Rampant Speculation Thread WWDC'13

[Essence_of_War]

Unless their lowest common denominator laptop GPU (read: whatever is in the MBA 11) can drive it... I don't think it is going to happen. There is also a possible issue with even having DisplayPort drive that... that's an absurdly high res.

Heh...I didn't really think carefully about the DP bandwidth restrictions.

Let me edit my previous prediction down to 3840 × 2160, which DP 1.2 can drive.

 

[GWestphal]

I think a rework of the iMac would be nice, make it like the Samsung 9000 series TVs, where the screen is like 3mm thick and all the hardware is in the base. I feel like that would be way easier to produce than all the curvy metal on the current model, it would also lower the center of gravity and make potential upgrades more user accessible.

 

[Mixolydian]

I think a rework of the iMac would be nice, make it like the Samsung 9000 series TVs, where the screen is like 3mm thick and all the hardware is in the base. I feel like that would be way easier to produce than all the curvy metal on the current model, it would also lower the center of gravity and make potential upgrades more user accessible.

You mean like this?

 

[fr]

You mean like this?

 

[Eug]

That would be awesome. If they brought that back, I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

 

[KeithP]

That would be awesome. If they brought that back, I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

Yes! That base would look really cool dangling from a VESA mount.

-Keith

 

[GWestphal]

Close but flatter screen (think 3-5mm in thickness, like only IGZO LED LCD or maybe even OLED and maybe a capacitive touch sensor if they ever decide to try it) and that fancy friction welded brushed aluminum bezel. Then have the base be a brushed aluminum rectangle with a vesa mounting hole built into the bottom and able to attach the base to the back of the monitor so it could be wall mounted.

All connectors would be on the back of the base. It would almost be a fusion of a Mac Mini with thin sexy screen.

If they wanted to be real hardcore they could make the screen WiDi and inductive power and it could be separated from the base entirely and not need any visible cables, just be within a 3-4 inchs of an inductive coil, for super minimal set ups.

http://db.tt/OWalExgw

something more like this^^^^^

 

[Kaido]

Retina Macbook Air with Haswell & 16GB RAM would be awesome. With a 768gb SSD option too :awe:

 

[Eug]

Yes! That base would look really cool dangling from a VESA mount.

-Keith

Meh. 99% of the iMacs are used with the standard mount, but the standard mount 27" iMac is not ergonomically ideal. In fact, I used to have my iMac on a VESA mount, to lower it a few inches.

That would no longer be necessary with the iLamp form factor.

 

[crab0]

It was bad enough in 2012 but 2013 MBA better have higher res *IPS* display, we're getting laptops like the Kirabook that can do MBA form factor (or lighter!) with HiDPi displays and every half-decent ultrabook is now 1080p IPS so a 1920 x 1200 IPS MBA is a very low bar to clear.

 

[Eug]

I think that is one of the differentiating features of the MBP over the MBA. The MBP has a better quality screen, and a pixel density that is more ergonomically appropriate for OS X.

Having the crappier screen doesn't seem to hurt sales of the MBA, probably considering the screen isn't actually bad. It's just not as good as the MBP screen. The MBA owners I know don't seem to care that the screen is worse. For some reason they just don't see that. All they seem to care about is that it has a relatively high resolution for its size, although a few do realize after the fact that the small text size on the Airs is rather squint-inducing.

 

[crab0]

Then make it IPS and keep the eh (IMO) res, I mean TN is really laughable in this day and age.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

I agree. Apple has really lagged this year in terms of innovation. They've been effectively playing it safe since Jobs passed. Incremental improvements to existing platforms is not going to cut it for much longer.

 

[TheStu]

I agree. Apple has really lagged this year in terms of innovation. They've been effectively playing it safe since Jobs passed. Incremental improvements to existing platforms is not going to cut it for much longer.

I will ask you the same things I ask everyone else that says this sort of thing:

What exactly would you qualify as innovation?
Who, in the year or so since Jobs passed, has provided such innovation that you have been seeking?
What time table would you like Apple to adhere to, what schedule of innovation delivery would fit your needs?
Please point to the manufacturer that ISN'T just providing incremental improvements to existing platforms.

How about the rMBP? First super HiDPI laptop on the market. The year isn't half over yet, and WWDC is literally less than a week away. Just hold your horses and wait and see.

 

[manly]

I will ask you the same things I ask everyone else that says this sort of thing:

What exactly would you qualify as innovation?
Who, in the year or so since Jobs passed, has provided such innovation that you have been seeking?
What time table would you like Apple to adhere to, what schedule of innovation delivery would fit your needs?
Please point to the manufacturer that ISN'T just providing incremental improvements to existing platforms.

How about the rMBP? First super HiDPI laptop on the market. The year isn't half over yet, and WWDC is literally less than a week away. Just hold your horses and wait and see.

The main problem is people think hitting home runs is easy because it seemed easy under Jobs. Even there, if you look at Jobs second reign at Apple, the true greatest hits collection (not counting incremental improvement) can probably be counted on one hand: iMac, iPod, iTunes, iPhone and iPad. So roughly one great or "revolutionary" new product introduction every 2.5 years, which is astounding but hardly predictable. (This is not to discount the great success of the Intel transition or multiple launches of OS X.)

Having said that, there is the thread in this forum that asked "Is Apple Stagnant?" and I'm sure there's some truth to that. Look at iOS the past couple years vs the development of Android. A couple years ago, industry talking heads loved to say "Apple has a two year head start on the competition". Not only is that no longer being said, it's debatable if Android has managed to surpass iOS (at least in some areas).

As for the rMBP, it's not a volume product so its importance is limited. From a business perspective, I hope that Apple stacking every product refresh into 2012 Q4 was a one-time occurrence. It sure looked like Tim Cook & Co. trying to hit Wall Street estimates rather than Jobs' famous disdain for WS and always sticking to his guns in doing what he thought was "optimal" for the company going forward. Having zero to very few product refreshes between February and August is pretty disastrous IMO.

 

[TheStu]

Having said that, there is the thread in this forum that asked "Is Apple Stagnant?" and I'm sure there's some truth to that. Look at iOS the past couple years vs the development of Android. A couple years ago, industry talking heads loved to say "Apple has a two year head start on the competition". Not only is that no longer being said, it's debatable if Android has managed to surpass iOS (at least in some areas).

I would argue that since Android was so far behind at launch that they had to move double-fast to catch up to iOS. Whether that velocity carried them and they have passed iOS... that's up for debate. I haven't used Android 4.0+ extensively, but I have read articles, of people switching to Android since it had finally caught up to iOS. I just re-upped a contract, so I'm not going to be checking out Android personally for at least a year and a half.

All that said, I think that iOS 7 is going to deliver the 'innovation' (read: window dressing) that people have been clamoring for and hold up as their evidence that iOS has fallen behind Android.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Except that on the rMBPs, you have your choice of effective resolutions, that meet or exceed the effective resolutions of their non-retina counterparts. The 15" allows for effective resolutions of 1440*900, 1680*1050 & 1920*1200 and the 13" allows for 1280*800, 1440*900 & 1680*1050.

Is DPI scaling ok on Mac OSX? I always heard the mantra of how you should always run at native res. Maybe that was a Windows XP thing because supposedly Windows 7 fixed things? Now how does it work on retina MBP?

Also how's the lag? I remember the last time I played with the Macbooks, they still felt quite laggy at their retina resolution. I love retina in terms of display quality but I hate lag. I'd rather go with a 1680x1050 MBP sometimes because I find that perfect for a laptop.

 

[manly]

I would argue that since Android was so far behind at launch that they had to move double-fast to catch up to iOS. Whether that velocity carried them and they have passed iOS... that's up for debate. I haven't used Android 4.0+ extensively, but I have read articles, of people switching to Android since it had finally caught up to iOS. I just re-upped a contract, so I'm not going to be checking out Android personally for at least a year and a half.

All that said, I think that iOS 7 is going to deliver the 'innovation' (read: window dressing) that people have been clamoring for and hold up as their evidence that iOS has fallen behind Android.

Considering the iPhone was a ground-breaking product, by definition everybody else was well behind of iOS at one point or another. But roughly speaking, if Google made up a 2 year deficit in... oh just about two years, that suggests iOS has been "stagnant". Arguably the two biggest memories of iOS 5 and 6 are the release of beta-quality Siri and Maps debacle, respectively.

There's no doubt uncertainty resulting from the sacking of iOS chief Scott Forstall (reportedly over the Maps flop) and replacing him with the chief industrial designer. Window dressing or premature beta-level feature releases won't cut it anymore. It's too late now to alter the tentpole features in iOS 7, but Apple really needs to step up its game in the face of Android's faster release cycles.

 

[Eug]

After having used Android 4 since last year for both my tablet and my phone, I'll say they have caught up in terms of features and even surpassed iOS in some regards, but aren't even close in terms of slickness of implementation. Android still feels VERY rough around the edges in comparison, so much so that I'm likely switching back, at least for my phone. I'll probably stay Android for my tablet, but only for easy non-iTunes video playback.

Yeah iOS needs a kick start, because it is not good to rest on one's laurels, but overall I'd still say Apple is fair bit ahead.

 

[TheStu]

Is DPI scaling ok on Mac OSX? I always heard the mantra of how you should always run at native res. Maybe that was a Windows XP thing because supposedly Windows 7 fixed things? Now how does it work on retina MBP?

Also how's the lag? I remember the last time I played with the Macbooks, they still felt quite laggy at their retina resolution. I love retina in terms of display quality but I hate lag. I'd rather go with a 1680x1050 MBP sometimes because I find that perfect for a laptop.

My friend has the rMBP, it looks native at every res. He also says that the lag is not an issue, and he's a nit-picker, so I trust him. I haven't used it for more than a few minutes though, it's his precious.

Considering the iPhone was a ground-breaking product, by definition everybody else was well behind of iOS at one point or another. But roughly speaking, if Google made up a 2 year deficit in... oh just about two years, that suggests iOS has been "stagnant". Arguably the two biggest memories of iOS 5 and 6 are the release of beta-quality Siri and Maps debacle, respectively.

There's no doubt uncertainty resulting from the sacking of iOS chief Scott Forstall (reportedly over the Maps flop) and replacing him with the chief industrial designer. Window dressing or premature beta-level feature releases won't cut it anymore. It's too late now to alter the tentpole features in iOS 7, but Apple really needs to step up its game in the face of Android's faster release cycles.

Forstall was fired (allegedly) because he wouldn't apologize. Apple needed to do their own maps, and at a certain point they had to get it into the public's hands. Maps itself is not a debacle, but how they handled the whole thing was. They touted it as being amazing and perfect, and awesome and instead it was not any of those.

Siri... they made it clear that it was beta from day 1, so of course it was beta quality. I don't use it a whole lot, because it is still in beta. They need to open up the API and make it faster. Google's Voice Search on iOS may or may not be faster (I think it is), but it feels faster because it starts doing stuff right away. It's transcribing it live in front of you which really make it feel like it is more responsive.

At the end of the day, I mostly agree with you, Apple needs to step up their game. But now that Android is catching up to iOS, I don't think it is going to rocket past for a couple of reasons, and will instead just sort of level off.

 

[Kaido]

Is DPI scaling ok on Mac OSX? I always heard the mantra of how you should always run at native res. Maybe that was a Windows XP thing because supposedly Windows 7 fixed things? Now how does it work on retina MBP?

Also how's the lag? I remember the last time I played with the Macbooks, they still felt quite laggy at their retina resolution. I love retina in terms of display quality but I hate lag. I'd rather go with a 1680x1050 MBP sometimes because I find that perfect for a laptop.

I would really like to see some sort of software vector scaling, maybe off an ARM-based co-processor to alleviate the processing load off the CPU. I work with a lot of older people (40 to 70 years old) who either wear glasses or have poor eyesight - having an OS-side scalable resolution while retaining the native LCD resolution would be awesome. One trick I'm using now at work is getting those cheap $279 28" 1080p LCD monitors - that way they get a nice, large screen with big, readable font sizes, without having to change the native resolution and make it blurry or fuzzy, or mess with the DPI settings and make the interface look weird.

That would be huge.

 

[Eug]

The Retina MacBook Pros look best at native resolution. However, the non-native resolutions look pretty damn good too, and most of my beef with the non-native resolutions has nothing to do with it being non-native. In fact, the retina MPBs are the first ever mainstream laptops that look good in non-native resolutions. It's just that those non-native rezzes are at ergnonomically inappropriate (virtual) pixel densities which is why I don't like them as much.

I've harped on the issue of ergonomics and pixel densities before, but it applies more to the iMacs in reality. The problem with the iMacs is they have two sizes, with fixed screen heights, and only a single fixed viable pixel density option for each iMac. The 27" is a big problem IMO. Retina iMac would solve all these problems... but the resolution would be hella high and hard to drive.

I personally would consider buying a 21.5" Retina iMac though, but then again, the 21.5" has a more ergonomic pixel density (and screen height) already.

 

[Kaido]

My guesses are:

1. New Mac Pro
2. Retina Air
3. 10.9 beta to devs

Maybe a 5S & iWatch thrown in.

 

[Eug]

My guesses:

New Mac Pro
New MacBook Airs, but not retina
New MacBook Pros, with retina
iOS 7 beta
10.9 beta
iRadio stuff
802.11ac Airport Extreme
802.11ac Airport Express
802.11ac Time Capsule
Thunderbolt display with USB 3.

Not everything above of course. Pick and choose.

No iWatch.
No iTV.

 

[Mixolydian]

My guesses:

New Mac Pro
New MacBook Airs, but not retina
New MacBook Pros, with retina
iOS 7 beta
10.9 beta
iRadio stuff
802.11ac Airport Extreme
802.11ac Airport Express
802.11ac Time Capsule
Thunderbolt display with USB 3.

Not everything above of course. Pick and choose.

No iWatch.
No iTV.

Oooh, I forgot about 802.11ac! Yes please! I already have a capable router.