There’s one thing that’s certain about Apple, and that is the penchant for attacking someone else’s product before their own solution appears. It doesn’t always happen, but it’s still a potential clue that something is afoot.

Take the comments in October 2004, at a quarterly conference call for financial analysts, where it was promised, take it to the bank, that Apple won’t produce junk after being asked about building a cheap Mac. In January of 2o05, Apple introduced the original Mac mini, at $499. Sporting PowerBook-grade parts, it came without a display or keyboard, and an impossible scheme for upgrading RAM. You had to use a putty knife,  or something similar, to take it apart.

Now I suppose you could say the Mac mini wasn’t junk. But it was also a little more expensive than the very cheapest desktop PCs you could buy at a superstore. I have no idea how successful it was, but it got regular updates for years, at least until 2014 when the updates stopped. There was even a “silent” upgrade in September of that year, with a marginally faster processor.

That year, Motorola brought iTunes to the ROKR, a clumsy clamshell cell phone that had only modest success, if that. Beyond a difficult interface, music transfers were very slow. Although it was introduced with great fanfare by Steve Jobs at a Macworld keynote, it’s clear from his later comments he wasn’t happy about the state of the art in the mobile phone industry. Maybe you can see what was on his mind in retrospect.

You might as well assume the ROKR didn’t exist if you watch the playback of the launch of the iPhone in 2007. It was presented as three devices, being an iPod, a phone and an Internet device. All in one tiny case.

So here we have two Apple gadgets that were introduced after the company denigrated existing products. But you can apply the same approach to the iPad and, in fact, the iPad mini. Steve Jobs said you needed to sandpaper your fingers to use one of those 7-inch widescreen tablets. When marketing VP Philip Schiller presented Apple’s response, the 7.9-inch iPad mini, he pointed out that, using a standard aspect radio, it had far more usable screen real estate than those competing tablets. So you didn’t need super small fingers to use it.

Again, Apple’s answer to what it claimed was a subpar product.

Of course, the 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhones were intended as Apple’s responses to the demand for larger displays. Before the iPhone 6 arrived, Schiller would tell you how these larger handsets were difficult to handle if you wanted to use one hand. Besides, Apple still had to build the 4-inch iPhone SE to fill the demand for smaller handsets.

You might say Apple was forced, perhaps kicking and screaming, to build a gadget that customers wanted, even if the form factor wasn’t exactly ideal. In turn, the larger iPhone is credited — or blamed — for reducing sales of the iPad mini. But Apple has never been against cannibalizing its own gear. Besides, a Plus iPhone brings in far more revenue than the smaller iPad. If the latter fades away, so be it.

Now when it comes to a smart speaker, I suppose Apple has already denigrated the product, as typified by the Amazon Echo and Google Home. Does a full-time digital assistant, which listens to everything going on in your home or office, even make sense?

So in recent comments, Schiller suggested the Echo needed a display, but that came days before Amazon introduced such a model, known as the Echo Show.

So is that an example of Apple once again denigrating a product before its own solution is due to appear?

There are published reports that production has already begun on a so-called Siri smart speaker, which is expected to be unveiled at the WWDC. While I can see the point of introducing a gadget to serve as a control center for Apple’s HomeKit, wouldn’t an iPhone or an iPad also be able to manage those functions? What about the Apple Watch?

Even if it were to happen, the choice of a venue, a developer’s conference, is curious for a gadget that appears to  be largely oriented towards consumers. One would think it would better suit the tail end of a September iPhone event, particularly if an Apple Watch Series 3 or fifth generation Apple TV is on the venue.

I suppose Apple could use the alleged Siri speaker as the focal point for a presentation of new HomeKit capabilities for developers. That might make sense. But wouldn’t that potentially apply to other Apple consumer gear, such as the Apple TV and Apple Watch?

Otherwise, the timing doesn’t make much sense, unless Apple is desperate to demonstrate it hasn’t lost its knack for innovation.

That said, we’re days away from the WWDC keynote, on June 5th, so all will come clear. Besides, I still have an inkling if there will be a demonstration of the next Mac Pro. Even if it’s just a video of a work-in-progress, this presentation would make perfect sense, and go a long way towards reassuring high-end Mac users.

So let’s recap: In a meeting with a handful of tech journalists in early April at Apple headquarters, a new version of the Mac Pro was promised. But it won’t arrive this year, and the speculation as to when assumes it’s 2018. All we know is that it will be “modular,” which implies easy upgrades; in other words, perhaps somewhat of a throwback to the original tower format. But I doubt Apple will just resurrect an old design, because they could have done that long ago.

Another Mac mentioned was the iMac. Now the existing models haven’t been updated since 2015, when the 5K Retina display received a wider color gamut refresh and a tad more power. There’s even an entry-level version for $1,799. In other words, no 27-inch iMac comes without that magnificent 5K display.

So Apple is now promising a “great” iMac update later this year that would include configurations focused on pros. That does’t necessarily mean all iMacs, which means refreshed versions of the existing models would probably continue to be produced, only there will be one or more higher-end configurations, and probably more choices if you choose to customize.

And that’s where the speculation really begins: What pro features would the iMac inherit, and there are certainly potential answers now that Intel has introduced a new Core X-Series processor family. So we have a Core i9 that starts at four cores but there are versions of the chip with 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and a whopping 18 cores!

The 18-core chip, the i9-7980XE, is priced at $1,999, well into Xeon territory. Such a configuration was previously unheard of for a consumer-level desktop chip. A 10-core version lists for $999.

Now I would suggest you ignore the price. Since Apple is buying tens of thousands of the high-end chips each quarter for the iMac, you can bet they are paying a whole lot less. No doubt the iMac’s cooling system would have to be beefed up to handle such beasts, and that may present the biggest obstacle to putting such powerful silicon in an iMac, which has traditionally sported notebook-grade parts.

Some of the speculation also calls for Apple choosing Xeon processors, which can far more expensive at the top-of-the-line. So I noticed an E5-2699V4 22-Core 2.2GHz listing for almost $5,000. So maybe Apple is better off sticking with the i9. After all, the Xeon will require more expensive ECC RAM, but its error-correcting capability is favored for math and science. But you’d end up with iMacs priced comparably to a Mac Pro and then some.

But Apple could have put Xeons into iMacs before now, so maybe the arrival of the i9 chips has presented far more opportunities to boost power at hefty, but not exorbitant prices.

Regardless of which chips find their way into an iMac — and it could be both — no doubt there will be more powerful graphic chips that are capable of rendering and/or gaming. I suspect the emphasis will be on creative users, since Apple has traditionally paid little attention to the gaming community.

Now I don’t presume to really know what choices Apple is making. The timing of the i9 fits with a fall introduction of a 2017 iMac, however.

With all those cores cranking away, I just wonder how many Mac Pro users will make the move with more affordable gear. Sure, the iMac has the built-in display — but what a display! — and pro users might prefer to go the route of separates rather than an all-in-one. But if it were a lot cheaper at the high end than a maxed out multicore Mac Pro, there may be lots of potential there.

Regardless of Apple’s choice about iMac configurations, I continue to marvel at how far this computer has come in 19 years. The original Bondi blue iMac was toy-like, with performance comparable to a PowerBook. It found a home with many consumers over the years, as Apple exploited the flower power of multiple colors. When it first became a flat panel display with an embedded computer, beginning with the iMac G5, it’s focus expanded.

Instead of an entry-level box, the iMac became the mainstream Mac. Indeed, I bought a late 2009 27-inch iMac to replace a Mac Pro. I didn’t look back, because with four cores, it matched the Mac Pro. The latter didn’t come into its own unless you used one of the four applications where more cores made a significant difference, or you didn’t really want to pay for the built-in display.

Indeed a main argument against an all-in-one configuration is having to essentially buy a new display each time you want to upgrade. Or being stuck if the display goes bad, though I suspect other parts might fail first.

Regardless of how it turns out, iMac users have lots to look forward to, especially if you have an older model sadly in need of an upgrade. One thing you won’t see, however, is a touchscreen, even though some of Apple’s critics are asking Apple to take the Microsoft Surface Studio route.

When you consider that as an option, however, remember that the cheapest 27-inch iMac lists for $1,799. The cheapest Surface Studio costs $2,999.99. The price of touch and then some.

In recent weeks, rumors have presented themselves about possible refreshes for Mac notebooks. Timed for the WWDC next week, they’ll reportedly include the MacBook, which hasn’t been updated since the spring of 2016, and the MacBook Pro, which received a major upgrade last October. Both are supposed to be fitted with Intel’s Kaby Lake processors. The MacBook Air is in question. It hasn’t been touched since 2015, and since the 11-inch model was shuffled off to the educational market, Apple’s ongoing support is questionable.

But putting new parts in all three models shouldn’t present a difficult issue. But I wonder if Apple will be able to offer a 32GB configuration of the MacBook Pro with this refresh. For some curious reason, this became a big issue with the 2016 MacBook Pro, even though no previous Mac notebook has supported more than 16GB of RAM. Even the Microsoft Surface portables are limited to 16GB.

Apple’s response pointed to the fact that they’d need to use a memory controller that supported slower RAM and that move would severely reduce battery life. Of course, some critics don’t bother with facts, but I suppose if Kaby Lake CPUs can make it happen with the standard memory setup, some customers will want to do it despite Apple’s exorbitant price for RAM updates. After all, customers can’t update RAM on Mac notebooks anymore.

Understand this is all based on rumors. It’s not that Apple would be expected to confirm anything. But a MacBook update is late, a MacBook Air update is very late, and a MacBook Pro update would be a few months early.

The normal signs that something is up are shipping delays. This is especially true if there isn’t much unsold inventory around. So, according to published reports, delivery times for the  15-inch MacBook Pro have slipped. So if you order one now from Apple, you won’t get it until some time between June 6th and June 8th, which is right after the WWDC keynote.

So if there was an update in the offing, meant for immediate shipping, that delivery date would be right on the money. At the same time, delivery times for the 13-inch MacBook Pro, the MacBook, and the MacBook Air, were all normal when I checked while writing this article. That might mean that the larger MacBook Pro is more in demand, even if all three models are going to get updates. Or perhaps the situation will change in a few days.

On the other hand, not all MacBook Pro models are always updated at the same time. Sometimes the 13-inch and the 15-inch models are refreshed at different times of the year. But since Mac updates have not been getting the love in recent years, maybe Apple will want to get out the new products as soon as possible.

While the rumors don’t mention any other Macs, it’s also true that the Mac mini uses mobile parts. So I suppose it’s possible to refresh it too. It hasn’t been touched since 2014, when the price went down by $100, to an entry-level cost of $499, and the ability to swap out RAM was unceremoniously removed.

The iMac probably won’t be updated till the fall, and it may be that new Intel Core silicon expected in the next few months will be used for the promised pro options. The Mac Pro revision isn’t expected until at least next year, but I suppose it’s possible for Apple to demonstrate a work-in-progress. It would certainly go a long way towards reassuring professional Mac users that they aren’t being taken for suckers. But it all depends on whether there is something that has been completed sufficiently to demonstrate, if only with a video.

But I haven’t read any rumors about a 2018 Mac Pro demonstration at the WWDC. Perhaps Apple will say something about it when the new Mac notebooks are introduced. Or maybe the refreshed hardware will arrive with nothing more than press releases, since the expected updates are minor.

Whether or not there’s something worth showing, Apple would do well to speak about Mac hardware while presenting the next version of macOS. Maybe spend a few minutes recalling the history of the Mac and how important it is to Apple’s future. The possibility becomes more credible because Apple felt it had to conduct a special press roundtable in early April to talk about the Mac, with the emphasis on the Mac Pro.

That meeting, which included several “well-connected” tech journalists, certainly calls for an update. Even if there’s not much new to report, other than those Mac notebook refreshes if they come to pass, it would serve as a marketing advantage at a time when some tech pundits imagine that Apple needs to take a few hints from the Microsoft Surface.

Again, Surface sales never rose much higher a billion dollars for any quarter, and they were down 26% during the March quarter. That takes us to the Amazon Echo, which also hasn’t sold so well, but is generating a mindshare from some quarters that’s way beyond its actual influence in the marketplace.

You read the same stuff over and over again. Apple needs to produce this product, that product, or the other product. It has to be now, or Samsung, or Google, or Microsoft — or even Amazon — will run away with the market. Apple will never, ever be able to catch up. So time is short to join the crowd.

Forgotten is the fact that Apple didn’t get where it is matching the competition. Even when the new Apple gadget is in the same category, it’s never the same. Compare the iPod to any other digital music player of the period. After Apple took over the market, other products attempted to imitate them.

The classic example is the Mac. When it first showed up, Microsoft and its fans said that the Mac OS was for kids, a pretty toy operating system that couldn’t possibly be used for serious work. That approach continued for years, as Microsoft continued to enhance its own graphical user interface, Windows.

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