Rumor: Suppliers say Apple will overhaul all product lines in 2012 - Page 2

Err .... 8, no?



Actually ... '07 ... I have one.

I think you meant that the US President's *job* will be filled next year.

Whether the job is filled by a new person or not is kind of up in the air at the moment and pretty much the whole point of those election thingies.

Also, odds strongly favour the current president winning that slot anyway.

New 17-inch (or whatever the biggest will be) MacBook Pro, iPad 3, and iPhone 5 for me next year.

Wish the 'Apple Televisions' were ready for 2012. We're about to move and our rear projection TV will not be coming with us. Might have to buy a cheap flat screen to tide us over.

Now that Stevesie is out of the picture, TimCo can fulfill his lifelong dreams:

1. Replace Mac Pro with beige plastic mid-size tower
2. Replace the Unibody concept with beige plastic injection molding process
3. Square iPad
4. iPhone:the wristwatch
5. Bring Pearl Jam Bootleg series to iTunes

Of course there will always be new and improved models coming out each year as that is the nature of the beast. The Post Steve thing is total nonsense, we all know that he left Apple with a three to five year roadmap at the very least. If the products are redesigned next year it will be because it was part of the plan. There will certainly be an iPhone5 and an iPad3, each of which will most probably be redesigned. The iPod touch would follow the iPhone5 form factor. As for the Mac line-up, I can see Apple eliminating Optical Drives from the entire line which means they could redesign them all to be much slimmer. Business as usual at Apple...

High Tech Company has Product updates in development for all its offerings.

How is that news?

And what is meant by overhaul?

if Apple did NOT have prototypes and proposed design changes and new chip options etc etc in the pipeline for every product ALL the time that would be news.

There may have been a time when Apple was small enough that they had to move key people from one project to the next - but I would think they are big enough now and there are enough synergies between products - that they could afford to have simultaneous development going on in all areas essentially all the time.

For the present MacPro it only needs a (couple of) manufacturer to come up with a ThunderBolt card, to plug into a PCI slot.....

That can't be done.

This is why I think the next Mac Pro will be something unlike anything we have seen in a long time. The current Mac Pro design is really a throw back to a previous era. Here in 2011, SSD's provide high performance secondary storage instead of 3.5" hard disk drives. Also, Lion is quite happy without an optical drive, so why dedicate two 5.25" optical bays. Thunderbolt displays only work when the graphics are on the motherboard, so internal PCI Express cards are out of the question.

What does that leave you? A simple box with a power supply, three or four 2.5" drive bays, and some heat sinks. They could have a smaller box for a single processor and a larger box for dual processors. Kind of like the Quadra 700 and 900 released 20 years ago. This could give the Mac Pro a lower entry price point, but preserve the ultra high end for heavy users.

Here is how I envision the Mac product line by the end of 2012:

Macs:

• MacBook Air 11-inch - thinner at the thick end; potentially lighter
• MacBook (13-inch) - The replacement of the 13-inch MacBook Air, will be very similar to the current one
• MacBook Pro (13,15,17-inch) - MacBook Air styled, just with room for a dedicated GPU and better processor
• iMac - Mostly the same, obviously just with upgraded specs. I love the iMac design
• Mac Pro - Upgraded specs only + Thunderbolt
• Mac Mini - Spec update only
• XMac - Lolololol

If I were to purchase another Apple computer I would want it to be a Mac Mini with the SD card reader in the front and at a much lower price than the current model. Apple wants too much for the features it has. I configured one with the 2.7 GHz, 8 GB RAM, and the Magic Trackpad for $1168. Holy Cow!

$799 would be reasonable for this configuration.

They use the same case to streamline manufacturing/cut costs. Most of your costs aren't tied up in the case anyway. If they're making different cases each in small numbers, that could potentially drive the price up further. Also you can still use dual processors in a smaller case if you want to do so.

2.5" drives mean you can't use anything high in capacity. I actually don't think 2.5" drives are the future at all. There are a number of reasons. If you want maximum throughput you can saturate that SATA bus using 3.5" drives, and this allows the option for things like 2TB drives if you need higher capacities. If you want to get past that there are some OCZ drives that fit a pci card form factor. If you really want to max out throughput that is one way of doing it. I think you just don't understand computer design, so you're suggesting something that you would like.



The mini was actually engineered to be as compact as possible. When you're building a machine you make choices. With the mini they used full laptop internals to allow for a very compact and relatively silent configuration. Unfortunately some of these components are relatively expensive for the power you get there. 8GB of ram can be purchased much cheaper through a third party vendor. There are a few that are quite reliable for memory specifically. I see your point though. That price can feel high when this is built to be an inexpensive solution.

So buy this thing instead. $450~ bucks.

Whatever Digitimes thinks, they must be partly right.

We know iPad 3 is coming and we know IPhone 5 is coming while a MacBook Pro re-design has also been rumoured for some time now. So not really news at all.

This year was the year of OSX 10.7 and iOS 5 software with only speed bumps to existing hardware designs

Next year it will be hardware redesigns and incremental upgrades to its software.

In this respect, Apple is moving to an Intel-esque tick-tock 2-year replacement.

Would you be interested if they came out with a 15" MacBook Air? Even without DVD?

He did say it's future capabilities were limited and he's right. It lacks TB. If his usage has started involving a stronger need for better graphics, it would certainly be showing it's limitations.

Agreed. These rumors are nonsense. Just taking two of them on the merits:

1) The iPad 2 is simply an updated iPad...not a major step forward. There is no way they are going to release a stopgap iPad 3 in March and then a "real" iPad 3 in the September. Personally I expect a summer iPad 3 release with a screen Apple will call "Retina"---even though it may not be "truly" that sharp...it will still be loads better than current screen.

2) Getting rid of optical drives on MBP is utterly stupid. I use mine frequently, and I'd be really pissed if I had to buy an external drive just to rip and play a DVD.

I wonder what will happen with the iPod in the near future. With the iPhone 4 and the current Android phones the smartphone is mature and has no problems acting as a fancy iPod. Since all youth has smartphones these days the market for dedicated portable music playing devices is rapidly deminishing. iPods are becoming obsolete. This is especially true for the iPod touch, which IMO was just a 'try out' device to see how the iPad would 'work' in the market.

I don't care what it is made of or what color it is. If Apple came out with a mid sized mid range Mac I would buy it.

...

That said, I'm in no hurry, but my ideal next MBP would be 15", slimmer, lighter, faster and it would sport a nice and sexy optical drive. you hear that Apple?! please step away from the optical drive, thx.


That's a toughy, I would love a slimmer and lighter form factor, but not necessarily akin to a MBA. I wouldn't sacrifice performance, expandability or an optical drive for an ultra slim redesign of the MBP. In my opinion, MBP and MBA should not merge together as they both serve different purposes. And please don't say that I can always carry a SuperDrive, cause that just makes the system a lot less mobile.

For the next few years TB devices are gonna be mad expensive for the average joe. Granted his needs will outgrow his MBP eventually, but a 1.5 yr old MBP is not "showing it's age" already.

seek help

Yes, the Touch was a tryout device. It still is. Young kids want to get the Touch because costs much less and they want to have a piece of the apple magic touch environment. Their parents probably won't spring for the iPad, that's what grandparents are for!

I think we'll at least see something like the nano for a while. It's awesome for stuff like jogging. I'd hate to see that one go The shuffle lacks control which is the one thing I never liked about it.