“We are anticipating that many of Apple’s laptop products will simply no longer have an optical drive of any kind but instead will have a multiple format flash reader slot and an iPod docking port. When docked, future iPods will have access to some notebook functions and be usable as a secondary display,” Rob Enderle writes for TechNewsWorld.
“With the market moving aggressively to laptops and Apple’s laptop numbers being particularly strong, expect most of the company’s [2006] design effort to be focused on making this new product stunning to look at and even more impressive to use. An instant-on feature, largely founded in Intel technology, will be common as will 802.11n and the elimination of the optical drive as mentioned above. A stronger tie-in to the ever more PDA-like iPod and stronger ties to iTunes like backend services should be present as well. This is where Apple will be taking its biggest gambles and, at least for now, those gambles look like good ones to me,” Enderle writes.
MacDailyNews Note: We hardly ever shut down our Apple PowerBooks. We just close the lid and they sleep. Open the lid and they’re “instant-on” in a sense already. So this is not that big a deal in portables; Macs have been “instant-on” for years thanks to Mac OS X. (We understand that “Sleep” isn’t “instant-on,” but our point is that for users it’s pretty much the same effect.)
Enderle continues, “As we have seen with the iPod, black is the new white. Expect Apple to begin the iBook’s color transition next year… PowerBooks will likely shift to a darker metallic or graphite finish to refresh the overall look and better mirror the more advanced image it has. The new PowerBooks line should also expand to the first 19-inch wide screen format product in the segment and the possibility of the first dual processor dual core laptop as well in this format.”
Enderle also predicts the future for Apple’s desktop lines and writes that he expects, “Apple to expand their line to include a 45-inch LCD display with LED lighting. The 45-inch LCD should come in below $5,000 and be more of an Apple showcase. They should have a 21-inch wide format for around $700, a 24-inch wide format for around $1,000, and a 32-inch wide format for around $1,900 in this time frame.”
Enderle concludes, “Overall, 2006 should be a very powerful year for Apple, but staying patient while we wait for the biggest product release since the original Mac will be almost impossible.”
Full article here.
Nary a disparaging word about Apple or the Mac platform from Enderle. While his predictions may or may not come true, this article’s tone is an interesting change nonetheless. We would like to see unique iPod integration into Macs. Apple should leverage iPod’s success as much as possible to make the Mac an even stronger logical platform choice for iPod owners.
Related articles:
Enderle: ‘Some people got really excited by the new iPod, but a growing number of people did not’ – October 19, 2005
Judgement Day waits for Rob ‘fourth quarter should be ugly for Apple’ Enderle – October 11, 2005
Apple Q4 05 earnings report: best quarter & best year in company history – October 11, 2005
Enderle expects black Apple Macs to debut on Wednesday, not convinced of video iPod debut – October 10, 2005
Tech pundit Enderle: ‘Microsoft wrote the first Mac OS’ – September 28, 2005
Anti-Mac FUD, the impact of Windows Vista on Apple, and Rob Enderle – September 22, 2005
Tech pundit Enderle incorrectly compares Apple’s Mac OS to iPod licensing – September 01, 2005
Enderle: ‘Surveys indicate demand for Apple’s products is dropping like a rock’ due to Intel switch – August 01, 2005
Tech Pundit Enderle: ‘fourth quarter should be ugly for Apple’ – August 09, 2005
Rob Enderle’s latest Windows Vista article is ‘vapid and incomprehensible’ – August 01, 2005
Enderle: ‘Surveys indicate demand for Apple’s products is dropping like a rock’ due to Intel switch – August 01, 2005
Enderle: ‘iPod Halo Effect is just a myth, same thing as having Paris Hilton visit Apple stores’ – May 02, 2005
Tech pundit Enderle: Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger’s main features ‘borrow heavily from Longhorn’ – May 02, 2005
Tech Pundit Enderle: ‘This year will be more difficult for Apple Computer’ and iMacs in earthquakes – January 24, 2005
Im scared. Since this doof is almost always wrong, this could mean bad things for Apple in 2006
What a dick! How are they going to have a powerful year when they’re going out of business, Bobby? He’s a giant douche stuffed into a turd sandwich.
I agree with hammer (don’t hurt ’em) – Enderle is always full of crap. His usual predictions don’t ever seem to match up with reality. It’s like Bill Gates coming out with his predictions like “In 5 years, no one will use a keyboard anymore.” Well, that was back in 1998 and he was wrong, but no one ever calls these assholes on their predictions.
Well, Enderle seems to be “expecting” quite a few changes from Apple’s 2006 product lineup.
Funny that he never mentions what he bases these “expectations” on…
No optical drive of any kind??
Seriously, I want to find the vet that is giving Rob his daily dose of horse tranquilisers because it’s clearly damaging his powers of reasoning.
Apple has, to all intents and purposes, committed to the Blu-ray format: people want to be able to watch DVDs and – soon – high-definition DVDs. People also want to be able to rip their CD collections to iTunes.
Is Enderle actually predicting that Apple will say that such functionality will only apply to desktop/home computing?
This is already being filed in my head, under “crackpot ravings” with a cross-reference to “delusional drug-addled nonsense”.
Seriously, there are David Bowie lyrics from the Seventies that make more sense than Enderle’s twaddle, and he was helping the horticultural by-product industries on two continents to survive and writing songs by cutting up sentences written on paper and joining them up again in a random fashion.
Badmouthing Apple will only make them look foolish since Apple is now the dominant trendsetter. Enderle, like Thurrot, sees the writing on the wall when Apple will become the next big thing.
These Microsoft shills are preparing to abandon Microsoft’s sinking ship or at least, they’re hedging their bets.
I wonder what flavor Kool-aid he drank
“An instant-on feature, largely founded in Intel technology…” – Rob Enderle.
Also, thanks to Microsoft Windows, there is the “instant crash” feature. What a quick way to shut down a Windows box.
Arent you guys shocked with this change of his tone toward Apple and the Mac in this article? I am, big time. Very interesting, maybe, just maybe he starts seeing the light …
Midnite says “Badmouthing Apple will only make them look foolish since Apple is now the dominant trendsetter.”
Since when has this stopped him before?
But will the new iBooks fall over in earthquakes?
I think Enderle reads the posts here on MDN and, after that last ‘howler’ of an article he wrote, realized he better get on some of our good sides!
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Anyway, his crystal ball is as cracked as his head, since I see almost nothing in his predictions that has a chance of coming to pass in 2006 (or maybe even 2010). The black thing is sort of a no-brainer, given how popular the color has been on the company’s most popular product. What would have demonstrated a little more insite on his part would have been to realize that color alone isn’t going to be enough for these new Macintels.
Jobs is going to want them to be as striking as possible on the outside, so I expect Carbon Fibre to be the next ‘cool’ laptop material – at least for the PowerBooks.
It’s almost a no brainer: Carbon Fibre is strong, lightweight, definitely won’t have the current Airport reception problems, and … well, it’s black. Naturally black. Which kind of continues the ‘natural finish’ theme the PBs have had for a while now.
Well, that’s what MY crystal ball says anyway.
I just got Rob’s latest article.
Apple’s Updated Power Mac’s will not work without being plugged in.
Rob goes on and saying “I am shocked without power the G5 quad Powermac is not functional’
Rob seems to be the first to report this. It’s late breaking Rob’s news
Here’s some more Apple commentary from Hannibal at Ars Technica:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051026-5486.html
As I recall, MacDailyNews likes to quote this person’s insightful articles.
Rob needs to lay off the Crack-pipe
No optical drive? What the hell? Did I miss the memo that cd’s and dvd’s and blu ray dvd’s are going to obsolete within a year?
I think flash drives are more convenient but they just aren’t large enough or cheap enough to replace cd’s or dvd’s. If I want to give my friend some music or a video or even some text documents I am going to use a cd because its cheap and expendable. Unless every single person I know, even the least tech savvy, buys a usb flash drive and carries it with them everywhere they go within the next year I’m going to insist on a cd burner. Unless I become 100% dependant on the iTMS instead of cd’s i need a cd reader and unless they make flash chips with a 50 gig capacity I will want a blu ray drive to watch high def movies.
Can anyone else see all of these things happening in 14 months? Plus multiple format flash readers are ugly, they are jumbled and a vizualization of inherent complexity of the format wars the asian manufacturers and currently waging. I don’t want to have to look at it and with Apple’s design standards I know they won’t ask me to. If one format emerges victorious, or if they can agree on a common size and shape Apple would build that in, they won’t give me a 9 in 1.
MDN word: else, as in “Anything else Rob? no mutant space monkeys to eat PC users brains?”
Abandon optical drives? After throwing their weight behind BluRay?
Most intelligent move there.
MW: “lot” as in “a lot of talk, but nothing to show for it”
“He’s a giant douche stuffed into a turd sandwich.”
hahahahahahaha
hahaha
haahhaha
funnies thing i’ve read all day. thanks for tha jfbiii.
Is Steve following the bicycle industry? First it was titanium, then aluminum and now carbon fiber. Will carbon fiber be in the next PowerBook?
Thanks, MCCFR, for hitting some of the points on Enderle’s idiotic idea that Apple will eliminate optical drives–but there’s more:
How will we install software? Is Apple including free broadband with all laptops so everyone can purchase software in downloadable versions? I hope they are acquiring a lot more servers and bandwidth for all those multi-gigabyte application downloads. And even then, wouldn’t they still have ship the printed manuals for pro apps?
What use is iLife if we can’t rip CDs to iTunes, burn DVDs in iDVD, make audio CDs of our GarageBand songs, or burn CD or DVD slide shows in iPhoto?
I could go on and on. I think what this lame prediction highlights is the MS/Windows vision of the user as a mere consumer (i.e. revenue source), not as a producer.
Enderle has cited the right technology regarding a flash-based instant-on feature, but he’s got the wrong purpose and the wrong products in mind. This is not a lap-top priority technology and flash memory is not about to approach the capacity of hard drives.
But think, where do the consumer electronic devices in your home already have “instant-on”?
The living room!!
Ever heard of a TV or stereo, Enderle?
Apple is going to be making its products, living room-friendly, and people who want to watch TV or listen to their music don’t want to wait for a computer to boot-up. The flash memory will not replace the hard drive, it will only work during the boot processes to make your “digital hub” (think Mac mini) turn on as fast as your TV set does.
The only reason Apple or any other computer manufacturer would put flash memory for instant-on in a lap-top, would be to save battery life, by using the flash for the boot-up process, which of course, would be very handy in a Windows laptop, of course.
Anyway, Enderle’s getting cross-eyed from looking at his PC so long, he hasn’t even noticed where the technology he’s correctly heard about is bound for– glory for Apple in the living room.
My source: MyMac.com Podcast #50 … Downloadable from the website and iTMS and RSS feed. I listened to it just before going to bed last night.
And dennis makes good points, too, about the need for optical drives for other reasons besides data access. Sorry I didn’t notice your post before… I would have prefaced my comment with an agreement with your post.
MDN MW = never
NEVER listen to Rob Enderle, even when he’s positive about Apple.
As MCCFR noted earlier, we make far more sense than Enderle. Your earthling “crack rock” has no effect on the workings of our minds.
Wow. I understand now. Enderle is a con artist. I mean this literally.
This guy’s entire career is based on spouting utter nonsense, but in a way that SOUNDS like he knows what he’s talking about. After all, the newspapers and media services don’t know the difference. As long as he has “credentials”, sounds techno-savvy, and is easy to contact, his ride on the quote-mill gravy train will never end.
I used to think he was just someone who had ill-informed opinions about Apple and a poor record of prognositication, but this article takes the cake. Enderle can’t POSSIBLY be stupid enough to believe the “no optical drive” crap. It’s all about sounding good and selling your drivel to newspapers.
You have to wonder if the media will ever catch on. I highly doubt they will.
my name is enderle and i am a b*tch.