I've been asking for the return of the Xserve including setting it up as a blade server for years.
It wasn't that they couldn't do the hardware/software side of servers, it was that they seem to have underestimated the amount of effort and cost of infrastructure required to properly support server products and customers, in relation to the relatively small market returns for doing it right. It was probably better that they dropped the product than bumble along doing it in a half-a$$ed fashion.
(This from conversations with someone who had spent 20+ years in a server-focused company, and left to work the Xserve product at Apple. Briefly.)
I've been asking for the return of the Xserve including setting it up as a blade server for years.
It wasn't that they couldn't do the hardware/software side of servers, it was that they seem to have underestimated the amount of effort and cost of infrastructure required to properly support server products and customers, in relation to the relatively small market returns for doing it right. It was probably better that they dropped the product than bumble along doing it in a half-a$$ed fashion.
(This from conversations with someone who had spent 20+ years in a server-focused company, and left to work the Xserve product at Apple. Briefly.)
I disagree. Apple's wheelhouse is hardware that provides an excellent general purpose end user experience in return for a high price. Enterprise needs such as very high performance and specialized applications aren't Apple's thing. Look, even with their end user products, people who have intensive or unique needs (i.e. hard core gamers) opt for Windows and Linux machines because Macs do not have the performance or support specialized hardware.
The same for enterprise software and platforms. Look at the issues that Apple has had with iWork, iTunes, Maps, iCloud etc. ... which they have had for years. Based on this, why do you think that they would be able to build competitors to Hadoop, Amazon AWS, Cisco UPC etc.?
Going into "true" enterprise stuff, the hardware and software that people put into their data centers and rack rooms, would require Apple to either build divisions to handle it from scratch, or to acquire an existing company. It isn't because there isn't any profit it: Intel, HP, Cisco, Oracle, SAP, Dell, Lenovo, IBM and the rest make their billions. The problem is that Apple becoming like them would require totally changing who they are now.
DED needs to hang up the pen! First WWDC has never been all about software. Hardware has always been part of the event be it new Macs, or session on supporting hardware features or new facilities. I know this may shock some people but there are developers out there building support hardware for Macs.
Second; an ARM based Mac wouldn't be a Mac if it ran iOS. The only way to be successful with an ARM based Mac is to deliver a machine that runs Mac OS as freely as current i86 machines. Why everybody thinks ARM can't run Mac OS is beyond me. Honestly folks just look at the machines running Linux just fine.
Funny, when you look at all the sessions they have (and the videos they post up after), they're pretty much all related to software. I'd say it's fair to state WWDC is primarily a software event.
Apple is a hardware company first and foremost, WWDC is always has a component focused on software only solutions but they also focus on hardware support. This is how USB-C, TB and other hardware initiatives get promoted, developers informed and so forth. To put it another way not all developers focused on the Mac are software developers.
DED needs to hang up the pen! First WWDC has never been all about software. Hardware has always been part of the event be it new Macs, or session on supporting hardware features or new facilities. I know this may shock some people but there are developers out there building support hardware for Macs.
Second; an ARM based Mac wouldn't be a Mac if it ran iOS. The only way to be successful with an ARM based Mac is to deliver a machine that runs Mac OS as freely as current i86 machines. Why everybody thinks ARM can't run Mac OS is beyond me. Honestly folks just look at the machines running Linux just fine.
WWDC = Worldwide Developers Conference
It is all about software... the KEYNOTE is sometimes about new hardware, but the conference is always about software - even if that means APIs to support new hardware.
You can't have one without the other. Further a developer could be focused on hardware and benefit from a trip to WWDC. If you have a company set up to move hardware, that is what you will see yourself as a developer of hardware. In most cases the software is a trivial consideration in the overall scheme of things.
Apple should also invest more effort into the Mac App Store, possibly acquiring or simply assembling suites of existing business apps specific to an industry, providing a turnkey package of apps for running a particular small business.
I'd personally like to see them put more effort into making iWork with less suck. The versions before they completely through out the old code-base in favor of porting the iOS versions was fantastic. Pages was my go-to page layout and word processing tool, and Keynote had me far more productive than PowerPoint could ever dream to be. And Numbers - well, Numbers was never all that capable, but it made amazing looking reports. That it still does.
However, they removed the #1 feature (linked text boxes) that made Pages such a great layout tool, and they removed the far-better inspectors from all the apps in favor of the less-powerful and more difficult to use format sheets. Meh. I miss having multiple inspector panes open, especially when performing complex animations in Keynote.
At the very least, give us back the linked text boxes and I can go back to getting work done...
Mac OS can run on ARM, but then people like me who run Windows in a VM 40+ hours a week would no longer be able to use it. Someone on this forum once tried to convince me that an ARM architecture would be powerful enough to run Windows emulated, but I don't buy it. It's also not quite the same as being able to virtualize. Perhaps I'm in the minority in my needs, but I'd be disappointed if Apple moves the entire Mac platform off Intel.
Two things...
Apple had to reboot iWork to make it cross platform compatible. This is the source of many gripes about Tim Cook's Apple versus Steve Jobs, who just threw shit out there as proof of concept. iWork was a complete mess when it was first introduced on the iPad. Half the shit you did on a Mac would not show up and was not compatible on an iOS device. The entire code base had to be scrapped and redeveloped. Yes, it's a pain in the ass, but it will get there eventually. This is not something that can happen over night - or even in a few years. We now have a version of iWork that works seamlessly across Macs, iOS devices and iCloud. Yes, not all features are on all platforms, but at least all changes show up across all platforms.
Personally, sacrificing a few features to make sure I can open and edit documents across all my devices was worth it. Nothing was more infuriating then opening a spreadsheet I made on the Mac on my iPad only to have it give me a list of changes that were not supported. It was awful and basically prevented me from using my iPad to do ANYTHING in iWork. Now, I have absolutely no problem creating, and modifying documents on my iPad or even on iCloud.
Second, modern x64 CPUs are at their heart RISC cores. They translate CISC instructions into RISC instructions. The "CISC" is still there primarily for backwards compatibility. There's absolutely no reason why Apple couldn't license the x64 ASIC (or buy a licensee) and translate those instructions into ARM compatible instructions. Even today Apple's ARMv8 CPU cores are extremely comparable to Intel's x64 cores. And with Apple's ability to optimize their OS with custom silicon, there's no reason why anyone would expect that OS X couldn't run more efficiently on an Apple designed CPU. You have to think about the fact that the A9X is an SoC with 3 CPU cores and 12 GPU cores and a bunch of other system silicon on a chip just a little larger as the entire of Intel's latest CPU offerings. Any ARM-based Mac could have an embedded x64 translator to make sure they remain backwards compatible.
I agree 100% about the state of iWork. Apple made the right move here even if it was painful. I do wish that they would rev the software faster but like you said it will eventually get there. Sadly Apple will need to reconsider some aspects of iOS, for example app scripting, to really be able to deliver the suite of iWork apps we all want. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Swift will play a roll in scripting of apps in the future. The delay in the API freeze though could mean that it is something that will be delayed at least another year or more.
As for ARM, I don't see ARM based Mac being for people that need i86 support. Back in 2007 when I decided to get back into Apple hardware i86 support was one of those things I thought I needed in my Mac. These days it is pretty obvious that I don't need for personal work. With the current Mac library of apps plus maybe the support of iOS based apps on the Mac you are fairly well covered. Thus for most users i86 support is meaningless.
This doesn't mean at i86 support isn't valuable to some by the way, just that the majority of users don't need that support anymore. Those that do will still be able to buy i86 based Macs for awhile.
As for processor comparability I think the A series highlights the most important aspect of considering ARM for future Macs. That is the fact that the silicon is where innovation happens these days. The A series is a perfect example of what can happen when a chip is tailored to a specific use case. People that don't think Apple would benefit from an ARM based Macs are denying what is obvious in the iOS space.
I've been asking for the return of the Xserve including setting it up as a blade server for years. Since Apple is working with both IBM and SAS, why shouldn't their be a small business server product available from Apple instead of having to use some linux server hardware from companies no Mac user likes. IBM dumped their small server division onto Lenovo so why can't Apple get back into the server business for Mac/iOS users? An Apple-ARM blade server could fit in something the size of an old Mac mini, with USB-C (Thunderbolt 3) as the main I/O port for storage and everything else. The new Apple server would need to be able to run a local version of iCloud so small businesses and families could make use of all the current and new iCloud storage capabilities without always having to go to Apple's servers when there isn't a reason to send your data outside your home or business (we're talking total encryption as well with adequate firewalls and intrusion detection capabilities). If Apple really wants to help people secure their data, then let's get back to being able to securely manage or local data.
This is fairly simple, Nobodynwas buying Apples server hardware, Jobs even said so. The problem is Apple isn't thought of as a server vendor and frankly doesn't have the infrastructure in place to support users of servers. I'd be shocked if Apple tried to get back into the server game.
Beyond that Linux is the defacto solution in the server world. Without strong support for Linux Apple would get near zero traction in this market.
Any ARM based Mac would likely not be a Ax series chip, that is a phone tablet focused design. It would likely be a different custom design with desktop class features such as pcie, gpu that runs at a high precision, thunderbolt, more USB support, etc. I wouldn't need all of the touchscreen or cellular silicon for example.
edit: can't believe I'm taking a DED article even halfway seriously..
Apple has only occasionally developed a new Ax chip for two devices in a year: A7/A8/A9 for iPhone/iPad/Apple TV and A8X and A9X for high end iPads. Each chip was used by projected volumes of 150-250 million iPhones and 50-70 million iPads (and reused in Apple TV, iPod touch, etc.)
Apple sells 20m Macs. So developing a real replacement Ax chip (a replacement family of chips, actually, ranging from efficient notebook chips to iMac Core i7 and Pro Xeon substitutes) for a Intel-laptop CPU would be an enormous undertaking involving huge risk, with the potential for saving some money across 5 million Macs per quarter. I think Intel would have to begin failing before Apple could justify making a move to building its own desktop class chips for Macs.
On the other hand, designing a single server blade processor that could efficiently install 6 deep on a single blade in a compact server environment would require much less work, and could deliver a big jump in CPU power/watt, and create a new market for millions of new computing engines. Apple certainly has the cloud data center demand itself, and it also has that sort of competency in having acquired PA Semi. Apple may surprise again by turning cloud computing into a commodity business running on its proprietary hardware.
The ARM processor solution doesn't have to go into all Macs! I'm not sure why people even think this. Further if you look at the Mac Book and its features, you will see that the A series chips already have everything needed to implement such a laptop. The traditional architecture would go out the door for one similar to an iPad. At best Apple would need to beef up the USB port (going to happen anyways) and make sure the chip can address the required RAM. Beyond that it is all there right now. It almost makes me think that Mac Book was designed with a minimalist approach to make it easy to move to A series chips.
I just want to say that this is one of the best tech speculation/review articles I have ever seen online. It's clear that unlike CNET you didn't just spend five minutes glancing at the specs page of the Apple website before writing an article that looks like one Apple paid them to write.
I don't agree with some of your ideas, but you provided a lot of original thought on the future of Apple products. I look forward to reading your posts in the future. Thank you.
Take a moment and think of "full screen" mode on a Mac and how that compares with the way apps work on an iPad. They are the exact same. Even in "El Capitan" we have the same split screen features when in "full screen" mode. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple has already set the seed to make Mac apps with "full screen" support compatible with iPads and vice-versa.
Apple has been training developers for a couple of years now to make apps adjust to specific sizes - it's going to pay off big time in the end.
Full Screen apps on Mac follow the iPad's convention of focusing the user on a single screen at one time. However, the frameworks to build Mac or iOS apps are significantly different, even though they share much in common. There's no way to "recompile" an iPad app to work as a Mac app, but an iPad app could be run in emulation on the Mac desktop. On the other hand, Mac apps that have a full screen mode may be leading developers to think more in terms of iPad style design, but that doesn't make them "compatible" with iPad hardware. Running a Mac app on an iPad in emulation would be much harder than the reverse--I hesitate to say impossible but nearly so.
I am not sure why the latest versions of OS X (Mavericks - El Capitan) have abandoned the one click rule. Full screen used to be one click in the upper right hand corner of just about every application. Now it takes at least 3 keystrokes. If that is the direction Apple designers are going, I don't think I am interested in the latest developments.
I can't recall whether I got a iPone, iPad or MacBook Pro first, but my first iPhone was a 4s. Since I've had the 5, 6, and 6s. My first iPad was the "2" first with a camera. I've had one newer version also. My. MacBook Pro is a early 2011 model. I've come to the conclusion that having a smaller size MacBook Pro would be better then dealing with both an iPad and a laptop. I almost made the jump to the Surface Book, but unfortunately Microsoft failed to deliver the hardware and software quality that was required to make the system viable. If I want to do anything productive I need the MacBook Pro. My hope is that Apple works for their users and make the MacBook Pro more like the Microsoft Service Book, except make it work. Keep the iPad for emailers and you tubers and let the MacBook Pro users do that and professional work. It seems the engineers should have the ability to make the MacBook Pro have a touch screen and a pen. Microsoft can almost do it.
App Stores (Mac App Store, iTunes Music & Movie Store, iBooks Store)
Optional larger font size - please!
Clip Book: (Added on March 28, 2016)
A clip book that lists the last 5 items copied to the clipboard.
When you select Edit Paste the last item is pasted in. When you
select Edit Clip Book you have the option to select which item is pasted
in. You should also have the option to paste multiple items in.
Clipboard history with optional continuity via iCloud. (Added May 19, 2016)
Clock App
Wouldn't it be great if OS X had a proper Clock app, with all the
functionality of the Clock app in iOS. The widget is fine, but a
dedicated app with Alarm, Stopwatch and Timer functionality for OS X
would come in handy. (Copied from MacWorld UK 5/15/2016)
Contacts:
Ability to resize the picture. Currently, the picture is very small.
Insert more than one picture into the contact. Example: Picture of spouse.
Larger font size options. Currently the fonts are so small many adult students have to switch glasses when they use Contacts.
Show a map snippet of the contacts location inside of contacts.
Custom Fields - Not having this is very frustrating. (A common
custom field is a Christmas List). This field is used to determine who
gets a Christmas card.
Alphabetic selection like iOS - The letter headings on the right
side of the contacts. Click on the G group for last names that begin
with G. Saves a lot of scrolling time.
Facetime:
Ability to leave a FaceTime voice mail.
FeedBack App for the Mac: (Credit to EcoFritze, May 13, 2016)
Copy the Windows 10 Feedback app.
This is really helping Microsoft improve Windows 10. Amazon is also
using a Feedback App for the Echo. Customer feedback works - my Echo
has already surpassed Siri in accuracy after only three months of use.
Finder:
Add option to have folders displayed at the top of the window (alphabetically but before all other files).
A Cut function.
Assign a specific color to a folder or as cqgraphicdesign put it "label a folder with a color" instead of just a name. (Added on March 28, 2016).
Show Hidden Files. This should apply only to the Finder Window. (Added April 21, 2016).
Grab:
Share: - Send to Photos (Added to list on May 19, 2016)
- Send to Email
- Send to Messages
- Send to Preview button after capturing a screen. (Added on March 28, 2016)
Currently, after capturing a screen you have to copy the capture,
open preview, Select new from clipboard before you can do anything with
your screen capture.
- Export in different formats such as jpeg and png.
Image Capture: (Added to list on May 19, 2016)
Needs a share option
Share to Photos
Share to Messages
Share to E-Mail
Extensions for Image Capture.
- Allow third parties to extend the functionality of Image Capture.
Mail:
Default viewing Scale (Zoom) - 125, 150%. Twelve point fonts are
difficult for many to comfortably read. Microsoft Word or Pages solves
this problem with a Zoom setting.
Highlight text in different colors like iBooks. Highlighting text is a great way of focusing students on the crucial issues. (Added April 8, 2016)
Tables to allow comparison and contrasts. (Tables are used all
the time in student email communications. Unfortunately, Mail does not
have this feature.) (Added April 8, 2016)
Option to Restore text descriptions under the icons in the New
Message window in mail. This has become an issue on large screen iMacs
because the email icons are very small. (Added April 11, 2016)
Maps:
Download maps for specific regions for offline use. For example,
Windows 10 allows you to download maps for the United States, Canada,
Mexico etc.) (Added April 8, 2016)
Messages:
An insert button (like iOS) to insert photos or videos into a text message without having to leave messages.
An option to configure Messages on the Mac to work like iOS Messages.
In iOS - Pressing enter moves to the next line of the message. Click Send when you want to send the message.
In OSX - The enter key sends the message. If you want to type multiple
lines in a message you have to press control enter for each line and
then press enter at the end of the message.
Notes: (Added to list on March 24, 2016)
Ability to set default font and size.
Highlight words and sentences like iBooks.
Font and font size selection as pull down menus, not a large separate window just to change a font size.
Insert tables like Microsoft OneNote.
Insert Arrows, lines etc with the text visible. (In iOS you can't see the text when inserting an arrow.)
Photos:
Clone Tool
Tonal Contrast like Google Snapseed for iOS.
Selective adjustment for certain areas of the photo. Google Snapseed for iOS is probably the best example.
Basic drawing tools in Photos would be very useful. Arrows, lines, Text boxes similar to Preview. (4/8/16)
Collage Function
- Collage needs the ability to move and resize photos on a sheet of paper.
- Insert Collage Title at the top of the page
- Insert Captions below each photo.
Uninstall:
When you trash an App it be helpful if it would find and trash all the files related with the App, like App Cleaner does.
Window Management:
Green button = Maximize window to largest possible size with Dock and Menu Bar visible
Separate Full Screen Button
Double click on Title Bar to maximize to content.
Window Snapping like Windows 10 (Aero Snap)
A setting to request that Apps remember Window position and size.
Window preview functionality similar to HyperDock or Windows 10.
Visual Elements:
Change colors of the Dock and Sidebars if transparency is turned off.
Translucency settings - Low translucency and high translucency.
Save AS:
Save As needs to be an option without pressing the option key. (Added to list - March 11, 2016)
Siri:
Ability to give Siri feedback via an app similar to Amazon's Echo app. Because of this feedback mechanism Alexa (Echo) has become far more accurate than Siri in only three months of use.
Health App: that
syncs with health monitoring sensors and displays and charts the data in
ways that can be easily exported and compared month to month or year
over year.
Restoration of Securing Empty Trash(Added to list - May 19, 2016)
i am trying to use two pages documents side by side- "this split view is not allowed"
Really? Works fine for me on a 2014 MBA. I haven't found a multi-window app that supports full screen that doesn't let me split screen it.
i think i found the "problem". if the original is a word file and the other is a pages file- they do not like it, i have to save the .docx file to a .pages file first. both are opened in pages, but only one is a .pages file. if i save the .docx one as a .pages file, then i can use split view. sorry apple- mea culpa.
I've been asking for the return of the Xserve including setting it up as a blade server for years. Since Apple is working with both IBM and SAS, why shouldn't their be a small business server product available from Apple instead of having to use some linux server hardware from companies no Mac user likes. IBM dumped their small server division onto Lenovo so why can't Apple get back into the server business for Mac/iOS users? An Apple-ARM blade server could fit in something the size of an old Mac mini, with USB-C (Thunderbolt 3) as the main I/O port for storage and everything else. The new Apple server would need to be able to run a local version of iCloud so small businesses and families could make use of all the current and new iCloud storage capabilities without always having to go to Apple's servers when there isn't a reason to send your data outside your home or business (we're talking total encryption as well with adequate firewalls and intrusion detection capabilities). If Apple really wants to help people secure their data, then let's get back to being able to securely manage or local data.
I really like Apple getting back into the server business. And I too believe in a small self hosting server appliance. It would be an iCloud Appliance, that gives you Email, iWork , backup etc all without going to their Server. It would be a front end to iCloud. Providing Email, Chat, Calander, iWork solution. This is a lot difference To OSX server which is not an appliance at all.
I don't mind if Apples servers are involved, but yes for small/medium business an iCloud in a box would be brilliant. Google apps for business is still putting all your data in Googles hands. Same with solutions built on AWS. The data is out of our hands and over an Internet connection at a minimum.
Apple let doing both the service and the hardware could keep the business data local but use iCloud to connect out of office workers into the data in a more secure fashion than most small to med business could organize.
App Stores (Mac App Store, iTunes Music & Movie Store, iBooks Store)
Optional larger font size - please!
Clip Book: (Added on March 28, 2016)
A clip book that lists the last 5 items copied to the clipboard.
When you select Edit Paste the last item is pasted in. When you
select Edit Clip Book you have the option to select which item is pasted
in. You should also have the option to paste multiple items in.
Clipboard history with optional continuity via iCloud. (Added May 19, 2016)
Clock App
Wouldn't it be great if OS X had a proper Clock app, with all the
functionality of the Clock app in iOS. The widget is fine, but a
dedicated app with Alarm, Stopwatch and Timer functionality for OS X
would come in handy. (Copied from MacWorld UK 5/15/2016)
Contacts:
Ability to resize the picture. Currently, the picture is very small.
Insert more than one picture into the contact. Example: Picture of spouse.
Larger font size options. Currently the fonts are so small many adult students have to switch glasses when they use Contacts.
Show a map snippet of the contacts location inside of contacts.
Custom Fields - Not having this is very frustrating. (A common
custom field is a Christmas List). This field is used to determine who
gets a Christmas card.
Alphabetic selection like iOS - The letter headings on the right
side of the contacts. Click on the G group for last names that begin
with G. Saves a lot of scrolling time.
Facetime:
Ability to leave a FaceTime voice mail.
FeedBack App for the Mac: (Credit to EcoFritze, May 13, 2016)
Copy the Windows 10 Feedback app.
This is really helping Microsoft improve Windows 10. Amazon is also
using a Feedback App for the Echo. Customer feedback works - my Echo
has already surpassed Siri in accuracy after only three months of use.
Finder:
Add option to have folders displayed at the top of the window (alphabetically but before all other files).
A Cut function.
Assign a specific color to a folder or as cqgraphicdesign put it "label a folder with a color" instead of just a name. (Added on March 28, 2016).
Show Hidden Files. This should apply only to the Finder Window. (Added April 21, 2016).
Grab:
Share: - Send to Photos (Added to list on May 19, 2016)
- Send to Email
- Send to Messages
- Send to Preview button after capturing a screen. (Added on March 28, 2016)
Currently, after capturing a screen you have to copy the capture,
open preview, Select new from clipboard before you can do anything with
your screen capture.
- Export in different formats such as jpeg and png.
Image Capture: (Added to list on May 19, 2016)
Needs a share option
Share to Photos
Share to Messages
Share to E-Mail
Extensions for Image Capture.
- Allow third parties to extend the functionality of Image Capture.
Mail:
Default viewing Scale (Zoom) - 125, 150%. Twelve point fonts are
difficult for many to comfortably read. Microsoft Word or Pages solves
this problem with a Zoom setting.
Highlight text in different colors like iBooks. Highlighting text is a great way of focusing students on the crucial issues. (Added April 8, 2016)
Tables to allow comparison and contrasts. (Tables are used all
the time in student email communications. Unfortunately, Mail does not
have this feature.) (Added April 8, 2016)
Option to Restore text descriptions under the icons in the New
Message window in mail. This has become an issue on large screen iMacs
because the email icons are very small. (Added April 11, 2016)
Maps:
Download maps for specific regions for offline use. For example,
Windows 10 allows you to download maps for the United States, Canada,
Mexico etc.) (Added April 8, 2016)
Messages:
An insert button (like iOS) to insert photos or videos into a text message without having to leave messages.
An option to configure Messages on the Mac to work like iOS Messages.
In iOS - Pressing enter moves to the next line of the message. Click Send when you want to send the message.
In OSX - The enter key sends the message. If you want to type multiple
lines in a message you have to press control enter for each line and
then press enter at the end of the message.
Notes: (Added to list on March 24, 2016)
Ability to set default font and size.
Highlight words and sentences like iBooks.
Font and font size selection as pull down menus, not a large separate window just to change a font size.
Insert tables like Microsoft OneNote.
Insert Arrows, lines etc with the text visible. (In iOS you can't see the text when inserting an arrow.)
Photos:
Clone Tool
Tonal Contrast like Google Snapseed for iOS.
Selective adjustment for certain areas of the photo. Google Snapseed for iOS is probably the best example.
Basic drawing tools in Photos would be very useful. Arrows, lines, Text boxes similar to Preview. (4/8/16)
Collage Function
- Collage needs the ability to move and resize photos on a sheet of paper.
- Insert Collage Title at the top of the page
- Insert Captions below each photo.
Uninstall:
When you trash an App it be helpful if it would find and trash all the files related with the App, like App Cleaner does.
Window Management:
Green button = Maximize window to largest possible size with Dock and Menu Bar visible
Separate Full Screen Button
Double click on Title Bar to maximize to content.
Window Snapping like Windows 10 (Aero Snap)
A setting to request that Apps remember Window position and size.
Window preview functionality similar to HyperDock or Windows 10.
Visual Elements:
Change colors of the Dock and Sidebars if transparency is turned off.
Translucency settings - Low translucency and high translucency.
Save AS:
Save As needs to be an option without pressing the option key. (Added to list - March 11, 2016)
Siri:
Ability to give Siri feedback via an app similar to Amazon's Echo app. Because of this feedback mechanism Alexa (Echo) has become far more accurate than Siri in only three months of use.
Health App: that
syncs with health monitoring sensors and displays and charts the data in
ways that can be easily exported and compared month to month or year
over year.
Restoration of Securing Empty Trash (Added to list - May 19, 2016)
Having just made the upgrade to El Capitan I hope the can do something about the horrible flat washed out look of apps overall. I can't tell where overlapping programs / toolbars stop and start. This flat UI is just retched.
Sadly Apple will need to reconsider some aspects of iOS, for example app scripting, to really be able to deliver the suite of iWork apps we all want.
The problem with that statement is that I think the group that actually is the "we" in the "we all want" is much smaller than you think. Most people don't want or need app scripting, it's the "power" (for lack of a better term) users who want and need that stuff, the vast majority of users have everything they need, and Apple knows this, they're just putting their investments where it counts most, appealing to the masses.
As for ARM, I don't see ARM based Mac being for people that need i86 support. Back in 2007 when I decided to get back into Apple hardware i86 support was one of those things I thought I needed in my Mac. These days it is pretty obvious that I don't need for personal work. With the current Mac library of apps plus maybe the support of iOS based apps on the Mac you are fairly well covered. Thus for most users i86 support is meaningless. This doesn't mean at i86 support isn't valuable to some by the way, just that the majority of users don't need that support anymore. Those that do will still be able to buy i86 based Macs for awhile. As for processor comparability I think the A series highlights the most important aspect of considering ARM for future Macs. That is the fact that the silicon is where innovation happens these days. The A series is a perfect example of what can happen when a chip is tailored to a specific use case. People that don't think Apple would benefit from an ARM based Macs are denying what is obvious in the iOS space.
ARM based Macs make no sense in my opinion. What makes much more sense is for Apple to put iOS into other devices such as laptops. If Apple had any intentions to port OS X to ARM, they'd have done it by now. To do it now would mean they have two OSes performing nearly the same functionality on ARM, for the masses iOS is right now is near parity with OS X. What I mean by that is the functionality requirements of an OS is being delivered nearly to its required end by iOS for the masses. What they need to do is add a bit more sophistication and maturity into iOS and it will perform everything most of the people on the planet would ever require in an OS, porting OS X to ARM would be a massive redundancy and totally unnecessary, not to mention a huge effort for Apple and other app developers to support, and as for the "they'll merge them" argument, that makes even less sense, they have two OSes running on two sets of devices that are well differentiated. OS X can remain the OS running on Intel chips for those that require more intensive or power user operations, iOS on ARM for the vast majority of the planet.
Last year Apple took the first step on a path to delivering an iOS laptop with a non-touch interface by shipping a rudimentary non-touch version of iOS in one of its devices, the AppleTV. tvOS is a non-touch version of iOS, sure rudimentary, but it easily forms the basis for an iOS-based laptop, that's surely an easier path for Apple to get a "desktop/laptop" ARM device than to port OS X, certainly the functionality is closer to meeting all the requirements of the masses, why complicate things by putting OS X on ARM, keep the two separate (like they have been). This makes much more sense.
WWDC will be exciting to see what they're incorporating into iOS this year and seeing how much closer it comes in parity to OS X functionality. iOS is their star, they're not going to suddenly demand people start looking at OS X, they're going to make sure iOS warrants all the attention of the masses by giving it most of the love going forward.
This is fairly simple, Nobody was buying Apples server hardware, Jobs even said so. The problem is Apple isn't thought of as a server vendor and frankly doesn't have the infrastructure in place to support users of servers. I'd be shocked if Apple tried to get back into the server game.
Beyond that Linux is the defacto solution in the server world. Without strong support for Linux Apple would get near zero traction in this market.
They'd be better off changing how people use a web server and avoid server hardware for anything but low-end use. Being able to setup a server is only applicable to a small amount of people. Being able to setup a web service can apply to lots of people. Some people just need file storage, some need databases, some need computing. One way to do this would be to have override containers. I think this is a design they can use for OS X in general (read-only system image).
Apple would offer a central OS X Server operating system and they would keep it updated. You would then rent a container, which would act as an override of the system. If you only need file storage, you just put files in it and don't deal with the system at all. If you need to run software, you'd install an app in your container and it would run with the constraints of the central system. If you need a custom system, you install every override required into the container to get that level of functionality.
On the consumer end, there can be an ARM-based Airport-like device for serving shared files and this can run iOS-style apps. The apps wouldn't run with a UI but when an iPad/iPhone/Mac is used to manage it, the device can show a UI of the app's output wirelessly to make it easy to debug what the app is doing on the server. They can have an app store for those kind of apps and these can be deployed to Apple hosting.
For example, a corporate email server would normally be difficult to setup and maintain. Someone could get a container from Apple and an app on the store, drop the app on the container and it becomes a corporate email server. Offline backups can be done very easily. If you wanted to run a web server, you install whatever software you wanted like Node JS, PHP etc and again, you only deal with the software you need to do the job.
clemynx said: I don't see why Mac OS should use a settings menu like iOS. Totally disagree on that.
I could see some benefits to it. The grid layout they use now restricts them to grouping unrelated items together and it means clicking into a preference and then going back out to the grid again. A list means you can quickly jump between different options.
It depends on how unified they want to make their UI between OS X and iOS. If there's to be more convergence between the two in terms of user experience, there's going to have to be more unifying of the UI elements.
iOS's icons are neater. Forcing round or rounded rectangle icons in the Dock would improve the layout, they'd just crop existing icons inside the shape:
Universal apps between iOS and OS X would definitely be beneficial so an API to easily transition between different input methods would be good and this can help with the Apple TV input. They'd have a best practise guide on how to design a single UI to work with multiple inputs and platforms. Then they can unify the app stores.
Software development on iOS would be good to see too so that iOS developers can target iOS and OS X.
One thing I wish Apple would do is decouple content libraries from their software. XCode is around 10GB now because they bundle everything. They should put out packages as small as possible. When you need to access documentation, it can open the pages you need online or download it at that point. When you need to target a platform for testing, only then does it need to download the relevant SDK. Same goes for Pro Apps. They don't have to bundle GBs of templates, just have an online template library that gets added to. If someone needs a template, they can download it. They hide these all inside the app bundles now so it's difficult to remove them to free up space.
They can go the IAP route with some of their apps too like not having Garageband and Logic, FCP and iMovie. Just make one free base app and offer purchases inside it for higher-end usage. It keeps everybody on the same file formats and projects and presumably it would simplify the development teams.
Their operating systems are at a mature stage, I don't really expect to see many major changes going forward. El Capitan does break some compatibility vs Yosemite so warrants a major release but it would be good if they focused on just making the system stable and reliable. A yearly release isn't needed because it takes 6 months to a year to iron out the bugs and then they put out another one with a new set of things to be fixed.
Marvin said: iOS's icons are neater. Forcing round or rounded rectangle icons in the Dock would improve the layout, they'd just crop existing icons inside the shape:
I’d rather have visually distinct icons. At a glance differentiation, you know? Something other than “blue circle”, “yellow circle”, etc.
Marvin said: iOS's icons are neater. Forcing round or rounded rectangle icons in the Dock would improve the layout, they'd just crop existing icons inside the shape:
I’d rather have visually distinct icons. At a glance differentiation, you know? Something other than “blue circle”, “yellow circle”, etc.
That is called color labels, and was available in Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard and before. See my previous post.
Comments
(This from conversations with someone who had spent 20+ years in a server-focused company, and left to work the Xserve product at Apple. Briefly.)
The same for enterprise software and platforms. Look at the issues that Apple has had with iWork, iTunes, Maps, iCloud etc. ... which they have had for years. Based on this, why do you think that they would be able to build competitors to Hadoop, Amazon AWS, Cisco UPC etc.?
Going into "true" enterprise stuff, the hardware and software that people put into their data centers and rack rooms, would require Apple to either build divisions to handle it from scratch, or to acquire an existing company. It isn't because there isn't any profit it: Intel, HP, Cisco, Oracle, SAP, Dell, Lenovo, IBM and the rest make their billions. The problem is that Apple becoming like them would require totally changing who they are now.
As for ARM, I don't see ARM based Mac being for people that need i86 support. Back in 2007 when I decided to get back into Apple hardware i86 support was one of those things I thought I needed in my Mac. These days it is pretty obvious that I don't need for personal work. With the current Mac library of apps plus maybe the support of iOS based apps on the Mac you are fairly well covered. Thus for most users i86 support is meaningless. This doesn't mean at i86 support isn't valuable to some by the way, just that the majority of users don't need that support anymore. Those that do will still be able to buy i86 based Macs for awhile. As for processor comparability I think the A series highlights the most important aspect of considering ARM for future Macs. That is the fact that the silicon is where innovation happens these days. The A series is a perfect example of what can happen when a chip is tailored to a specific use case. People that don't think Apple would benefit from an ARM based Macs are denying what is obvious in the iOS space.
I don't agree with some of your ideas, but you provided a lot of original thought on the future of Apple products. I look forward to reading your posts in the future. Thank you.
App Stores (Mac App Store, iTunes Music & Movie Store, iBooks Store)
Clip Book: (Added on March 28, 2016)
A clip book that lists the last 5 items copied to the clipboard.
- Clipboard history with optional continuity via iCloud. (Added May 19, 2016)
Clock App- Wouldn't it be great if OS X had a proper Clock app, with all the
functionality of the Clock app in iOS. The widget is fine, but a
dedicated app with Alarm, Stopwatch and Timer functionality for OS X
would come in handy. (Copied from MacWorld UK 5/15/2016)
Contacts:- Alphabetic selection like iOS - The letter headings on the right
side of the contacts. Click on the G group for last names that begin
with G. Saves a lot of scrolling time.
Facetime:Ability to leave a FaceTime voice mail.
FeedBack App for the Mac: (Credit to EcoFritze, May 13, 2016)
Finder:
- Add option to have folders displayed at the top of the window (alphabetically but before all other files).
- A Cut function.
- Assign a specific color to a folder or as cqgraphicdesign put it "label a folder with a color" instead of just a name. (Added on March 28, 2016).
- Show Hidden Files. This should apply only to the Finder Window. (Added April 21, 2016).
Grab:Share:
- Send to Photos (Added to list on May 19, 2016)
- Send to Email
- Send to Messages
- Send to Preview button after capturing a screen. (Added on March 28, 2016)
- Currently, after capturing a screen you have to copy the capture,
open preview, Select new from clipboard before you can do anything with
your screen capture.
- Export in different formats such as jpeg and png.Image Capture: (Added to list on May 19, 2016)
- Share to Photos
- Share to Messages
- Share to E-Mail
Default viewing Scale (Zoom) - 125, 150%. Twelve point fonts are difficult for many to comfortably read. Microsoft Word or Pages solves this problem with a Zoom setting.
Highlight text in different colors like iBooks. Highlighting text is a great way of focusing students on the crucial issues. (Added April 8, 2016)
Tables to allow comparison and contrasts. (Tables are used all the time in student email communications. Unfortunately, Mail does not have this feature.) (Added April 8, 2016)
Option to Restore text descriptions under the icons in the New Message window in mail. This has become an issue on large screen iMacs because the email icons are very small. (Added April 11, 2016)
Maps:
Download maps for specific regions for offline use. For example, Windows 10 allows you to download maps for the United States, Canada, Mexico etc.) (Added April 8, 2016)
Messages:
In OSX - The enter key sends the message. If you want to type multiple lines in a message you have to press control enter for each line and then press enter at the end of the message.
Notes: (Added to list on March 24, 2016)
- Insert Arrows, lines etc with the text visible. (In iOS you can't see the text when inserting an arrow.)
Photos:- Insert Collage Title at the top of the page
- Insert Captions below each photo.
Uninstall:
When you trash an App it be helpful if it would find and trash all the files related with the App, like App Cleaner does.
Window Management:
- Green button = Maximize window to largest possible size with Dock and Menu Bar visible
- Separate Full Screen Button
- Double click on Title Bar to maximize to content.
- Window Snapping like Windows 10 (Aero Snap)
- A setting to request that Apps remember Window position and size.
- Window preview functionality similar to HyperDock or Windows 10.
Visual Elements:- Change colors of the Dock and Sidebars if transparency is turned off.
- Translucency settings - Low translucency and high translucency.
Save AS:Save As needs to be an option without pressing the option key. (Added to list - March 11, 2016)
Siri:
Ability to give Siri feedback via an app similar to Amazon's Echo app. Because of this feedback mechanism Alexa (Echo) has become far more accurate than Siri in only three months of use.
Health App: that syncs with health monitoring sensors and displays and charts the data in ways that can be easily exported and compared month to month or year over year.
Restoration of Securing Empty Trash (Added to list - May 19, 2016)
Apple let doing both the service and the hardware could keep the business data local but use iCloud to connect out of office workers into the data in a more secure fashion than most small to med business could organize.
ARM based Macs make no sense in my opinion. What makes much more sense is for Apple to put iOS into other devices such as laptops. If Apple had any intentions to port OS X to ARM, they'd have done it by now. To do it now would mean they have two OSes performing nearly the same functionality on ARM, for the masses iOS is right now is near parity with OS X. What I mean by that is the functionality requirements of an OS is being delivered nearly to its required end by iOS for the masses. What they need to do is add a bit more sophistication and maturity into iOS and it will perform everything most of the people on the planet would ever require in an OS, porting OS X to ARM would be a massive redundancy and totally unnecessary, not to mention a huge effort for Apple and other app developers to support, and as for the "they'll merge them" argument, that makes even less sense, they have two OSes running on two sets of devices that are well differentiated. OS X can remain the OS running on Intel chips for those that require more intensive or power user operations, iOS on ARM for the vast majority of the planet.
Last year Apple took the first step on a path to delivering an iOS laptop with a non-touch interface by shipping a rudimentary non-touch version of iOS in one of its devices, the AppleTV. tvOS is a non-touch version of iOS, sure rudimentary, but it easily forms the basis for an iOS-based laptop, that's surely an easier path for Apple to get a "desktop/laptop" ARM device than to port OS X, certainly the functionality is closer to meeting all the requirements of the masses, why complicate things by putting OS X on ARM, keep the two separate (like they have been). This makes much more sense.
WWDC will be exciting to see what they're incorporating into iOS this year and seeing how much closer it comes in parity to OS X functionality. iOS is their star, they're not going to suddenly demand people start looking at OS X, they're going to make sure iOS warrants all the attention of the masses by giving it most of the love going forward.
Apple would offer a central OS X Server operating system and they would keep it updated. You would then rent a container, which would act as an override of the system. If you only need file storage, you just put files in it and don't deal with the system at all. If you need to run software, you'd install an app in your container and it would run with the constraints of the central system. If you need a custom system, you install every override required into the container to get that level of functionality.
On the consumer end, there can be an ARM-based Airport-like device for serving shared files and this can run iOS-style apps. The apps wouldn't run with a UI but when an iPad/iPhone/Mac is used to manage it, the device can show a UI of the app's output wirelessly to make it easy to debug what the app is doing on the server. They can have an app store for those kind of apps and these can be deployed to Apple hosting.
For example, a corporate email server would normally be difficult to setup and maintain. Someone could get a container from Apple and an app on the store, drop the app on the container and it becomes a corporate email server. Offline backups can be done very easily. If you wanted to run a web server, you install whatever software you wanted like Node JS, PHP etc and again, you only deal with the software you need to do the job.
I could see some benefits to it. The grid layout they use now restricts them to grouping unrelated items together and it means clicking into a preference and then going back out to the grid again. A list means you can quickly jump between different options.
It depends on how unified they want to make their UI between OS X and iOS. If there's to be more convergence between the two in terms of user experience, there's going to have to be more unifying of the UI elements.
iOS's icons are neater. Forcing round or rounded rectangle icons in the Dock would improve the layout, they'd just crop existing icons inside the shape:
Universal apps between iOS and OS X would definitely be beneficial so an API to easily transition between different input methods would be good and this can help with the Apple TV input. They'd have a best practise guide on how to design a single UI to work with multiple inputs and platforms. Then they can unify the app stores.
Software development on iOS would be good to see too so that iOS developers can target iOS and OS X.
One thing I wish Apple would do is decouple content libraries from their software. XCode is around 10GB now because they bundle everything. They should put out packages as small as possible. When you need to access documentation, it can open the pages you need online or download it at that point. When you need to target a platform for testing, only then does it need to download the relevant SDK. Same goes for Pro Apps. They don't have to bundle GBs of templates, just have an online template library that gets added to. If someone needs a template, they can download it. They hide these all inside the app bundles now so it's difficult to remove them to free up space.
They can go the IAP route with some of their apps too like not having Garageband and Logic, FCP and iMovie. Just make one free base app and offer purchases inside it for higher-end usage. It keeps everybody on the same file formats and projects and presumably it would simplify the development teams.
Their operating systems are at a mature stage, I don't really expect to see many major changes going forward. El Capitan does break some compatibility vs Yosemite so warrants a major release but it would be good if they focused on just making the system stable and reliable. A yearly release isn't needed because it takes 6 months to a year to iron out the bugs and then they put out another one with a new set of things to be fixed.