“Apple is in a bit of a rut right now — some may even say it’s boring,” Mike Murphy writes for Quartz. “Recent rumors suggest that the company won’t be significantly overhauling its flagship product, the iPhone, in 2016, effectively shifting its upgrade cycle from two to three years.”
“The highest-profile new thing the company is working on seems to be its own headquarters, a massive cylindrical campus it’s building in Cupertino, California.,” Murphy writes. “Like a lot things Apple has produced recently, the second version seems to be where the company has perfected the product. The spaceship-like Apple Campus 2 is going to have the largest piece of curved glass in the world, a carbon fiber roof, thousands of trees on acres of green space, and reportedly will cost about $5 billion when it’s all finished.”
“But there’s certainly more in the works than that. Apple has been spending increasingly more on research and development in the years since it first launched the iPod and the iPhone,” Murphy writes. “According to renowned Apple scoop-machine Mark Gurman, speaking on a podcast last weekend, 2017 is going to be a massive year for the company.”
Here’s a short list of the products that the traditionally secretive company is rumored to be working on:
• A Siri version of the Amazon Echo
• Another wearable
• Wireless headphones
• Virtual reality
• A car
• Robots
Each bullet point above discussed in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote back in April:
The second half of the year should look better than the first.
No upgrade for the Mac Mini?
Apple will probably cripple it trying to cut costs and gain profits. I think I bought the last of the good ones a few years ago. A late 2012, 2.3 GHz Quad-Core i7 which now runs El Capitan with the best of them. It’s been running 24/7 since I bought it without a whimper. That was an excellent MacMini and it was very highly rated by reviewers. I think I paid about $649 for an Apple refurb and now they’re going for a lot higher price.
I wish I’d bought two of them. They make excellent Kodi media center devices. Even 1080P videos barely move the processors’ needle. It’s definitely over-powered for that use.
Agreed. Just replaced the SSD part of the original Fusion Drive in my late 2012 mini with an EVO 850 and it’s even better than before. It seriously punches well above its weight.
Best Mac mini ever!
=:~)
The future for Apple is more disposable consumer electronics.
Macs and Pro software will continue to be given lip service but no real advancements.
I sincerely hope you’re wrong. But Cook lost my confidence a long time ago as Apple sits on its laurels.
Nothing on the list above impresses me. I just want insanely great products again. If you cannot deliver that with your current line-up of products, why would I want a new product paradigm from you? Give us updated Macs. Give us OS’s that just work. Give us cloud services that just work. Apple, I have been using your products for years. The quality is slipping. Fix this now!
I’m sure Apple needed a new campus but that seems to be an awfully expensive undertaking. I know Apple has the money but still… I sure hope it becomes a very productive environment once it’s up and running. I’m sure all the critics have something negative to say about Apple WASTING money on some headquarters when they could have been spending that money on R&D or buying some Washington politicians.
It’s not the money.
It’s the diversion of time and focus.
Since Apple’s profits were about $52 BILLION last year, their new headquarters is costing them the equivalent of about ONE WEEK’S worth of profits! What other company can get away with moving into a new HQ that only took them ONE WEEK to afford?!?
Being able to afford something is not the same as making a good choice.
We all know that Apple is expanding and needs new, consolidated office space. So what has Apple done? It is building a veritable Taj Mahal at a price per square foot more expensive than any building in Manhattan. And when it is finished, it will be too small to house the staff the Apple currently has. Apple leaders’ hubris has gotten in the way of good judgment.
Moreover, building the architectural edifice has obviously taken too much attention away from better investments. Rollout of new products has slowed to a trickle of iOS gadgets. Software quality and GUI has plumeted. Services across the board suck.
Fashion has replaced function at Apple.
Last thing they need to do is waste 5B. The way they’re going Bill needed to stay afloat. There isn’t crap coming out of Apple now.
One thing is some offices are going to be a real trek from others along the ring. Great design for a space station with varying degrees of centrifugal gravity. Impressive “because we can” design, but not so great a terrestrial workflow and/or eyes-on management design IMO.
I suppose there are underground cross-ring shuttles to zip people and whatnot from side to side (and/or quadrant to quadrant) though? Or should I suppose that…??
It’s not wasting money!!!
It’s giving back money to the community.
Jobs. This project produced a lot of work and monies paid were given to families and people to live and buy more iPhones.
Apple fanatics are Mac users.
We are a dying breed.
I personally don’t want an Amazon Echo competitor. Like several other post I just want updates to work and not brink my device. As far as hardware Apple is dependent upon others such as Intel. Maybe they are not updating their computers while they develop their own chip. Maybe that will be a surprise at WWDC.
Your list is a little short. You need to add the next
iPhone
Apple Watch
IOS
OSX
Besides stuff that only they know about.
You guys have lost it. Apple can afford those new buildings from a days profit. And what those new buildings will give them is expandability and they won’t be paying anyones lease. They will run on clean energy which will help the environment and cost half as much to run. They will eliminate many offsite buildings in the bay area to combine them into there two large campuses which will cut costs way down and make them more efficient for meetings since they will be on the same campus. The building may seem obserd but in reality it will do many things to cut a lot of costs.
Tim Cook has doubled if not tripled Apple’s profits since he took over. There was a reason Steve Jobs personally picked him to take over.
I wonder if Apple will be saving a ton of cash not having to lease so much office space in Cupertino and the South Bay Area?