mpantone

This contradicts an earlier rumor speculating a Home controller in the first half of 2025. 

We have been over this before. If Apple is going to launch this platform, they need to have the requisite software infrastructure in place. Not just HomePod's OS but also iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, etc. It would be well documented with multiple APIs so third party developers would be able to access the environment.

We know that infrastructure does not exist at this point. Thus, if Apple unveils this infrastructure at WWDC 2025 in June, then it should considered an upcoming release. But until Apple unveils this software backbone, it's just pure speculation. And not just one paragraph in a press release. It would be several APIs, lots of documentation, source code examples, WWDC breakout sessions, etc. And if indeed it's some sort of hardware device, most likely there would be engineering samples/dev kits loaned out to the bigger players for development purposes (under NDA until Apple launches the thing).

Apple cannot just release some sort of Home Control controller or touchpad without adequate and robust software support.

Apple doesn't just upload a press release to PRNewswire and it becomes a done deal.

We will know in June if this is going to happen. If they announce nothing, you can mothball this rumor for another 17 months (until June 2026). It's rather silly to speculate on this now since there is little indication of any meaningful development.

Personally, I think Apple has more than it can handle with Apple Intelligence right now based on the way they have metered out new features. Any sort of home control integration project is likely several years away. Hell, Apple can't even offer synchronized Apple Intelligence feature parity on both iPhones and Macs right now (e.g., Genmoji on Sequoia is still Work In Progress).

It's important to stress that Apple can't just release it and say "Come and get it." It's not 2017 anymore when the HomePod was announced. Today's consumers have far higher expectations on what home control systems should do in 2025. These controllers must support a much larger variety of devices from various manufacturers today than 7-8 years ago. It's not just some smart speaker controlling your Nest thermostat or telling Alexa to add toothpaste to your next Amazon order.

One glaring omission from macOS is any semblance of health monitoring.

All of today's consumer health monitoring innovations have been driven by smartphones. It started with activity trackers on iPhones and other smartphones. A lot of this really required an always-on data connection (like in smartphones) as well as gyroscopes and accelerometers (like in smartphones) and GPS chips (like in smartphones).

How many of those are in the typical notebook PC?

Apple considers itself a software company and I agree with that. But it's a software company whose software runs best on their proprietary hardware. Apple's best, most innovative, and most important software is iOS which only runs on iPhones. But Apple finalizes the hardware before finishing the software. The hardware comes first.

Apple's greatest innovation in the 21st century is the iPhone. Anyone who thinks otherwise is still living in 2005-2010.

Steve introduced the iPhone in 2007 as "the computer for the rest of us" then went on to remove Computer from the name of his own company. Today the revenue from the iPhone, iPad, and wearables dwarfs the Mac business unit.

Pretty much every single consumer-facing technology we have today has been driven by smartphones because they are the primary computing modality of today's consumers and have been for 10+ years. We've gone over this before, things like NFC contactless payment systems (which actually started on Japanese featurephones a few years before smartphones), biometric identification systems, computational photography, touchscreen displays, et cetera ad nauseam. Not all of these originated on the smartphone but mainstream popularity was pushed by smartphones.

Even today, you have macOS trailing iOS in features (this is particularly notable in biometric ID, Apple Intelligence feature rollout). Apple even debuted the M4 SoC on a handheld device (iPad Pro) rather than sticking it in first in a MacBook. The Retina Display showed up first on an iPhone. There are countless examples of where the iPhone leads the Mac, where iPhoneOS/iOS leads OS X/macOS.

Like clockwork Apple releases new iPhones every fall and lets the high-end Mac Pro fester years and years (where one might expect PC innovation to occur). What has Apple done on the Mac side in recent years? Let's see, they've removed the Touchbar, released a jumbo Mac mini called the Studio, and finally released a long-overdue Mac mini in a smaller form factor thirteen years after they discontinued their last model with a built-in 5.25" optical drive (which was the main reason for the old size).

Meanwhile, Apple spends far more time, effort, and resources on iOS than macOS. This is completely obvious if you pay attention to WWDC.

iPhone/iOS is where to see where Mac/macOS is going.

Some tech journalists and pundits hold on tightly to their "personal computers are king" mentality but those days are long gone. Staying in the past just ends up being less relevant as time goes by. I'm a longtime Apple computer user (i.e., pre-1984) and I still own a Mac. But I don't look at my Mac as where the innovation is happening.

Time to stick a fork in this petrified paradigm because the rest of the (sane) world already did a decade ago. This article might have sounded less nutty in 2010. Today it's like an SNL parody of a tech article.

blastdoor said:

mpantone said:

This is such a strange statement from AMD, Apple was using integrated graphics in their early Intel-powered notebooks.

Today's Apple Silicon is a descendant of the A-series SoCs so it's not like Apple had the sudden epiphany of integrated graphics when they launched the M-series silicon.

This AMD guy is trying to take credit for something that wasn't AMD's doing. It's worth pointing out that Apple also used discrete Nvidia GPUs years ago. His braggadocio is nonsense.

So weird.

APU isn’t just integrated graphics. It’s GPU compute in the same memory space as the CPU. Apple first used opencl i(ie, gpu compute) n 2009 on the Mac and released metal in 2014. The first PowerVR GPU to support opencl was from 2011. 

Integrated graphics on Intel CPUs use system memory, just like the CPU cores. Anyhow, this AMD guy is trying to take credit for something that wasn't pioneering. And how is AMD's APU business doing (other than videogame consoles)?

The fact of the matter is its not an original concept by far. Many teams were working on this simultaneously. Remember that SGI had unified memory architecture (UMA) in their O2 workstation in the mid Nineties. It wasn't feasible to put this all in one package back then; it just took time and then there were multiple versions from various vendors.

The silicon concept was not revolutionary. Apple was brilliant enough to put it in a smartphone "the computer for the rest of us" and focus on the software. Joe Consumer doesn't really care whether or not all the transistors in the same package or not, as the AMD guy mentions. Consumers care what it does.

Anyhow in a couple of weeks, Apple will announce another quarter of great results and this AMD guy's comments will be a faint memory for all but a handful of industry pundits. We know he's playing buzzword bingo at CES but c'mon now.

My guess is Apple is pivoting away from scripted shows and moving more toward sports since the latter have more broad appeal worldwide. Something like "Severance" is going to appeal primarily to a limited demographic that has a connection to the Western corporate world. I lived that experience and I don't have any interest in reliving it. Been there, done that.

The entire film industry is at a crossroads driven by streaming and post-pandemic consumer behavior. The recent SAG/AFTRA strike didn't help spurn the industry either.

Apple's Services revenue continues to grow and while they don't split out the individual components, most likely Apple TV+ is growing. As American college athletics moves to a new model in the coming years and the emergence of newer sports and leagues worldwide (3on3 basketball, pro soccer in the Middle East, women's pro leagues, maybe flag football, skateboarding as a televised sport), that's where the clear growth is.

Hell, Apple can't make the same shows it made four years ago. The world's entertainment tastes are changing at a far faster rate than in previous decades. On-the-go content consumption is the biggest driver. Once again, it's important to acknowledge that the smartphone is the main driver in consumer electronics innovation today because it is the primary computing modality for Joe Consumer in 2025.

One thing for sure, the entertainment continues to evolve and if Apple (or any other player) wants to remain relevant and solvent, they need to adapt to the tastes of contemporary viewers (which translates to ages 13-29). The days of people just planting themselves in front of the TV to watch "Friends", "Seinfeld" or "LA Law" are long gone.