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Is Apple ever going to bring out any groundbreaking and amazing computers ever again?

antster94

antster94

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 2, 2010
545
1
London, UK
Hey guys,

Just had a thought going through my head, Apple seems to be bringing out all these amazing technologies for iPhone and iPads, but what about the good old computer market? Are they simply just going to put new chips in and call their computers new and groundbreaking? They need to pull something out of the bag this year, or maybe next. What about a retina display on laptops? Or something else 'magical and revolutionary' to bring to the computer and professional markets?

Just my $.02

Anthony
 
The Mac OS cannot handle a retina display. Even their hi-res screens make text and other objects very small. I hope that Apple can keep making groundbreaking computers, but I think that that era is over.
 
What, Moore's law isn't good enough for you?

iPads are the new go-to computing device for anyone that doesn't write a lot of text. Mark my words. I think tablets will overtake laptops in 10 years. Desktops are already rare, and laptops are on their way out IMO. Computers with physical keyboards will be limited to content creators and power users.
 
Btw apologies for no "?" mark in title, i'm on my iPhone right now so probs didn't type it in properly or something xD

Hmm, this is Apple we're talking about, there must be something thy can do to make macs amazing again? I just feel that the iPhone has taken away all the "amazingness" of a mac, like people are no longer excited abot macs in the way they are now with iPhones :/
 
hypermog said:
What, Moore's law isn't good enough for you?

iPads are the new go-to computing device for anyone that doesn't write a lot of text. Mark my words. I think tablets will overtake laptops in 10 years. Desktops are already rare, and laptops are on their way out IMO. Computers with physical keyboards will be limited to content creators and power users.
Click to expand...

how about people who play games, work in offices, or any other use of laptops / computers, stop reading everything jobs says as if it's the bible
 
motodroid said:
how about people who play games, work in offices, or any other use of laptops / computers, stop reading everything jobs says as if it's the bible
Click to expand...

That's what I'm getting at, a tablet can't cope with all my needs, I need a real computer, not this beautiful yet unpowerful and unproductive device.
 
We will see about the whole groundbreaking thing, although I would say a 10 hour battery in a notebook less than an inch thick is pretty impressive, as well as many of the other features of the current notebooks.

However, there will not be a retina display in the MBPs. Your eye cannot sense a difference between the pixel density of say, a current 17" MBP, and one with twice the pixel density, because it is further away from you eye. You only get the full benefit of the iPhone's retina display if it is about a foot from your face, rather than 2-3 feet for your computer. I have seen a 15" 1920x1200 display, and it is painful to look at, because everything is so small. It is incredibly crisp, but that's only good for large images. All that aside, making a 13" display with a 2560x1600 resolution (the same as any 30" display on the market now) would be incredibly expensive, perhaps prohibitively so.
 
HandJobs thinks that laptops are outdated. He will not stop until all computer freedom is gone and we're doing everything from our cloud computing iphones.
 
antster94 said:
That's what I'm getting at, a tablet can't cope with all my needs, I need a real computer, not this beautiful yet unpowerful and unproductive device.
Click to expand...

I didn't say anyone was going to take your computer away from you. I was implying that the "groundbreaking" and "amazing" advancements are taking place outside of the desktop/laptop space.
 
They might... but not anytime soon...

What can be ground breaking in a laptop/desktop?! New connector? Lightpeak? Touch displays... hate fingerprints on my monitor...

I think the Unibody was a good new thingy...
 
Hmm, I just think Apple has to bring something amazing out, I mean competitors will inevitably catch up sooner or later. For example, couldn't they put their own chips in instead of intels ones? Like if they put x amount of A4 processors into the new MBA, wouldn't that work and make it real fast? I don't know what exactly they should do, but I think that they had better pull something truly outstanding out of the bag in order to keep competition at bay and to provide an insentive for people to upgrade their current macs to the latest generations.
 
antster94 said:
Hmm, I just think Apple has to bring something amazing out, I mean competitors will inevitably catch up sooner or later. For example, couldn't they put their own chips in instead of intels ones? Like if they put x amount of A4 processors into the new MBA, wouldn't that work and make it real fast? I don't know what exactly they should do, but I think that they had better pull something truly outstanding out of the bag in order to keep competition at bay and to provide an insentive for people to upgrade their current macs to the latest generations.
Click to expand...

Macs still sell like crazy, and every quarter there have been more sales of Mac computers than in the quarter before, even with long gaps like the June 2009 to April 2010 for the MBP.

Let them go at their desired pace and they will deliver. And we don't know, if Apple is gonna release anything, as they are secretive unlike some intelligence agencies.
 
antster94 said:
Hmm, I just think Apple has to bring something amazing out, I mean competitors will inevitably catch up sooner or later. For example, couldn't they put their own chips in instead of intels ones? Like if they put x amount of A4 processors into the new MBA, wouldn't that work and make it real fast? I don't know what exactly they should do, but I think that they had better pull something truly outstanding out of the bag in order to keep competition at bay and to provide an insentive for people to upgrade their current macs to the latest generations.
Click to expand...

Then developers(developer developers) would have to rewrite all of their apps unless they want them to run through an emulator.
 
antster94 said:
Hmm, I just think Apple has to bring something amazing out, I mean competitors will inevitably catch up sooner or later. For example, couldn't they put their own chips in instead of intels ones? Like if they put x amount of A4 processors into the new MBA, wouldn't that work and make it real fast? I don't know what exactly they should do, but I think that they had better pull something truly outstanding out of the bag in order to keep competition at bay and to provide an insentive for people to upgrade their current macs to the latest generations.
Click to expand...

The problem with that idea is that it wouldn't be able to run Windows, which is a huge selling point for Apple and a buy in for PC users coming over. Don't get me wrong I prefer OSX and use it as much as possible, however with work being totally PC orientated I have to run Windows for certain programs like Adobe Captivate and Office for full compatibility (Office for Mac just doesn't cut it).

Personally my first experience of Mac was a unibody MacBook and I was completely blown away, till that point I'd never considered owning a laptop, I suppose for longer term Mac users MagSafe and the TrackPad might be taken for granted but I still find them pretty amazing.

The amount of Windows users at work who have seen me use my MBP and been wowed by the display, and amazed as I flick between Windows 7 in Parallels full screen on OS X by accessing Spaces with a 3 finger swipe upwards (thanks to BetterTouch Tool).

I've been a long time Windows user, yet I wouldn't entertain the idea of owning a Windows laptop. Yes you can get better specs on them, but my i7 is plenty enough powerful for me and the usability of it is second to none.
 
1=1? said:
HandJobs thinks that laptops are outdated. He will not stop until all computer freedom is gone and we're doing everything from our cloud computing iphones.
Click to expand...

Until our freedom is gone? Are you serious? Who's forcing you to buy any Apple products?
 
6-0 Prolene said:
Until our freedom is gone? Are you serious? Who's forcing you to buy any Apple products?
Click to expand...

Joke Over-explainer: 1=1? was portraying an extreme situation to stress the absurdity of Jobs idolatry and his self-importance to great comic effect
 
Are Apple ever going to bring out any groundbreaking and amazing computers ever again

Probably as soon as you learn to write properly.......HA!
 
Yes, Apple has made some "revolutionary products" in its time. But just because something is revolutionary does not mean that it will perform well or be reliable. The PowerBook titanium's hinges. The 20th anniversary macintosh that cost $10k initially. The leaking liquid cooling on PowerMac G5's. I could go on but the point is that it may be better to go for consistent upgrades versus radical shifts. You may get something that you might not like.

Outside of Apple, I'd have to say that the "new" Cadillac SRX is a step back from the older generation, but that's a whole other topic.
 
TorontoLRT said:
I have a feeling that in 5 years, Macs will be less than 10% of Apple's sales.
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how i see it. people only need the interwebs for fb, tweet, email.
so ipad's, iphones, and ipod touches is what most will buy. not too many people are willing shell out 1,000 plus for a laptop when the only need the basic
 
Groundbreaking and amazing? --- maybe one day

I think it depends on the competition. Apple makes a huge amount of money on incremental/evolutionary changes to its devices that keep it just a bit ahead of the competition. Case-in-point, how many iPhones or iPods have you bought?

The problem is that Apple seems to be one of a few companies that is still innovating, creating new technologies, using new materials, etc. Most other manufacturers are locked into the cycle of who can cram the most unpolished features into a device. If a competitor or two really begins to push the envelope, say in the PC market, it would force Apple to work to leap frog the competition and show that it is the clear front-runner.

This was Apple's attitude, way back in the day, when they knew they had to produce something groundbreaking and amazing in order to capture enough market share to survive. Well, they are hardly in jeopardy of missing any meals these days and thus have little incentive to take the gamble of introducing groundbreaking computers, that may or may not be readily received.
 
andrew086 said:
I'm sorry but who cares
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Yeah, I was on my iPhone when I wrote the first post and I was tired and in bed haha.

Got some good and interesting ideas from everyone :) The thing is, my mac recently died, and I need to buy a new one. So, I am going to buy an i5 MBP, but I just don't feel excited by it, like how excited I am now about iPhone 4 and the iPad. And in response to that question about how many iDevices I have owned, I have had 2 iPods, an iPod touch, an iPhone and have the 3GS now, and these generally have been bought because of the marketing hype around them, particularly the iPhone 2G. I just hope Apple does something cool with the next generation MBP, because I can't see a very good insentive to buy one if you already have a mac, only a faster computer.
 
antster94 said:
Are they simply just going to put new chips in and call their computers new and groundbreaking?


Or something else 'magical and revolutionary' to bring to the computer and professional markets?
Click to expand...

1. Well it's worked so far.

2. Professional markets rarely require (or buy) anything "revolutionary" - it's been the consumer market that has been the driving force behind recent processor and GPU advances, not the professional market.
 
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