“An interesting thread appeared on Reddit this morning from a supposed Foxconn insider who apparently has knowledge about various Apple products in the pipeline as they have seen prototypes pass through the factory,” Benjamin Mayo reports for 9to5Mac. “There are various tidbits about the iPhone 8, the Siri Speaker, future iMac design changes and dynamic e-ink keyboards for future MacBooks.”
“The Reddit mods have apparently verified the poster’s identity,” Mayo reports. “The same account previously broke news about a partnership with Sonder Design, which was later corroborated by the Wall Street Journal.”
“He claimed that the Touch ID will not be on the rear of the [“iPhone 8″] and the design resembles an iPhone 7 with thinner vertical bezels,” Mayo reports. “He firmly suggested that the device will not feature Touch ID on the back though, but that does not mean that an integrated screen fingerprint scanner is the replacement.”
“The source also says that MacBooks are only getting internal updates this year but more major changes are planned for future models,” Mayo reports. “This includes the dynamic e-Ink keyboards we have heard about before. The OLED Touch Bar would apparently remain for the function key row and the remaining keys would be ‘e-paper smart keys.'”
Much more, including information regarding Apple’s Siri Speaker, Augmented Reality glasses, new iMacs, and more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: A little birdie has been telling us for weeks that rear-mounted “iPhone 8” mockups are fake.
Problem with Apple is, everything is “in the future” ad naseum
How about now already (Mac Pro)???
Admitting for a moment that these are all rumors and therefore taking them all with a dump truck full of salt…
I’m OK with incremental bumps during June or calendar Q3 for the full MacBook line (MacBook, Air, Pro). If they just bring everything up to the state-of-the-art in all respects (CPUs, GPUs, RAM. storage, displays, etc.), I believe most would be happy.
I believe the same can be said of iMacs. It will be interesting over the next few months to see what the prosumer “iMac Pro” will be. But doing truly state-of-the-art rather than shipping six to 18 month old technology will be greeted by most, including me, as a major step in the right direction.
For the future…
I really hope the “e-ink” concept is a per key concept in that the labels on the keys change much like the original, onscreen “Keycaps” of the early Macs. But, if the “magic keyboard” of MacBook Pros goes to a capacitive touch keyboard like the iPad or iPhone, I’ll likely never buy another MacBook Pro for myself. I’ll use the last edition until it dies.
Just about bought an HP the other day.