. Downloading messages in Mail also stalls for some reason.

But after a few more weeks, it’ll no doubt smooth out. Since I don’t travel as much as I used to, installing a beta OS on that notebook is not going to crimp my work style. I’ll hold off on the iMac until I’m confident that it’s reliable for a production machine, meaning real close to release.

One of the most significant changes is the addition of something really essential for your online comfort. It doesn’t hurt that Apple’s claims of superior Safari performance appear to be borne out in early benchmarks. Take that Google!

The feature? Well, if you have a wide diet of online watering holes, no doubt you’ve run into some where a video starts playing when you open an article. Such sites as CNN, Macworld and USA Today are guilty. There are many others, and you have to wonder about the desperation of some marketing departments to impose this intrusive behavior on their readers. I do wonder how much traffic they lose as a result of this offensive maneuver. All right, I just turn off the video, but it’s embarrassing to have it start when I’m busy recording an interview for one of my radio shows. I use some of these sites for online research.

In any case, there’s a published report suggesting the move, which was applauded by those attending Apple’s WWDC, has already “struck fear into the hearts of some advertisers and publishers.” The reason is that Safari has a feature that stops auto-play dead in its tracks. It’s up to you whether you want to play the videos manually, or just bask in the glow of silence.

Now this doesn’t mean those videos don’t contain useful information. For a cable TV network, you may see the original story as featured on your TV, or a short segment from it. It will usually be preceded by an ad, the better to play the bills. But you shouldn’t be forced to jump through a hoop to keep it from playing, or install a browser add-on.

This is quite different from YouTube, where it’s all video and you expect things to start playing when you open a channel or playlist. Since I have been posting episodes of some of my radio shows there, I want you to listen, but you’re dealing with a site where auto-play is expected.

So should advertisers and publishers be afraid that Apple has decided that its customers come first? What about Google and the Chrome browser? Well you can expect the very same capability there too.

The other feature that has been added to Safari is the ability to stop online tracking. You won’t confront situations where online ads follow you, ghost-like, for days and weeks after you visit a site to check a product, or click through an online ad.

So the logic behind such behavior is that if you, say, decide you want to buy a TV set and click an ad or visit an online store or manufacturer’s site, you may, for weeks thereafter, continue to see relevant advertising about similar products. It’s done in the hope you’ll click on some of those ads, which will enrich Google or some other ad network.

I would rather think that, if I want to check out a product, I don’t need constant reminders. The other day, for example, I recorded a segment on ransomware for the tech show. I did some research about the latest infections, only to be followed around by various offers to help me fight such dangers for several days thereafter. I was even presented with a banner for a Dummies book on ransomware. Give me a break!

Now I’ve tried hard to make sure that the ads I run on my sites are mostly passive. If you ever feel they are intruding on your privacy, you don’t need an ad blocker. Just tell me which ad, and I’ll look into it. So far as I can tell, the ads are just there, with limited animation and not much else.

By breaking the rules, and failing to consider the rights of their visitors to be able to visit a site and not be assaulted by offensive advertising schemes, they deserve to lose business. Unfortunately, they also encourage the use of ad blockers. which means that even the acceptable online ads, the nonintrusive kind, are blocked. We all have the right to make a living, but not at the expense of virtually yelling at people to get their attention.

The world is about to end. The populace is planning to build a small fleet of spaceships to enable specially selected people to leave the planet and look to the stars for a new home.

Wait a minute! That’s a plot line used for several sci-fi films about how humans cope with Armageddon. One of the earlier entrants among such disaster films was “When Worlds Collide,” released in 1951. So when a new planet is discovered, scientists realize that a nearby star will crash into the Earth in a few months. All right, maybe it was just a modern take on Noah’s Arc, but the premise was still a little absurd.

But when it comes to absurd, consider all those predictions about impending disaster for Apple. Consider, then, how often those predictions have come to pass.

All right, the pundits were almost right once upon a time, where Apple did lots of things to take the company down. But all that’s something that occurred over 20 years ago, before the second coming of Steve Jobs. Since then, how often has Apple skipped a sizable quarter profit? Not very often, and not in recent years, but the critics sing the same tired old song year after year.

Do you remember the spring and summer of 2016? The iPhone 7 was going to launch and it was going to be a pile of steaming junk. Apple wasn’t able to make it look so different from the iPhone 6s, so therefore it had to be the biggest fail ever. Big time! How could Apple possibly compete with Samsung?

Of course, that was before the supposed hurried launch of the Galaxy Note 7, and its penchant for overheating and exploding batteries. Samsung allegedly didn’t take the time to properly develop and test the battery and thus it was poised for failure.

By the way, there was a brief published report that the Galaxy S8’s battery was little different from the one used in the failed Note 7, but those details vanished in short order. Perhaps it wasn’t true, since there haven’t been reports of excessive battery failures, so maybe Samsung did the right thing.

Now it ended up that the iPhone 7 did pretty well. Despite the similar case design, there was plenty of good stuff inside. A great camera, and the Portrait Mode on the iPhone 7 Plus. Indeed, Apple’s biggest mistake was to misjudge the high demand for the larger model. Thus it was backordered for weeks.

Sales slowed down a tad in the March quarter, and CEO Tim Cook blames it in part on the run up of speculation about an iPhone 8. Whether that speculation is true or not, and I suspect a large part of it is based on genuine supply chain leaks, is that a reason to hold off buying the current model? Many of the criticisms about the iPhone 7 last year claimed that Apple was engaging in a holding pattern, because something so much better was on the horizon.

But consider this: If the basics about an iPhone 8 are accurate, it will be a special premium model that may cost over $1,000. Wouldn’t most customers be satisfied with the regular models, even if they are only slightly changed from current gear? But what Apple may end up doing is to scale up the smartphone segment for buyers who can afford to pay more. It’s not unusual for Apple. Consider the forthcoming iMac Pro, which will start at $4,999 for the entry-level model, and may top out at several times that amount, priced in the same range as a compact automobile.

The other common rumor is that Apple is running into difficulty getting the new gear into production. Features may be delayed, or eliminated, and thus Apple is on the brink of disaster. Don’t forget that the Portrait Mode required a software update that came out weeks after the iPhone 7 Plus went on sale.

But don’t forget that the Samsung Galaxy S8’s digital assistant, Bixby, appears to only work properly in South Korea. Did that make the device a huge blunder? What about the fact that two of its three biometric features can easily be defeated by hackers? Shouldn’t Samsung be embarrassed to release such a flawed product?

Well, no, because Consumer Reports gave it a top rating, ahead of everything else, even the iPhone 7. The case of the missing digital assistant was mentioned; the case of the flawed facial recognition and iris sensor features was ignored.

As we get closer to the arrival of the mythical iPhone 8, there are loads of stories about delayed or missing features. Facial recognition and wireless charging may require software updates. This comes after there were claims about problems implementing Touch ID. But since Touch ID is mission critical for Apple mobile gear, the chances that it will be removed are less than zero. The rest? I suppose facial recognition may require fine-tuning, since a flawed system would be a bigger lapse for an Apple gadget than something from Samsung.

Is Apple in a state of panic? Are product and production people in freak mode? Is Tim Cook really pulling out his hair? Well, he seemed calm enough on a recent cable TV show.

But it’s really a case of taking an unannounced product, with unannounced features, and assuming there must be problems. Because… Well, it’s certain hit bait, and since nobody will ever apologize for getting it wrong, nothing will ever change.

If past is prologue, the earliest we’ll know for sure what Apple plans for the rumored iPhone 8 is early September. That’s the usual timeframe for the introduction of a new iPhone lineup, and there seems to be no reason why it should change this year.

The online chatter has coalesced on two distinct product lineups. The first will be the expected annual refresh of the current iPhones; thus the iPhone 7s and the iPhone 7s Plus. Perhaps there will be more than minor changes, although the physical differences between iPhone 6s and iPhone 7 required a second look to detect.

This doesn’t mean Apple won’t add some interesting stuff, such as the first iteration of wireless charging, or maybe they’ll be able to eke out more battery life with larger cells and perhaps more power efficient chips. So expect an A11 Fusion processor that will offer more amazing performance boosts. We may even see the first iteration of Apple’s home-built graphics.

Such improvements and enhancements to the camera and other components would make for a decent product upgrade. But the prospects are hardly getting any attention in light of the alleged star of the show, the iPhone 8.

Or will it be the iPhone X?

The reason for the latter name is that it’s supposed to be a 10th anniversary iPhone, and thus is expected to sport technologies that pave the way for the future of the product. The most prominent improvement is said to be an edge-to-edge OLED display, Apple’s first use of this display technology on an iPhone. But Apple isn’t the first to use a variation of OLED on a mobile handset, so there will no doubt be demonstrations as to why their solution is so much better than the competition.

The rest, such as a glass backing and other possible improvements, don’t seem altogether new. But the big question mark is the state of Touch ID. Apple’s fingerprint sensor is mission critical for unlocking your device, unlocking apps and accounts, and, of course, Apple Pay. It’s not something that Apple can eliminate without causing severe blowbacks, resulting in plenty of inconvenience for customers. I mean, wouldn’t millions of people refuse to buy one if it’s crippled in this fashion?

So why is there any doubt?

Well, Samsung! Samsung was not able to embed a fingerprint sensor on the Galaxy S8 smartphones; they put it in the rear, making for an awkward reach at best. So there were stories that, if Samsung can’t solve a problem, Apple can’t either. So Touch ID will go on the rear, or be dispensed with altogether.

But I do not accept either possibility. The latter makes no sense whatever; the former? Well, Apple has been able to lick supposedly intractable problems before. Besides, it’s not as if the work began on the alleged iPhone 8 six months ago. The concepts for future products are drawn up several years in advance, so the nature of the problem was well known.

To make matters more confusing, there have been rumored prototypes and prototype artwork with and without Touch ID sensors. But it’s a sure thing that Apple tested different ways or resolving the problem before finding a solution.

But is there a solution?

There continue to be reports indicating that Apple has only a short time to get the iPhone 8 readied for production in order to meet fall, or at least holiday shipping deadlines. What is Apple to do?

Another theory has it that Apple will use facial recognition instead. But is that as flexible and secure? Samsung has facial recognition on the Galaxy S8, and it can be easily defeated with a photograph. That doesn’t mean Apple will encounter a similar problem.

The long and short is that Apple will probably release the mythical iPhone 8 with an embedded front-mounted fingerprint sensor, and that will be that. Will there be facial recognition? Perhaps, but it won’t be the primary biometric. It will, however, actually work. Take that Samsung!

And then there’s all that fear-mongering is about potential sales. The iPhone 6 was tremendously successful, a great way to upgrade to Apple’s first iteration of larger displays and a phablet model. The iPhone 6s was perceived to be a tepid upgrade, and sales did drop somewhat. The iPhone 7 appears to have done a little better or about the same, depending on the quarter and how you interpret sales figures and inventory levels.

And the potential impact of iPhone 8 rumors.

So add an iPhone 7s and its big brother, and an iPhone 8. Maybe the iPhone SE will get a refresh. Adding them all together, does that mean more record-breaking sales, or will it barely break even with last year?

There’s the theory that the smartphone market is heavily saturated, which is surely true except for developing countries, and that the iPhone is losing steam against Android, which may or may not be true depending on the country. But a decent percentage of people come to the iOS platform from Android, and there’s supposedly plenty of pent up demand from people with older handsets.

The critics will blame Apple for not having a cheaper iPhone, but I suppose a revised iPhone SE might help grab sales from those on a budget, or who prefer smaller handsets.

Honestly, I cannot even begin to predict sales. Industry analysts will speculate all over the place depending on their background and experience, and which clients they serve. You can take much of what they say, this early in the game, with a big container of salt.