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The future of Apple products.....UNIFORMITY!

FrankySavvy

FrankySavvy

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 4, 2010
1,583
762
Long Island, NY
I believe Apple's future is that of Uniformity. Merging iOS and Mac OSX is the first hint towards this. I believe this will also follow suit in Apples hardware.

I believe the next generation iPhone design will follow suit to the iPad 2 and Macbook Air designs.

We will see a revamped iPhone 5, iPod touch and thinner Macbook Pro come later this year, with all designs being uniform.

Both the iPhone 5 and next gen iPod touch will be all aluminum, curved back, larger screen.....basically smaller versions of the iPad 2 design.

The Macbook Pro will follow suit with the Macbook Air, with an all aluminum look, thinner design, retina displays and perhaps no optical drive and standard SSD.

Then finally come spring time next year we will see the iMac line follow suit with retina display, no optical drive, standard SSD.

Perhaps about the same time an iPad 3 with a retina display as well?

I do not believe they will get rid of the optical drive on the Mac Pro just yet, but will keep the all aluminum design.

Uniformity, simplicity, I believe this is the future of Apple products.

Thoughts?

-Franky
 
paulsalter

paulsalter

macrumors 68000
Aug 10, 2008
1,622
0
UK
time to start looking at alternates to Mac

I dont like the merging of mobile/desktop systems
 
*LTD*

*LTD*

macrumors G4
Feb 5, 2009
10,703
1
Canada
decafjava said:
Well Linux but that's for "nerds" and I think the software selection is pretty small compared to OSX or Windows.
Click to expand...

Well more or less.

Linux is fine, but really isn't the kind of platform that can replace OS X and the Apple ecosystem at large. There really is no comparison.
 
maflynn

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,478
43,405
decafjava said:
Well Linux but that's for "nerds" and I think the software selection is pretty small compared to OSX or Windows.
Click to expand...

The one issue I ran into when I played with both Ubuntu and Fedora was that at upgrade time, there was no seamless approach.

If I upgraded in place, that caused problems. If I went the clean install approach it was more painful to get Linux installed/configured and then restore my data.

Finally as you posted, the software selection is meager. I use Lightroom and so far there is no Linux alternative. I also use quickbooks (on windows) and various other apps that just don't exist on linux. An operating system's role is to facilitate the execution of jobs and store your data. If I can't run my apps on Linux then why have Linux?

As for the OP, I agree apple is approaching a point where its product lines are merging and its becoming less attractive to me.

Windows 8 while it appears to be adding mobile functionality also is adding non-mobile features as well. Its tough to discern this as MS has not really provided a lot of details
 
R

RWinOR

macrumors 6502
Sep 11, 2010
269
0
Greenest and wettest place in North America
I am not sure I see all these lines merging quite so fast, but I do agree with your premise. Apple is moving in that direction.

It offers both pluses and minuses.

I am looking forward to the day, like in the movie Avatar. Swiping a program from my desktop to my pad devices with my hand and walking around with it. :)
 
maflynn

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,478
43,405
RWinOR said:
It offers both pluses and minuses.
Click to expand...
I think though at least at this point the minuses outweigh the pluses but its probably too early to tell.

If you look at what's happening with Lion we see that apple is removing the need for an exposed file system. There is no save as option in Lion aware apps and it appears you don't really have a choice in putting the documents where you want. Launch pad eliminates the need to navigate to the applications folder, though it largely fails in making the process easier.

I don't think its an accident or a typo that we see many references to OSX exclude the reference to "mac" Snow Leopard and its predecessors were called Mac OSX, now its OSX. Perhaps later apple will call it iOS desktop and iOS mobile.
 
FrankySavvy

FrankySavvy

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 4, 2010
1,583
762
Long Island, NY
RWinOR said:
I am not sure I see all these lines merging quite so fast, but I do agree with your premise. Apple is moving in that direction.

It offers both pluses and minuses.

I am looking forward to the day, like in the movie Avatar. Swiping a program from my desktop to my pad devices with my hand and walking around with it. :)
Click to expand...

Exactly! I believe Apple is at the forefront, but all companies will follow suit as technology gets better!
 
vincebio

vincebio

macrumors 6502a
Jun 27, 2005
792
48
Glasgow
sorry but it will be a long time yet before apple ditches the optical drive on desktop machines...

there are many good reasons to ditch them from macbooks, but i cannot think of one single good one from a design or functionality point of view to remove them from desktops....

it wont happen anytime soon
 
BaldiMac

BaldiMac

macrumors G3
Jan 24, 2008
8,761
10,890
This whole "merging of iOS and OS X" is such a ridiculous argument. They are already based on the same foundation! The difference is that one is designed for direct multitouch input on low power devices, and the other is designed for mouse/trackpad input on higher power laptops and desktops.

Some features make sense in both use cases. Some will move from one OS to the other as the hardware capabilities of the devices cross over. It only makes sense.

But they will never merge into one OS unless Macs switch exclusively to direct multitouch input or both OS's converge in a new input method. Neither scenario is going to happen anytime soon.

vincebio said:
sorry but it will be a long time yet before apple ditches the optical drive on desktop machines...

there are many good reasons to ditch them from macbooks, but i cannot think of one single good one from a design or functionality point of view to remove them from desktops....

it wont happen anytime soon
Click to expand...

Ummm... they already did.

http://www.apple.com/macmini/
 
Last edited by a moderator:
K

KingCrimson

macrumors 65816
Mar 12, 2011
1,066
0
BaldiMac said:
This whole "merging of iOS and OS X" is such a ridiculous argument. They are already based on the same foundation! The difference is that one is designed for direct multitouch input on low power devices, and the other is designed for mouse/trackpad input on higher power laptops and desktops.

Some features make sense in both use cases. Some will move from one OS to the other as the hardware capabilities of the devices cross over. It only makes sense.

But they will never merge into one OS unless Macs switch exclusively to direct multitouch input or both OS's converge in a new input method. Neither scenario is going to happen anytime soon.
Click to expand...

Never say never. Everything is gravitating towards touch input. I know this because *LTD* keeps insisting on it.
 
AppleScruff1

AppleScruff1

macrumors G4
Feb 10, 2011
10,026
2,949
The future of Apple customers is uniformity. Everyone is so busy bragging about Apple being different that they don't realize that they are all the same. Uncle Steve is watching you.
 
KnightWRX

KnightWRX

macrumors Pentium
Jan 28, 2009
15,046
4
Quebec, Canada
KingCrimson said:
Never say never. Everything is gravitating towards touch input. I know this because *LTD* keeps insisting on it.
Click to expand...

A trackpad and a touch screen are not the same kind of input and thus require different interfaces. A trackpad still very much requires a cursor, something you do not need on a touch screen.

iOS and Mac OS X are already merged. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just ignorant to how both are developed. The UI layers (Springboard vs Finder) can never be merged because of the different input and output paradigms they offer.

There is no future merging. At most, I see Apple dropping OS X and its computer line all together as its revenue share drops and drops and drops. The Xserve is gone, now the White Macbook. The pro software line is getting dumbed down to prosumer arenas. At this rate, who wants to bet the Mac Pro doesn't have long to live ? Somewhere down the line, the iMac is going away and so is the mini as laptops sales become more important than desktops, and eventually, all that will be left will be the air and 5% of Apple's revenue. How do you justify the expenses of OS X and product design then ? You don't, you drop it.
 
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