For all its bluster about making perfect and ‘magical’ products, Apple has a streak of realism about it. Company execs often talk about compromise. The point is that you have to compromise on components, in order to meet certain specifications and criteria, be they to do with pricing or usability. The question is whether the right compromises are being made.

Generally, Apple seems to get things right, but there are two areas where I find Apple’s decisions regarding compromise troubling.

The first is storage. The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, which shoot high-res photos and 4K video, and that are powerful enough to run high-end multi-GB games, start out at 16 GB. For ‘only’ an extra 80 quid or $100, you can get four times as much storage, in what seems like a blatant upsell. The iPad Air 2 also starts at 16 GB, and Apple has removed the 128 GB option, presumably to push people towards the new 128 GB 9.7-inch iPad Pro (which mercifully doesn’t have a 16 GB option, but omits a 64 GB one, leaving a void between 32 and 128).

The second area I have an issue with is the camera on the new 9.7-inch iPad Pro. In terms of specifications, it seems to match the camera in the iPhone 6s, but that also means — just like on the iPhone — it is not flush with the case. When used flat on a table, this means the new iPad will wobble — not great if you’re drawing with Apple Pencil or even playing games. And how strong is that lip around the camera? What potential is there for damage? Will users essentially be forced into buying a case, thereby adding heft to the iPad and making its ‘thinness’ largely irrelevant?

However, as a writer interested in investigation and thought rather than screaming linkbait into the void, I have to concede that I simply don’t know what the right compromises are, except for me. Personally, I’d sooner see more storage at the low-end of every Apple line, and I’d prefer the new iPad to have a worse camera that’s flush with the unit. On Twitter, some people have told me they’re flabbergasted by Apple’s decision regarding the new iPad Pro’s camera, but then Perch lead developer Drew McLellan said “When I’ve personally seen an iPad used for work, it’s mainly been for that camera. And always with a case.”

Without the numbers, it’s impossible to know why Apple’s making the decisions that it is; and even with the numbers, you still wouldn’t be sure. Sometimes, these decisions are made on instinct or on the basis of trying to push devices into new areas of use. Even so, the notion of a wobbly iPad is enough for me to stop short of an immediate purchase, instead waiting until I can check one out in an Apple Store. Presumably, Apple thinks or knows my reluctance will be balanced by one or more people deciding Apple has made the right compromise — or them not caring about such compromises at all.

Apple just revealed a new iPad Pro. It looks fantastic. The device has all of the smarts of its bigger brother, but in the more svelte form factor of the iPad Air 2. You get Pencil support, the Smart Connector, built-in stereo speakers, the powerful A9X chip, and a 12-megapixel iSight camera that’s capable of shooting 4K video. In fact, that’s better than the one inside the 12.9-inch iPad Pro.

Or is it? Technically, the smaller iPad Pro’s camera blows the one in the 12.9-inch device away, but then you finally catch a glimpse of the new iPad from the back (which requires you to scroll a long way down the page linked to above) and notice that the camera protrudes from the rear of the device, just like on the iPhone 6s.

I really don’t like the protruding camera from an aesthetic standpoint, but it really hasn’t made that much difference when I use my iPhone. My iPad Air 2, on the other hand, is often used flat on a desk, most often when playing games, but sometimes also when using apps. I have an Apple keyboard for a Mac that has a slight wobble and it drives me nuts. I can’t really imagine splashing out over £600 on a new iPad with what for me will be such a fundamental usability flaw. And yet everything else about this device screams that it is perfect for what I want.

In short: ARGH.

With no tea leaves handy, I have looked out of the window at the decomposing leaves in the garden, and here’s what they had to say about today’s Apple event. All rumours guaranteed one hundred per cent accurate.

• In a drive towards honestly in marketing, the new smaller iPhone will be called the iPhone Upsell.
• Tim Cook will perform a rap about privacy, which will carry on until: The FBI stops bugging us / Otherwise we will continue to cuss. Them. / It’s not about one iPhone, it’s about precedent / And you should know that, Mr. President.
• Apple will hurl an iPad Pro at the temple of any journalist who’s written about the iPad’s sales decline, knocking them out cold and thereby stemming worldwide criticism.
• The ‘loop’ in ‘Let us loop you in’ will refer to a new tether that keeps an iPhone attached to your wrist. Permanently. The loop can never be removed.
• A new Apple Watch strap will periodically give you a small electric shock, thereby jerking your arm and making the watch’s face turn on, saving you having to perform a magic arm twist yourself.

Oh, all right, then. There will be a new and smaller iPhone that will be called MAGICAL, and a new and smaller iPad Pro that will be called MAGICAL, and Jony Ive will probably still be locked in a white room. MAGICAL. HAPPY NOW?

I recently wrote that Game Center is still broken after six months. For many people, the system fails entirely, launching to a white screen, and freezing Settings when you try to access the Game Center section. This results in many games not running at all, impacting users who play games, and developers who make them (suddenly finding their games are effectively inaccessible unless they build in a ridiculous ‘is Game Center broken on this device?’ workaround); it’s also a pain in the backside for people like me, who write about iOS gaming.

I’ve filed bug reports about the Game Center issue in the past, but when Apple’s new Twitter support team sprang to life, I figured I’d give it a shot. It became clear that (entirely reasonably), I’d be asked to try a bunch of generic fixes, and so on about the third communication I fired over a lengthy message outlining all the things I’d tried already. (There are various ‘tech voodoo’ solutions rattling around the web, none of which appear permanent. The latest, which bizarrely shows some promise, is to restore your device and avoid any game released before November 2013.) In the end, I was bumped to phone support.

I had a very nice conversation with someone at Apple, who said he’d prioritise the case and get insight from engineers regarding what could be done to fix things. I wasn’t optimistic, and it turns out with good reason, because I now have a response:

the issue is being investigated and should hopefully be resolved soon

So there we go. The Game Center bug, which Apple has known about since the iOS 9 betas, is being investigated and should “hopefully” be resolved “soon”. I realise that’s all anyone can really say, but I think anyone reliant on Game Center would be justified in wearing their cynical hat while reading that statement. We can only hope ‘soon’ in this case means ‘by the time of the next minor update’ and not ‘possibly at some point in the iOS 10 cycle’ or ‘before the heat death of the universe’.

I wrote recently about a cheery email I received about Nook. The service is closing in the UK, and the company has reached a deal of sorts with a nothing operator in the space (run by a supermarket!), which will allow you to retain some of your purchases. I received another email today, which had a rather more urgent ‘last chance’ feel to it. Again, it outlined the process customers must take:

To help meet your digital reading needs going forward, NOOK has partnered with award‑winning Sainsbury’s Entertainment on Demand to ensure that you have continued access to as many of your purchased NOOK Books as possible at no additional cost to you.

If I have purchased something, my assumption would be ongoing and permanent ownership. What would be more honest is the following:

To help meet your digital reading needs going forward, NOOK has partnered with award‑winning Sainsbury’s Entertainment on Demand to ensure that you have continued access to as many of the NOOK Books you thought you had purchased — but had in fact only sort-of rented (SURPRISE!) — as possible at no additional cost to you.

This kind of thing is why I almost never buy DRM-encased content. Music already solved this problem, after plenty of turmoil, and it’s now actually quite difficult to find downloadable music (outside of streaming, where ownership isn’t presumed) with DRM. Books, magazines and comics rather oddly often cling to DRM, though, to lock you into services or specific stores; on that basis, I have reverted to paper or will only purchase content in formats that lack DRM (such as freely usable PDF or CBR).

When it comes to movies and telly, I fear things won’t change for a very long time, due to studios being blinkered and paranoid. Right now, I could download almost any show or movie entirely for free, and would be able to watch wherever and whenever I like. By contrast, I can pay over the odds for a digital file that only works on specific hardware and/or using specific software, and that might vanish from a cloud library without notice. Subsequently, I almost never buy digital TV shows or movies now, preferring streaming; and on those very few occasions I do succumb, it’s either a rare DRM-free download (for example, from a Kickstarter), or for something that’s inherently disposable that I only really want to watch once.

Frankly, the approach taken by many executives — whether they’re behind Hollywood blockbusters or systems for selling and reading books — needs to die. They are consumer-hostile, and Nook’s misfortune showcases what happens when things go badly wrong. If a publisher folds, you don’t expect someone to silently remove their paper books from your shelves and then say you can have some of them back, for free, because a deal has been struck with a supermarket. The same should be true for digital.