“Apple has a lot to do to top 2014,” Shara Tibken reports for CNET. “This year, Apple introduced larger screen iPhones, showed off its first wearable and launched a mobile-payments service. That was on top of updates to its Mac and tablet lines and improvements in its mobile and computer software. Apple also made its biggest acquisition ever by spending $3 billion on headphone maker and streaming music provider Beats.”
“In many ways, Apple next year will be building on what it announced in 2014. It will finally release the Apple Watch in retail stores and will expand Apple Pay and other services,” Tibken reports. “It also will release new variants of its popular iPhones and iPads. But it could make some important tweaks to those devices, such as including a Retina Display in its MacBook Air or making a bigger screen iPad, which could attract a new group of customers.”
Seven major things we expect — or at least hope — to see from Apple in 2015:
1. Apple Watch
2. Bigger iPad Pro
3. IBM partnership and business users
4. Ecosystem expansion through Apple Pay, HomeKit, HealthKit and other services
5. Music plans with Beats and iTunes
6. Retina MacBook Air
7. Something we’ve heard nothing about
All seven points discussed in the full article here.
And a new small-form-factor, full-featured iPhone (update to the 5s).
1st priority; make sure the quality control on iOS and OSX gets back to where it should be. The list of things in the article, in the end, are all dependent on that.
And OSX should be number one, there is no iOS app content created without it.
This topic got beaten to death yesterday.
Not enough in my opinion. Keep hitting.
A 5K monitor for the “New Mac Pro”!!!
Along with updated Mac Pro’s (especially with faster Thunderbolt) so die-hard Mac graphics types like me don’t migrate (to our necessary disgust) to an HP z840 Workstation.
I find that as cool as the “black garbage can” design is I still like the older big tower Mac Pro design too and faster than Thunderbolt 2 PCIe3 16X is now standard on high end PC’s. 4K needs all the speed it can get.
What external interface *TODAY* is faster than Thunderbolt 2? And, the z840 lists even a single TB2 as optional, not standard.
Further, the marketing for the z840 is a bit misleading, they talk about “up to 10 hard drive bays”, but, until you get into the details, they fail to mention that most of those are in external enclosures. And yes, you can get up to 32 cores in a multiple CPU configuration, but by the time you add that you are priced well above any MacPro configuration.
I believe Apple is waiting on the next generation Mac Pro until there are graphics cards *shipping* that directly support DisplayPort 1.3 and support 5K monitors at 60 Hz or higher refresh rates. Yes, it will have the next generation Intel processors. Yes, it will likely come with up to 2 TB of PCIe based SSD storage with external enclosures from third parties supporting as much SSD or spinning disk as you want. No, it likely won’t have a multiple CPU configuration, but what percentage of users not directly doing true High Performance Computing (HPC) actually NEED more than 16 cores (32 concurrent threads)?
When Apple first shipped the current Mac Pro last year, it was THE price/performance leader in its class. You couldn’t even put together a Hackintosh that met the most tricked out Mac Pro on price/performance. Today, a year later, technology has moved forward. By mid 2015, the technology will have moved even further. Expect a new 2015 Mac Pro and maybe a standalone 5K monitor by then. And, expect it to be the price/performance leader in its market segment once again.
I hear what you’re saying and I would be loathe to switch but when I read this and think about my needs with 4K video, graphics, 3D, etc.:
“Thunderbolt 2 has no where near the bandwidth of a true PCI3.0 16x slot. Thunderbolt 2 maxes out 20 gigabits per second. PCI express 3.0 has 16 gigabytes per second aka 128 gigabits per second.”
Now like Firewire vs USB what is theoretical speed vs. actual practical speed bandwidth I don’t know. But this sure is a wide disparity. And then this from a friend of mine who won an Academy Award for a little film called STAR WARS and is no tech slacker:
“Do not get into Thunderbolt. It’s a PCie 2 implementation. Both the size of the pipes and the latency will drive you nuts when you try to get smooth 4K uncompressed playback with the 2014 Mac Pro. I’m just getting by with the 2012 MacPro PCie 16X slot and 16 drives. Apple boned it’s “pros” when it cut them off from the PCie 3 world.”
Speed wise PC’s seem to be noticeably faster than Mac Pro’s. It PAINS me to say this. I am no fan of Windows and in fact friends of mine would find it hard to believe I’d be thinking this. Anyone else have thoughts on this?
Yes. Apple has really been out to lunch in the monitor department. It has been way too long.
“Something we’ve heard nothing about”
Really covering the bases, aren’t you?
Well, it is the most intriguing of the 7 things listed. (Maybe HomeKit, which has been forgotten about since the “house” built outside the convention center at the last big announcement.) After all, the rest are already old hat, right?
Adoption of new bidirectional C connector USB 3.1 standard?
New Apple TV with apps, 4K, new UI and an Apple gaming controller?
Please: a return to the beauty and elegance of the old desktop iTunes jukebox.
It’s been an ugly clunker for so long, I barely use it.
+2K
Mac mini that’s expandable, has an i7, and runs NEW os that let’s you choose 3d-glass if you want.
Seriously? MDN, why post this crap? Apple Watch? Wow, you’re going out on a limp here……IBM? Wow, surprise….amazing that they saw that coming, something else. Yes, simply brilliant! Sure why not something else, that could work….
Shameless……