This week, Apple is expected to announce its new tablet computer. Will it be the iSlate? The iPad? With it include built-in 3G or WiFi? Beats me, Jack. As I write this, it’s a week before the announcement. So, let’s talk about something else.

While everyone is guessing about the newest gizmo, let’s talk about some old ones. Specifically, that’s four old laptops that I prepared for staff use at the forthcoming SharePoint Technology Conference (Feb. 10-12).

These four laptops – from Apple, Dell, Fujitsu and IBM – have been kicking around BZ Media for ages, and long since taken out of everyday service. They haven’t been even turned on, I think, since spring 2009. What impressed me is that all four were brought up to speed with just a little cleaning and a bunch of downloaded software updates and security patches.

The Apple laptop is a 12-inch iBook G3, with a 900MHz PowerPC G3 processor. It was upgraded to run Mac OS X 10.4 “Tiger” with its maximum of 640MB RAM. The machine, which we bought in early 2003, runs like a champ, even with the latest Safari and Firefox updates. Sure, it’s a little pokey, and its battery doesn’t last more than an hour, but that’s okay. It’s also slightly frustrating that the iBook’s built-in wireless only works with 802.11b — an obsolescent standard — and that it only works with USB 1.1 devices. But for Web surfing or editing Microsoft Word documents, it’s a never-fail champ.

At least the iBook has built-in WiFi; the IBM ThinkPad R31 doesn’t. Instead, the notebook, which we bought in early 2002, uses an PC-card WiFi card from Linksys. The ThinkPad came through with Windows 98 or Windows 2000, I think, but now has Windows XP. It’s definitely underpowered – with a 1.13GHz Mobile Pentium III processor, browsing is annoyingly slow. On the plus side, the ThinkPad’s 14-inch 1024×768 screen is by far the easiest to read, and it also has the absolute best keyboard. Given that it’s eight years old – and still runs off its original batteries – we truly got our money’s worth.

The fastest machine is a Dell Latitude D610, which we acquired in early 2005. It’s the biggest and heaviest laptop of the four, but also the most powerful, with a 2.0GHz Pentium M, and a big, bright, 14-inch display with 1400×1050 resolution. That’s really a machine that takes a licking and keeps on ticking; the Latitude is the laptop everyone prefers to use.

The final is a tiny Fujitsu LifeBook T4010 tablet computer running Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. We never used it much as a tablet – no killer apps, to be honest. Now it’s turned into just one of our conference laptops and occasional loaner. The tablet, dating from late 2004, has a 1.8GHz processor and a 12-inch screen that somehow seems smaller than the one on the old Apple iBook. It also has a funky keyboard that nobody seems to like, but it gets the job done.

Having spent a few days leisurely setting up and using these old machines, I was impressed to find that, old or not, they are still workhorses. Sure, they don’t have WiFi-N, or built-in Webcams, or solid-state disks or 3G cellular data modems. But while the whole world goes ga-ga for the latest toys, it’s great to know that computers running obsolescent software and hardware — Windows XP or Mac OS X “Tiger,” with old Pentium or PowerPC G3 processors — are perfectly fine, and get the job done in style.

Earlier this week, my friend David Coursey asked a question on Facebook, “What must Apple do with the next iPhone to make/keep you happy? Features? Software? And what would make you change to a different handset?”

Well, at the risk of perhaps messing up an article David’s writing, I’ll answer the first part of that question here, based on a lot of experience. I’m a satisfied iPhone customer. I bought my first in 2008, when the iPhone 3G came out. When the 3GS was released, I gave the older handset to my son, and purchased the new one.

What would I like see changed? One thing I won’t say is, “A different carrier.” I moved from T-Mobile with a BlackBerry to the AT&T with the iPhone 3G, and have been delighted with the coverage, reliability and bandwidth. It’s much better than I experienced with T-Mobile. So, while I acknowledge that there are a lot of unhappy AT&T customers, I am not one of them (with one exception, noted below).

With that said, here’s what I’d like to see improved on the iPhone. Note that only three are hardware issues. The others could be addressed through software changes to the iPhone operating system or by the carrier.

1. Tethering, tethering, tethering. Okay, AT&T, we’ve waited long enough. Just do it.

2. Sync to a standard Bluetooth keyboard. An external keyboard would allow me to use the iPhone to take notes in meetings, which often would save me from bringing a laptop.

3. Interchangeable batteries. Although I have one of those external battery things, there are times when I’m in a poor signal area or use the device heavily, and this kills the battery in half a day.

4. The option to hide built-in apps. I never use Notes, Stocks and Weather. I have better third-party apps for those tasks. So, let’s make them go away.

5. Support for linking to multiple Exchange accounts. Sometimes that’s what one needs to do.

6. Support for websites that require Flash. Such sites are totally unusable on the phone as currently provisioned.

7. Support for video chat compatible with iChat and Skype. That would require a front-facing video camera, of course.

8. Syncing of the phone’s autocorrect spelling list. I’d like it to match my Mac’s autocorrect list.

9. Be able to turn off data services. Just as there are switches to turn Bluetooth, WiFi and 3G on/off, I sometimes want to turn off all data services, so that the phone is just a phone. Why? To conserve battery life.

10. Selective caller rejection. I want the phone to squelch incoming calls from specified phone numbers. Don’t let them ring. Don’t let them go to voicemail. Just make them go away. I don’t care if that’s done in collaboration with the carrier, but I want it.

11. Week-at-a-glance view in the Calendar. Maybe it could be triggered by turning the phone into landscape position.

12. Charging with a standard mini-USB or micro-USB connector. That would be nice when I’m low on juice but don’t have a special iPhone cable handy.

What features would you like to see changed on the iPhone hardware or built-in software?

This classic motivational image has been floating around the Internet for a while. Wish I knew the artist to attribute it to.

Click the picture to see it larger.

Over the past few weeks, my son’s cell phone has been receiving dozens of unwanted phone calls — sometimes three, four or five calls daily. If he answers the phone, a recorded message tells him to contact Wells Fargo Bank about his overdrawn account. However, he doesn’t bank at Wells Fargo. If he doesn’t answer the phone, the caller doesn’t leave a message.

When I found out about this, I checked his iPhone’s log. All these calls were coming from two separate numbers, 503-403-2697 and 503-403-2686. Googling indicated that both belonged to Wells Fargo Bank.

This morning, I called back the first number. A human answered and asked me to provide my account number. When I explained that I didn’t have one, and that I was trying to find out why our number was being called, the young man asked for the mobile number. “Are you Mr. Alvarez?” he asked. “No,” I replied. He curtly said, “We’ll take your number off the list” — and hung up.

That should solve that problem, eh? Just for the heck of it, I called the second number. An automated attendant asked for my account number and then paused. I pressed 0, and that got me to a human. I explained the story to him, he looked up the cell number, and asked, “Are you Mr. Diamond?” — odd that it was a different name. I replied no, and the young man politely apologized, volunteered that perhaps Mr. Diamond had provided our number by mistake, but that he would make sure the calls stopped.

Let’s see if they actually do.

The frenzy around Apple’s assumed-to-be-forthcoming tablet computer is reaching a feverish pitch, with major news outlets, from the New York Times to the British Broadcasting Corp., covering and feeding the speculation. I haven’t seen this much hyperbole since, oh, the run-up to James Cameron’s new movie, Avatar.

The latest hints are that Apple will launch the tablet at the end of January. The rumor mill also says that Apple will show significant upgrades to its iPhone software stack and relevant revisions to the Apple App Store.

A common thread to the rumors is that the tablet will be a cross between the iPhone and the MacBook Air notebook computer. That means built-in wireless connectivity on a cellular data network (like the iPhone or Amazon’s Kindle book reader), that it will be sold along with a service plan (again, like the iPhone), and that Apple will create a distribution channel for it (like the music and software offered through the App Store).

The company is expected to unveil a developer program for the iTablet (or whatever it’s called). This will be an extension of the iPhone developer program, and will in fact rely upon many of the same tools, SDKs and APIs. The biggest code changes would be in the user interface: a tablet’s screen is much larger than the iPhone display. App developers would need to rework their software not only to leverage the larger screen, but also accommodate the larger format’s user-experience models.

How much truth is in those rumors? It’s hard to be certain. Apple is notorious for its secrecy. In fact, carefully controlled secrecy is one of the main reasons why Apple’s marketing prowess is unparalleled.

The other area where Apple currently excels is in developer relations. That’s a change in its historic behavior, which was hostile to third-party developers.

To digress for a moment, this reminds me of the OS/2 Wars, back in the mid-1990s. IBM’s OS/2 operating system was far superior to DOS, and was poised for large-scale growth. However, Microsoft’s technologically inferior Windows 95 took over the market, totally destroying OS/2.

Why did Microsoft win, and mighty IBM lose? For the same two reasons why the iPhone has succeeded beyond all expectations. First, Microsoft was infinitely better at consumer marketing than Big Blue. (Remember how people stood in line at midnight to get their copies of Windows 95? Does that remind you of anything?)

Microsoft also lavished its developers with tender loving care. Top executives, from Bill Gates on down, worked hard to create opportunities for its ISVs to make money. IBM, by contrast, never saw any value in supporting ISVs. Therefore, independent developers embraced Windows 95, and that’s why we use Windows PCs today instead of IBM PC Compatibles.

Over the past decade, Microsoft forgot how to appeal to small entrepreneurial developers creating consumer applications. That’s one reason why its own Windows XP Tablet PC initiative never caught on. There just weren’t enough compelling applications.

By stark contrast, Apple has learned from its mistakes. Steve Jobs never figured out how to inspire developers to create consumer applications for the Macintosh, but he succeeded – in spades – in bringing thousands of app developers to the iPhone platform. Maybe it’s the marketing, maybe it’s the SDK, maybe it’s the App Store distribution channel, but Apple has overcome its past failures. While the iPhone hardware is cool, it’s the third-party apps that truly enable the platform.

And that’s where the iTablet (or whatever it’s called) will live or die – by the strength of Apple’s developer relationships. If Apple replicates what it did with iPhone ISVs, its tablet computer will, indeed, live up to the hype.