mainyehc

Hank2.0 said:

Considering the ever increasing computational power being put into iPhones, I'm surprised Apple hasn't played with the idea of a processor-less iMac or MacBook where you would slide your iPhone into slot and it would act as the processor, if you get my meaning.

Why would they do that (at least branded as an “Mac”, and not as a glorified display/hub)? Apple wants you to buy as many fully-fledged, standalone devices as possible, and they reward you accordingly with whatever performance their TDP and thermal envelope allows.

What a stupid, stupid prototype… Great idea (no, really), terrible execution (and not because it looks ugly, but because it was a dead end, as it was so very well put in the article).

ArianneFeldry said:

It's taken about 20 years for Unreal to be the juggernaut it is today. That you think Apple can just walk in and make something to compete with it in a year or two is laughable. What, are they going to put more money into Metal? The failed API that was supposed to invigorate the gaming industry on Apple devices? Meanwhile gaming on MacOS has been reversing with the lack of 32-bit support and the ARM transition has killed VR development on Mac's with SteamVR no longer being updated for the platform. 
Throwing money at something does not equate to success. If it did we would be using Windows Phones and Cortana would be the go-to voice assistant. And Rosetta 2 running faster than native code? I highly doubt that. 
Stop exaggerating Apple's accomplishment with market valuation, and stop underestimating Unreal.

Who’s to say Apple doesn’t have an internal game engine prototype already laying around in some secret lab?

As for Rosetta 2 running translated x86 code faster than an equivalent Intel-based Mac could do natively, don’t count that out… Don’t forget that those demos at WWDC were made on an iPad Pro SoC, not on a Mac-specific design.

Also, if you’ve been an Apple user long enough, you should remember how MacBooks, Mac Pros and Intel iMacs and Mac minis were in some cases faster at running PowerPC code translated on the fly with Rosetta 1 than their G4 and G5 counterparts were natively. No one is arguing that Rosetta 2-translated binaries (which, mind you, undergo that process during installation, and not at runtime) run as fast as ARM binaries on Apple Silicon…

WarrenBuffduckh said:

lordjohnwhorfin said:

If switching the Mac to AppleSilicon is not disruptive I don’t know what is. The amount of planning and flawless execution in a large number of areas is staggering.
The article is also minimizing the AirPods when they are in their way just as disruptive as the iPhone and the iPad have been.
Innovation at Apple is alive and well.

Contrary to what you assume, AS is continuity innovation - improving existing products in an existing line of business.
Disruptive innovation would require existing business to be disrupted/substituted by new and more comprehensive/immersive product(s)
Like superseding iPod by iPhone, or Mac/iPad product lines with something revolutionary new like the TouchMac, that would cannibalize existing business to launch something bigger and better.
The current Apple (via Catalyst, TouchBar and other compromises) is avoiding the TouchMac as much as it can, now that it has become more dependable to the immense, existing volumes the giant, defensive incumbent as per Tim’s strategy leaving disruptive innovation to leaner, more flexible (startup-) companies.
For example, it will avoid foldable phones (that would challenge/risk iPad sales) as much as it can, until competitors will prove it to be a new indispensible category too which it then will respond.
Note: Samsung is amongst them - it can attack Apple in this arena as it has less to lose in the tablet category
Project Titan had the aim of disrupting the car industry, but it never materialised

Or maybe Apple will let the “leaner” companies (nevermind calling Samsung “lean”) throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks (spoiler: it never does, not really), with shitty materials and/or execution, while they toil away in secret perfecting their own killer, market-dominating approach.

You people seem to forget that the iPhone wasn’t the first big-screen phone (most of them had resistive and/or plastic screens, instead of the Gorilla Glass capacitance screen Apple ultimately went with), the iPad wasn’t the first “tablet” computer (though its predecessors were all really crappy Windows-based affairs), the Apple Watch wasn’t the first smartwatch, the AirPods most definitely weren’t the first Bluetooth earphones, yadda yadda.

Apple will only make a foldable phone if it can produce a screen that doesn’t have to be treated with… even more care than current Apple products; Apple will also go for a touchscreen Mac that actually makes sense from an ergonomic and functional standpoint, probably something like an iMac/Surface Studio hybrid thing. The thing is, Microsoft’s attempt always cost an arm and a leg for an outdated, IO-lmited, thermally constrained machine; with Apple Silicon and all their new technologies such as SwiftUI, Catalyst, etc. – which I’d finally consider as a factor of convergence, not divergence/preservation of the status quo as you posit –, perhaps it will finally make sense to run touchscreen and even pen-based apps on a Mac.

Heck, you already can do so with Side Car, and while Apple will gladly sell you both a laptop and a tablet, big touch/stylus screens are impractical as mobile products and there’s definitely a market for them on, incidentally, a niche where Apple is already extremely strong and well covered when it comes to software support.

I’m not sure whether Wacom is a publicly traded company or not, but if it is and I had some stock, I would get rid of it entirely, STAT. Sure, über-rich pros might still buy a Cintiq and a Mac Pro, but just imagine how affordable a 5K touchscreen iMac would be by comparison… It would actually become much more accessible to the education market, small businesses and freelancers on a tighter budget. And, yes, it would be much more luggable than a Surface Studio or a Cintiq and a Mac Mini if it was built like a giant iPad with a foldable kickstand (I’m keenly aware that I’m just describing a giant Surface Pro at this point, funnily enough; what changes the whole paradigm is the software, the silicon and the ambition, really). It’s not like art students aren’t already used to carry unwieldy A2- and A1–sized briefcases full of paper, and sometimes even larger media. With Intel chips, Apple could only ever cobble up, by design, something very conventional or otherwise crippled in some way; that’s why they didn’t even bother with redesigning the iMac, and that’s why they apparently effed up with the thinner MacBook Pros (it wasn’t Apple engineers who screwed up; Intel screwed up – and accidentally screwed them over – further up the supply line)… With Apple Silicon… who knows what they’ll come up, really?

Objectively and geometrically speaking, the leaf design is way too similar and it’s on the same side. Also, its angle is similar, only mirrored. Apple does have a bit of a leg to stand on here, I’m afraid.

And no, I’m not (just) a fanboy, but a future PhD in design, and even an undergrad with a keen eye would spot the similarities right away… This isn’t much different from spotting plagiarism in typography, you just have to overlay the curves and see how well they match. Do you want me to?