Apple teases there is 'a lot to look forward to' in 2012 - Page 2

or just a new itv . . . . . . . \

So has there ever been any proof of that, or was it just another bad rumor?


Why in the world would Apple make a television. That's not even a question.

Tim Cook heap honest white man, does not speak with forked tongue.

Me think you will eat your words by end of year.

Edit: I see on re-reading you are talking about 'the finance guy' who has no idea. Ok, but still I think Tim Cook is saying that there is something revolutionary coming this year. If there isn't, I'll eat my words.

If anyone puts an iTV on the market, it will be iTV ( http://www.itv.com ), and no, they won't sell their trademark to Apple. iTV has very aggressively defended its mark and has put Apple on notice twice; once for an internal code name, and the second time because of bloggers like this one. Notice how protective they are: no one else has taken action against Apple BEFORE Apple's product is on the market.

On the other hand, Apple might put out an Apple TV.

I'm skeptical of an Apple television set just yet. This is not 1951. There are very few households thinking about buying their first TV. Almost every TV sold is a replacement for an older one. Since the switchover to HDTV is still quite recent, the market for a set-top box is going to be larger than the market for a replacement TV for the next year or so.

Those new Apple TV icons are pretty, but harder to use. There are too many choices on the screen at once, and it is not as easy as the old UI when you are using a remote control. It takes more clicks to select something than before. This is slavishly copying the iPhone for no good reason. As soon as you get past the buttons, the UI is unchanged. What is the benefit in sacrificing usability for similarity?

Meanwhile, where's the Mac?

Which has absolutely no legal power behind it, but yes.


Exactly.


Why would you have expected to hear anything about anything but the iPad yesterday?

You do realize that the CPUs in the iMacs are desktop CPUs right? Laptop graphics and RAM, desktop HDD and CPU.


As far as that rumor from last year about Apple making changes to their entire product line being ambitious, why the hell is that ambitious? We all knew that Ivy Bridge was coming out, we know Apple hasn't kept an iPhone body longer than 2 phones to date, the iPad had a few very minor physical changes, etc. Of course they will refresh their entire product line. Large changes will certainly come to the laptops. I think the iMacs will still be basically the same, but I think they may kill the MP and replace it w/something else, the same way the Power Mac was replaced w/the Mac Pro. It will be something a bit smaller, still with expansion possibilities, but then 4 USB3 and 3 Thunderbolt. If they stick to Xeons, prices won't come down much (if at all), but if they make smaller units that would certainly cost less due to less materials.

Meanwhile he thinks the Mac Mini will be getting a desktop chip.

I didn't expect to year anything about the Mac yesterday. I was just remarking that it has been a long time since there's been an event about the Mac (meaning MacBook Anythings, iMacs, and MacPros). I'm eager to replace my MacBook Pro and my iMac, both of which came with Tiger, but there have only been incremental technology updates. Retina displays and 802.11ac wifi are close enough that I can't justify replacing them just yet.

I already have an iPad2

I was going to buy the new iPad BUT because it doesn't support Siri I'm NOT going to purchase one until it does.

If Steve had been around he would have told the Siri group to get their finger out and get it ready for the new iPad

what a disppointment for me

Only thing I would be looking forward to is an XMac.

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Be prepared for something wonderful, then. Soon. It's a shame that it all comes at different times, though.

So Ivy Bridge will give us a standard performance bump, sure. But we expect a case redesign and line combination (at least, I do the latter), removing the optical drive entirely. Finally.

The next update will be Haswell (or will there be a speed bump on Ivy Bridge first?) in 2013. Haswell is expected to give us TWENTY FOUR HOURS OF BATTERY LIFE. I mean MY STARS. Can you IMAGINE. That's a paradigm shift for laptops right there. I also expect Retina screens at the same time.

So yeah, we'll see some good stuff coming with laptops in the next year or so. The Mac Mini will get an Ivy Bridge bump sometime, and hopefully the next iMac release also drops the ODD.

And then there's the question of the Mac Pro, which should (didn't say will or even might) drop the ODD, too.

I want Apple to pull a G3 iMac with the next Mac Pro. Complete case redesign inside and out, drop all legacy connections (okay, keep PCIe accessible), eight Thunderbolt ports, no optical drives. Make the computers themselves daisy-chainable. You want more power? Buy another computer and plug it in. Your model three years old now? Buy a new model and daisy-chain to the old one. Sure, your power draw goes up appreciably, but you'll have their combined power if you want.

IF this is correct it would go someway to really boosting the momentum of Macs being dragged along with the iOS halo (and the brilliant stores of course.)

Macs have been outpacing PC growth for how many years now?

A 'retina' Mac would be a compelling upgrade to have in eg Macbook Airs/Pros with HiDPI screens to really put the boot in the PC market and tear a hole in HP and Dell in the process. If Apple can do this and keep prices the same then they can ward off any potential flattening off of growth vs the PC market.

I'd sell somebody else's kidney for a retina iMac. (I doubt they'll hit this year?) But If we now have retina screens in a mass volume 10 inch product like the 'New' iPad...surely the 11 inch (and maybe the 13 inch) MacBook Air can't be too far behind?

The iPad's sheer volume should drive adoption and make these screens cheaper over time.

Lemon Bon Bon.

I hope you're right. I take it you're referring to the:

iPad 7" OMG what are we going to call this one now

or maybe the

iPhone OMG we can't call it the 5 now so we gonna confuse everyone by calling it nothing.

I wish Steve was still with us.

I only agree with this in the sense that Steve wouldn't have allowed "the new iPad" on the website as a delineator between models.

I'm exceptionally glad they're dropping model numbers entirely and happy to have been wrong about their ability to do so despite selling multiple years' worth of product at once.

Maybe we will finally see a Mac Pro Mini Tower

I think what happened is that half the management team wanted to call it the iPad 3 and the other half wanted to call it the iPad HD, which why we had so many conflicting rumours. In the past Steve would have stepped in and made the decision but I think maybe Tim Cook just wimped out and decided to call it nothing rather than risk further infighting amongst his management team.

Me too, but I'm also really impressed with Tim Cook's air of complete competence and intelligence.

Also, I think Apple's most revolutionary product is yet to come, and Steve was in on it, and Tim Cook knows a good thing when he sees it and can get behind it and flog it mercilessly. Don't know if it will come this year, but we need it now, whatever it is.

The xMac will never exist.


I highly doubt that. Sounds more like iPad 3 was just the common sense name assumed by the rumor community and iPad HD was a false name put out to catch leaks.

The thought of Tim Cook wimping out doesn't jive with how the rest of the universe works.

Some good points. Ivy Bridge is going to really help products like the Mini and the integrated crappics of the Air. There's been some 'reasonable' gaming benchmarks for Ivy Bridge. (It varies according to the game...) Maybe the days of 'sucky' integrated graphics are coming to an end.

With Ivy Bridge being able to driver ever higher resolutions I do wonder about HiDPI Macs arriving eventually... Maybe in 'Macbooks' 1st.

Where you had me really nodding my head was on the iMac G3 comment re: the next Pro. It's due a bit of a kicking. It's about time something on the Mac line took at design beating. Most of the designs are almost Xen like...perfect in a sense.

But the Mac Pro's mandate may well have been overtaken by time. If the Mini and laptops can pack the power they do in such a tiny footprint and the top end iMac pulls around the lower end Mac Pros then it's time for a change. And no face lift either.

Something a bit more compact. Something to appease up all the X-Mac placard wavers. A bit like the king is dead...long live the king.

I hope Apple has something up it's sleeve on this one.

The Pro is a good design. But with no significant changes in nearly a decade that really is taking the p*ss.

Lemon Bon Bon.

Might this include facetime over 4G? Or the ability to facetime with non iPhone users? You'd think by now Apple and the carriers would have that figured out. Maybe they're saving it for the new iPhone? But if your first introduction to 4G is on the iPad why not include facetime as well?

FaceTime over 3G is overdue. If Apple/Jobs can be lambasted for anything it's the direct statements that FaceTime would be open sourced and that FaceTime over 3G would come "next year", meaning sometime in 2011. I seem to recall statements that they had to get with carriers to allow all their protocols for realtime QoS of FaceTime calls but I would have preferred if they would have said "We're working with carriers to try to get FaceTime over 3G within the next year."

You can FaceTime with non-iPhones. iPod Touch, Mac and, of course, the iPad are all FaceTime ready.

FaceTime only over 4G doesn't make much sense at this time due to the limited availability. I'd think adding it to 3G or better would be the best option.

I must say I'm not really looking forward to the coming years of "Steve would have never done this."

"I don't like that shade of green! Steve would have never allowed it! I don't like that word choice! If only Steve were here to align with my desires!"

Also, get set for a whole new level of concern trolling (we've seen some already on this thread): "Too bad about the rot starting to set in. Apple was great under Steve, but look at the kerning on that web page! Look at the position of that port! Look at the timing of that announcement! Steve would have never allowed it, and it suggests Apple has commenced their inevitable decline!"

Speaking of which, "the new iPad" isn't some deathless bit of ad copy that suggests a failure of imagination, it's a new naming convention that puts the iPad on par with PowerBooks and iMacs. No one gets upset when Apple touts "the new iMacs" or wonder if that means the next ones will have to be "the new new iMacs." It's just the latest model of an Apple computing device. Claiming that this is a blunder that wouldn't have passed muster under Steve is a tad bizarre, IMO.

I bet they drop the "Air" and just go with "MacBook" and hopefully put the same radios inside as iPad.

Picture a MBA with LTE, GPS, Retina Display. Boingyoingyoing!

I believe the "?" in my post denotes that it was actually a "question" not even a statement let alone "another bad rumor"

Being gay is a bad rumor? 1954 called they want their destructive ideologies back.

Yes, bad as in the rumour was stated to be pejorative or libelous, not that being gay is bad.

Have to agree with this about 30 times over.

Did anybody see Gruber's link to the worst case of this reptilian thinking today?

http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/07/ap...nd-unraveling/

Jolie I-forget-her-name takes issue with the colorful Apple logo at the end of the presentation, and the name "new iPad," and some other nitpicking.

I say reptilian because it's amygdala thinking, or not-thinking, that produces the need to see the Apple animal as crippled and vulnerable. It certainly isn't rational or empathetic-supportive. I think it's secret envy and the scheming of a carrion feeder, but that may be going too far.

They say this at least twice a year every year.

No, the question mark denoted your question about the colored Apple logo. You went on to make a implicit statement about Tim Cook and homosexuality.

For the record, I think that logo's beautiful (maybe sharpen it up a little) and wouldn't be opposed to seeing it more, but I still prefer a solid color for products and the stickers that accompany them.

Got it... I was like WHA?!?!


I like the logo too. But I don't know if it got that 'classic good look' so to speak. It looks hip which is good for 2012. Not so hot for 2015. But I seriously do wonder if they were literally trying it on for size and gauging public response. The probable truth is that Tim is more stressed than he thought humanly possible.

There's no going too far with this line of thinking, friend.

The animosities that Apple engenders are so atavistic and primal that you have to reach for visceral language to capture the essence (which I believe you have done).

It's no mere tech rivalry or personal choice triumphalism that powers all that bile and hatred around the internet. It involves a level of projection-- onto Apple, its products and its customers-- that sometimes seems borderline racial. Apple and its customers aren't just full of themselves or misguided or poorly informed-- they're a kind of loathsome untermenschen polluting the precious bodily fluids of more robust, straightforward, freedom loving people-- people who are free of the artifice and degenerate tendencies of urbanites, homosexuals, intellectuals, artists, and other such untrustworthy types.

Really, it's kind of unnerving how well certain long standing resentments map onto Apple hatred. Unnerving in that its borderline insane and very widely subscribed to. Small wonder that certain parties would revel in any signs that this hated cult is to shortly be brought low.

It's disturbing how much some people disregard the effects of a team effort and only credit one person. If he and the rest of their management staff couldn't bring in real talent and interesting design staff, you wouldn't have these products. I think the perception of what he added is really distorted. You can look at when he returned to Apple, but fewer people seem to mention how many people he brought along or recruited after that point.


Well they were warned. I doubt the potential legal battle is worth the trademark for Apple. The iTV thing really just grew from idiot analysts anyway, the same ones that get flamed on here when they criticize Apple.


If we see any truly major changes on the mac pro end, Haswell would be about the time i'd expect them given the trend toward lower power consumption and more parts being integrated into the cpu. I don't believe them on laptops. Their marketing guys seem to believe that white papers are intended only for ass wiping. The daisy chaining thing has been done for some time, but it's still annoying to set up. You need some kind of queue management for distributed tasks though, and I don't know how well thunderbolt has been tested as this kind of interconnect. Regardless given the amount of things people expect thunderbolt to do, it really needs more than one port to accommodate stranger setups or situations where placing a display at the end of the chain doesn't work well (some displays haven't even run off it properly).


With something like a laptop I could see such a change with a generation like Ivy Bridge both to boost sales on a more moderate upgrade generation and to test the setup before Haswell. This places nice selling points on each hardware generation. In a tower especially given that Intel tends to release Xeons later in a year, I wouldn't expect such a thing before Haswell. We're still waiting on Sandy Bridge E which could be partially held up by newer gpus that aren't yet shipping in volume given that Apple will not want to update these at a later time. What's a bit weird is that we went from first or second quarter Xeon releases to a much later release cycle which really made for a drawn out refresh cycle even before some of the delays. I wouldn't expect much of an Ivy Bridge E from Intel before early next year, but I haven't seen their Haswell projections. I don't think they'll make any logic board changes on mac pro logic boards for Ivy Bridge once again, so whatever it is for Sandy Bridge E will carry over to that generation. If you see something refactored, I'd expect it in 2013 to 2014.

Much of what they do is likely to be relative to what Apple feels makes a suitable accompaniment to their idevices. I can remember many people who owned or still own something like a mac pro and a laptop. If the portable device paradigm becomes the ipad, what then becomes a suitable accompanying device? The ipad is nice, but many of its limitations are similar to older laptops. You have a lack of storage space, and what you do have is slow. You lack some of the ports and IO options. It lacks some of the real number crunching ability, and it's still definitely lower on ram which is a more significant issue there given the inability to cache to storage. Okay my post is getting too long.

Well for this year anyways. But a Mac upgrade is in my future and I'd like to get back to a desktop machine and frankly an XMac is the only avenue towards that. Otherwise a laptop will have to do.

As a side note, it will be very interesting to see the physical size of that new iPad battery. The question is how much bigger is it physically? If not large enough to make up the power profile then one has to wonder about chemistry. This is a big IF but if the chemistry was improved significantly then that might indicate very significant improvements to all of the laptops. That is loner run times with out size increases.

Another thing is it really looks like many bugs in Safari and iOS have been cleared up. At least based upon a couple of hours running 5.1 on my iPad has demonstrated faster and far more glitch free operation. This stabilization of the code base should make it far easier to deliver new hardware and software features. I haven't looked at what is happening with iOS 6 but Apple should be free to add features enmass.

Considering that AMDs Fusion GPU still whips the IVy Bridge GPU I'm not convinced that Intel is capable of stepping up to the plate. It is certainly possible to find examples of IB-GPU doing well in 3D but generally the Fusion GPU in Llano significantly outperforms it. Further if Apple does go wil high res LCDs driving those screens will likely burn any performance gains to be seen in IB.

The question becomes how much do you loose going to HiDPI . Up the performance wit a new GPU and then burn all of that gain with more pixels.

Appple needs to do something here.

I don't like to think of myself as a placard waver!! Rather I look at modern technology and just see a huge un tapped market.

That must be one of those British phrases that never made it across the Atlantic. As to the Pro the big issue is the legacy crap and the lack of a low end solution.

I intend to buy a couple of new desktop Macs this spring/summer. Maybe one Mac Mini and one Imac. Do you know which website has the best guide to when new models will be released?

None. Because we cannot possibly know. You'll know the dates after which they CAN be released if you hit up Intel's site and check the road map for release dates. We don't know the desktop Ivy Bridge release date yet, I don't think.

But being able to tell when Apple is releasing a new computer? That's folly.

Hi Tall, thanks. So Apple won't release desktops until Ivybridge is released?

Absolutely not, that's right.

Laptop chips are coming out first, I believe, so we'll see a new MacBook family first. And since the Mac Mini isn't as important as the MacBooks, it'll probably be refreshed alongside the iMac (despite the iMac using desktop chips and the Mac Mini using laptop).

But again, who really knows. It's all speculation. We DO expect the optical drive to be dropped from the rest of Apple's lineup and we DO expect the 15" and 17" to get redesigned.

Personally, I want the 13" MacBook Pro discontinued and the lines merged into one. Name? Just MacBook. Sizes? Four: 11, 13, 15, 17.

Yet Llano gets smoked hard on anything involving the CPU.



If you're taking the piss then you're just fucking around or for "taking the piss out of someone" you're giving them a hard time.


Basically.