5 Predictions for Apple in 2007 257
Michael writes "2006 is coming to a close, and all anyone can think about (in regards to Apple, at least) is the upcoming Apple phone, but what happens next? What are we going to be salivating over and speculating about after Macworld? What changes are in store for Apple in 2007? No one knows for sure, but it sure is fun to take a guess."
Re:My top 5 predictions for Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple already did number 1, it was called "iTV" at WWDC. (You said "announce plans" and that's exactly what they did.)
How about this one: In the wake of an accounting scandal, Apple is found guilty corporately of fraud and is broken-up into an Computer Systems company and a media delivery company. It'd be ironic that after all these years Apple got broken for shady business practices before you-know-who.
iLawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows Use Increasing Among Mac Users (Score:4, Insightful)
If gaming on the Mac has eroded to this lowly state, it can't be long until other markets are affected too. Developers of several popular multimedia/graphics/productivity tools that have maintained multiple code bases over the years may finally decide to kill off their Mac versions to cut costs, once armed with the knowledge that the average Mac user can simply be coerced into buying a copy of Windows and installing it via a Bootcamp-like utility. Before long, Apple may well have to break down and start to officially sell Macs with Windows pre-installed to remain competative in the PC market.
Eventually, being a "Mac user" could mean little more than "someone who uses the Mac OS for file management, internet activity and itunes, and uses Windows for everything else". Granted the integration may be tighter between the two OSes, but it'll still end up with Mac users paying royalties to Microsoft in the end... either for Windows, or the necessary APIs needed to ensure complete compatibility.
In a few years, Apple will be as generic a name brand as IBM, Dell or HP.
Harder and harder (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Windows Use Increasing Among Mac Users (Score:1, Insightful)
"OSX and Windows, working together at last"? No. (Score:5, Insightful)
"I expect to see Parallels fully integrated into Leopard by the time the OS is released, giving us the first OS in history (to my knowledge anyway) that will allow us to seamlessly run our Windows, Mac, and even Linux programs from the same desktop."
This would be a user experience and customer support nightmare for Apple.
Not to mention it would be incredibly risky for Apple to acquire and bolt on a complex 3rd party application at this late stage in Leopard development.
The author of this article is clueless. Which isn't surprising, considering it is essentially a blog post on a mac fan site. He's just regurgitating rumours from Mac community forums in order to get page hits.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Re:Predictions (Score:5, Insightful)
it wasn't so much the ipod replaced the walkman, but the
Wifi to plug the Zune Hole (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Windows Use Increasing Among Mac Users (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't see this happening at all. I bought a MacBook Pro about 6 months ago specifically so I could run Windows for Web 2.0 compatibility testing and, except for the initial cool factor of running Windows on a Mac, I really have no use for Windows. It has literally nothing I actually *need* I haven't fired up Parallels in over 2 months as there's just nothing at all compelling requiring me to use Windows.
As for gaming, who cares? After people turn 30 or so, the appeal drops dramatically. Sure, the occasional "first person shooter" is fun once in awhile, but I don't know anyone over 30 who actually games on a regular basis and certainly no one in that age group who actually factors in gaming when buying a computer.
Hard core 30+ year old gamers are like 30+ year old pot heads. They definitely exist, but they aren't the mainstream
If there is any danger to Apple, in the OS arena, I think it comes from Web 2.0. not Linux or Windows. All major OSes need to rethink their relevance in a Web 2.0 world.
Web 2.0 isn't there yet in terms of allowing greater use of system resources, programming language etc, but that is where the future lies. If Apple can get ahead in this area, for example providing free libraries developers (on any OS) can use to do powerful data, image and animation processing through a browser, (opening up Core Data, Core Image, Core Animation as Web standards) they could really have a shot at creating the first compelling and powerful Web OS.
I don't see OS X losing to either Windows or Linux, I see all three losing to Web 2.0 (or Web 3.0)
Re:My top 5 predictions for Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
I must admit to being pretty amazed to see the Apple stock option headline marked in red on the Drudge Report for three days running. As they say, no press is bad press, especially on the eve of some very highly anticipated product releases. Go Apple
Re:Wifi to plug the Zune Hole (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Windows Use Increasing Among Mac Users (Score:2, Insightful)
One explanation is that more and more people who used to be exclusively Windows users are now buying Macs in order to get the best of both worlds. Thus, the number of "Mac users who use Windows" increased. Seem valid to you kind
Ah, predictions... (Score:5, Insightful)
Eight Core Mac Pro- just so Apple can advertise the most powerful personal computer EVAR
New Cinema Displays with built in iSight, IR sensor, HDCP. 23" becomes 24", firewire hub goes away. Maybe a smaller one
New keyboard, with USB2.0 ports built into it (three years too late)
.Mac will morph into some kind of social networking thing. Myspace for Mac users. It should, but won't, be free
Windows versions of Safari and iChat A/V, which no one will use because they both kinda suck
Apple needs a mid-tower computer between the mini and the Pro. The iMac doesn't cut it. Steve's cube fetish will resurface here
A tablet Macbook would be great, as long as the voice and handwriting recognition work better than anything before
Re:iLawyers (Score:4, Insightful)
Last time I looked, it was Dell that had an actual SEC investigation going on how their earnings were manipulated (known as "cooking the books" in the popular vernacular). Apple's options issues are a tempest in a teapot compared to those.
Or perhaps you mean the Hewlett-Packard hearings in Washington, and the possibility of jail time for their senior management due to their actions in nailing boardroom leakers.
So far as I know (and I'd be willing to bet as far as YOU know), Apple has investigated their options problems thoroughly, and is turning those results over to the SEC. To the best of my knowledge, the only indication of possible further troubles is due to a blizzard of rumors occurring, curiously enough, as Apple closes out the best calendar year in it's history, with a lot of pressure from various quarters to knock the stock down before the earnings are announced. Remember how the rumors surfaced about sales plummeting at the iTMS? Look how silly those rumors appear in the wake of the Christmas Day transaction volume problems at the iTMS.
I think that their product announcements on January 8th will easily eclipse any "stock scandals" in 2007, as will their earnings announcement the following week. And in any event, the magnitude of any impact of past options misbehavior will be shown on Friday (Dec 29), when Apple makes their restated earnings for the past several years public. All the responsible estimates of those changes indicate it will be a trivial change.
Re:Parallels.... vs OSX native... (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is precisely why there will always be obstacles to running Windows under OS X. I don't see Apple providing a Wine port, nor virtualization in Leopard. Can't have dedicated Mac Developers abandon coding under Cocoa and Carbon and let OS X die on the vine. The farthest Apple will go is to maybe provide a little "special" help to Parallels in the form of providing access to OS X engineers, but that's about it. They want -no- they NEED it to be inconvenient to run Windows on a Mac. An $80 charge before you can pirate windows onto your box is a pretty good level of inconvenience. $80 + a retail Windows license...even more convenient.
Oh wait, didn't we just have a bazillion threads about the Vista EULA forbidding users to run it under a VM. Why is that? Seriously, the answer is because it significantly simplifies any efforts to bypass the DRM technology in Vista. Just like Napster, Apple would find themselves behind contributory copyright infringement suits as soon as they provide virtualization tech and it is used to bypass DRM on HD or BluRay DVDs. So, this is reason #2 why Apple won't be selling bundled virtualization. "But that wouldn't make any sense to file a suit like that" you might say, to which I would have to reply "When has the MPAA ever been logical about filing lawsuits?".
Re:Only thing I can predict about Apple... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're both right (Score:5, Insightful)
Heh, that's funny. There are lots of things to criticise about Apple, but they absolutely don't "just throw [latest gadget] into a product as a checkbox filler." One of the main criticism of iPods is that "they don't contain feature X found in many other mp3 players." Compared to players from Creative or even to the Zune, the iPod is underfeatured. That's because unless the feature makes some kind of sense and can be integrated into the "iPod experience" in a moderately non-confusing way, Apple won't do it.
Uhm... That's an entirely different question. Did Apple introduce anything new with the iPod? In a way, no. They took features away compared to other MP3 players, which is what grandparent was saying: Apple doesn't just throwin features left and right. What they did was make the iPod easy and efficient to use (especially compared to other players at the time).
So... you're not even contradicting what grandparent has said. You have a valid point (the iPod's features aren't that innovative), but it actually agrees with grandparent's point (Apple doesn't just add the latest fancy feature to the iPod whenever it gets the chance), as far as I can tell.
Dull (Score:3, Insightful)
7. Apple will license OS.X to generic PC manufacturers starting with Dull^W Dell.
Re:Windows Use Increasing Among Mac Users (Score:3, Insightful)
Will the Mac game market suffer? Sure. The reason is simply: it's always been a really small market. People never bought Macs for gaming, but some Mac users wanted games. Porting games to Macs is a huge undertaking, so only few games got ported, and they always arrived late. Mac users only bought Mac games because they had no other choice (apart from a few truly great Mac games).
Obviously, being able to run Windows games on the Mac (and not having to wait for a crappy port a year later, if one is even planned) is a huge advantage.
All of that does not apply to the rest of the Mac software market. The Mac software market is not small, it doesn't have "ports," there are lots of great Mac-only apps, cross-platform apps are generally developed for both platforms at the same time (and often have unique Mac-only features), and so on. The Mac game market may be pretty much dead. The Mac app market remains unscathed.
Mac users bought Mac games because it was the only choice. They bought Mac apps because they wanted to.
Now that there's another choice, they won't buy Mac games anymore, but they'll still buy Mac apps.
Re:My top 5 predictions for Apple (Score:2, Insightful)
Quick feature list (Score:3, Insightful)
1. the smaller, more expensive drives
2. touch wheel
3. click wheel
4. database frontend
5. an annoying hardware dock
6. shipping earbuds that aren't terrible
7. non-replacable batteries in an integrated form factor
8. No stop button (?)
9. No screen
10. Companion music store
11. DRM
12. Random-only play
13. Podcasting
14. Prioritizing physical size over storage space
They're like The Matrix. Revolutionary when it came out, copied to the point of being trite now. But Apple has done some very original things with the line throughout the years, and should be recognized for such.