What Do You Want to See From Apple in 2017?

[4jasontv]

And who will replace him? I mean, if we think serious about this and all the requirements that come with this job. Who can replace him or who can replace Steve?

What an odd request. You don't have to replace Steve anymore. Tim replaced Steve. No one is asking if a US president will live up to Washington. What they want to know is who can do the job today.

As far as Cook, when you have someone who isn't doing the job you don't say, "meh I can't think of anyone else", you actively start interviewing. See whose intereseted.

 

[Dave245]

What an odd request. You don't have to replace Steve anymore. Tim replaced Steve. No one is asking if a US president will live up to Washington. What they want to know is who can do the job today.

As far as Cook, when you have someone who isn't doing the job you don't say, "meh I can't think of anyone else", you actively start interviewing. See whose intereseted.

Steve hand picked Tim Cook to be the next CEO of Apple, i don't see what he's doing that's so bad, but each to their own.

 

[LeeTom]

Improvements to iCloud Keychain: Suggested passwords that have special characters; a smart way to get in if all devices are lost; offline codes.

 

[4jasontv]

Steve hand picked Tim Cook to be the next CEO of Apple, i don't see what he's doing that's so bad, but each to their own.

My issue is that Steve may have been a great product person, but he was a terrible judge of character. See: Sculley, Gates, Cook. Cook might be a great CEO if you're a stockholder, but not if you're a customer. Cook doesn't care about the products. Where are the stories of him obsessing over the right level of glossy for the iPhone box? When did he tell the display people to build a new media display because their prototype was ugly? How many morning did he wake up having slept at his desk? He always seems well rested and alert. He has a lot on his mind, but it doesn't seem like the products is one of those things.

Considering his pay and responsibilities why doesn't he look like he's aged 20 years since he took his office? Is it because he isn't stressed? Why isn't he worried? We're customers and we are worried!

 

[bdhokie]

Focus and honesty from Tim Cook.

Apple needs to regain it's reputation as an innovative leader and creator of truly great products. Remember how Macs "just worked"? Remember the beauty of a simple product line, not a hundred variations of every product? Go back to your roots.

No more marketing spin, but actual products and services that are superior to the competition. Don't tell us it's "The best [insert product] we've every made" and unveil tweaks and incremental changes. Steve Jobs may have been a pompous ass at times, but for the most part Apple delivered truly inspired products. Tim Cook just doesn't seem to have the focus to create great products; he's good at maintaining shareholder wealth. That's fine, but it catches up with you eventually if you don't keep competitive.

We've covered what we expect to see from Apple in 2017 based on the rumors that are circulating so far in our recent What to Expect post.

On the horizon are a new iPhone 8 with a radically redesigned body and an edge-to-edge display, a revamped iPad Pro also potentially with an edge-to-edge display, long-awaited iMac updates, and new software, but there's always the chance there's a wildcard update or new product in the works that will surprise us all.

A redesigned Apple TV, a new home hub, and augmented reality smart glasses are all products that are rumored to be in the works with no prospective release date. We want to hear from the MacRumors community -- what are you expecting or hoping to see Apple release in 2017?

Are there specific features you're hoping Apple will implement in iOS 11, tvOS 11, watchOS 4, or macOS 10.13? Popular wishlist items from last year included a dark mode for iOS, home screen widgets, and a customizable control center.

Let us know what you want to see in the comments, and make sure to check our our What to Expect post for the latest rumors. Apple's plans for 2017 will likely become more clear in the early months of the year, and as always, we'll be covering all of the rumors in-depth here at MacRumors.

The MacRumors forums are also always a rich resource for talking about upcoming products and rumors, and with the biggest iPhone change in years set to happen in 2017, our forums are the place to be for lively discussions.

We'd also like to thank all of our readers and our forum members for making MacRumors the absolute best source for Mac news and advice on the web. We wouldn't be here without you, and we look forward to another rumor-packed year.

Article Link: What Do You Want to See From Apple in 2017?

 

[pkissel]

Apple needs to get serious about its Macs.

Mac users are the glue that binds the ecosystem and develop all things for it.

Abandoning professional Mac users is the stupidest thing Apple is doing right now.

And not all professional Mac users use a desktop Mac. Some use a MBP as a portable desktop replacement and care more about internals (memory, CPU, GPU) than thinness or even max battery life. Releasing a 2016 MBP that, from benchmarking reports, is not overall a whole lot faster than my 2012 MVP doesn't inspire me with confidence that Apple cares about it MBP power users either.

 

[Dave245]

My issue is that Steve may have been a great product person, but he was a terrible judge of character. See: Sculley, Gates, Cook. Cook might be a great CEO if you're a stockholder, but not if you're a customer. Cook doesn't care about the products. Where are the stories of him obsessing over the right level of glossy for the iPhone box? When did he tell the display people to build a new media display because their prototype was ugly? How many morning did he wake up having slept at his desk? He always seems well rested and alert. He has a lot on his mind, but it doesn't seem like the products is one of those things.

Considering his pay and responsibilities why doesn't he look like he's aged 20 years since he took his office? Is it because he isn't stressed? Why isn't he worried? We're customers and we are worried!

I think your being unfair, your trying to go off stories and anecdotes flying around like they did with Jobs obsessing about stuff. Just because you may not hear about it doesn't mean he doesn't do it, it doesn't mean that he isn't working hard. There is one anecdote about Cook, that he is in the gym and at work for 4 in the morning. He spends most of his time working and is in fact just as hard working as Steve Jobs was. But these are all anecdotal stories, Cook isn't Jobs and he never will be, Jobs is gone and has been for the past 5 years, times change and things move on.

 

[bassanoclapper]

A big focus on eliminating bugs across the range and an A10X iPad mini

 

[exexs]

The problem is not about Cook himself, it's that without the strong mind and personality of Steve, who has created Apple, the company is now controled by stockholders like every other. The founder of a company is probably the only one that can resist the attacks and demands and greed of stockholders. Apple will never be Apple as it was. You can replace Cook, it won't change. Apple is here to make money now. End of the story.

 

[Nicksd84]

1. A wider variety of dongles at a higher price.

2. A Macbook Pro with only 16 Gig of RAM, but really great battery life that turns out not to have really great battery life. Oh and it should have a touch bar that replaces the top row of keys so I can use it for DJing. Oh and it should be way more expensive.

Something tells me you haven't used the new MacBook pro. With that said I'd like an iPhone SE with 3d touch.

 

[BruceEBonus]

2017 is the year the Apple name is tested for what it once stood for as opposed to what it really stands for now. Back in the day when Apple were market leaders the choice for consumers wasn't difficult. Why buy from imitators when you can get the real thing for the same money? Now Apple are the followers and charging more for less.
The question is. Can their R&D department steal enough time to grab the limelight away from Samsung S8 in 10 weeks time? Will the iPhone buying public break from what is now more habit through routine than reason? Yes. If Samsung do the business like they did with the S6. Yes if Apple do another slight face-lift with the 7S. What people would like to see is academic. Time is no longer Apple's friend. The mask has slipped. 2017. Make or break year for Apple? Whoever succeeds it will be a win win for us all because true innovation is just that. Not new colours. Watches and window dressing. Hold on to your hats (wallets) everybody!

 

[supersteve]

Would love to see new iMacs and mac minis at a reasonable price.

iPhone: edgeless screen, USB-C, wireless charging, blue colour, bigger battery.

iOS: more customizable system, and many many bug fixes.

 

[cableguy84]

Cook out 2017

 

[Dominicanyor]

A different new look for the iPhone..

 

[radiology]

And who will replace him? I mean, if we think serious about this and all the requirements that come with this job. Who can replace him or who can replace Steve?

That's another easy question: Craig Federighi

 

[69650]

New iMac without the giant black border and chin.

 

[mithion]

I know these things will never happen but here is my wish list.

1) 21 inch iMac with dedicated graphics (I'm eyeing the 21 inch as my next computer but the lack of dedicated graphics in a computer this size makes me hesitate)

2) Apple needs to ditch metal and adopt Vulkan. Metal has seen very little buy in and vulkan being cross platform will be more popular by sheer virtue that it will save developer time to program for multiple OS

3) Go back to a 2 year cadence for Mac OS releases. The release every year model comes at the cost of stability and brings minimal improvement year over year.

4) Bring the cost of computers down. Most computers built with desirable configuration cost easily $400-500 too expensive. The price gouging on upgrades is out of control

 

[Sylvan]

I would like to see more color in macOS. I don't like how the aesthetic has gotten so toned-down, neutral, flat. It is boring to me. I miss the old colorful icons and UI.

 

[V.K.]

Hardware:

* new iMac, stop making it thinner, Instead allow for user replaceable storage.
* new Mac Pro
* new Mac mini
* MBP with 32GB RAM, decent battery, GPU
* MacBook with at least 2 USB-c ports.
* Full size Bluetooth keyboard.
* hardware support for H.265 on all devices
* 4k support on ATV, better designed remote.
* new router/TC

Software:

* total iTunes rewrite. split iTunes into several apps, remove bloat.
* add user data checksumming to Apple FS
* improve support for automation (applescript and Automator)
* go back to biennial MacOS upgrades. MacOS is a mature OS. It doesn’t need yearly rewrites. 2 years cycle gives more time for bug fixes and stability improvements AND more time for new big feature development.
* make siri understand me better than 1 in 10 times.
* make universal ATV search work on local home shared libraries
* rethink UI on iOS to make better use of Force Touch. If a UI element is force touchable that fact should be always visible to the user.

 

[wizard]

Where should i start:

1. New i86 based Macs
2. New ARM based Macs (or the name of your choosing) representing transitional machines for an ARM based world.
3. The end of MiFi. We need to demand access to our ports on things like IPad.
4. New iPhones of course.
5. A new computer "keyboard" to replace the Mini. This is easy to do today with monitors suppying 90 watts of power and the very cooling running ARM chips. Basically your entire computer is in your keyboard.
6. At the other end of the desktop spectrum the Mini gets replaced with a machine with a high performance GPU. Maybe even an AMD Zen chip. The goal of course is good GPU performance in a machine under $1000.
7. Scripting for iOS and even MacOS that is based around Swift. Done right Swift could even replace Bash with a few extensions. In any event the primary goal is a new viable scripting solution for all apps on all Apple platforms. Sort of like a modern approach to VBA.
8. IPads of course but they need to pull head from ass and target a more reasonable price point. More so up sell models need better configurations. For example 4GB of RAM on the base but the high end machine comes with 8GB along with the extra storage.
9. Speaking of pricing Apple needs to get reasonable again with their laptops. I see nothing to justify the high prices.
10. New Laptops of course, these will have new battery tech to start with. Id love to see an option for cellular connectivity for one. More RAM that is much faster wouldn't hurt either. The biggest issue though is SSD storage which is way way to small especially with it soldered to the main board. Apple should be thinking about 3TB drives and those options should be reasonably priced. Actually 3TB isn't much for a pro doing video work, it would be nice to have an option for as much as technology allows.
11. Id love to see Apple enter the educational market with a board that is a cross between an Arduino and a Raspberry PI. The reason is clear, technical education sucks in this country and needs to become a focus in the educational system. The thing here is that Apple could design a SoC better suited for the task. Mass produced you are talking boards that might cost $40,maybe a bit more, that would be distributed to students in middle school and above. The OS would either be Linux or MacOS. Frankly Apple can't be the only manufacture and this needs to be a national initiative. Frankly such a board is a better pay off for tax payers than an iPad or laptop.
12. A new 4K Apple TV. However Apple needs to deal with pricing of video media which is way too expensive on iTunes. It is pretty pathetic when you consider pricing on DVDs these days.
13. New file serving hubs.
14. New Apple swag. Apple needs to offer a pocket knife in partnership with Case, Buck or other USA manufacture. How else are we to open all those Apple packages. Nothing huge here maybe Stockman sized possibly with an Apple unique blade.
15. Apple desktop keyboards with the touch strip. The reason is pretty obvious and frankly would be a huge benefit for desktop users. While they are at it integrate a track pad into the keyboard.
16. Id actually like to see Apple consider electronic instrumentation. In this case hardware specifically designed to work with IPad and iPhone. The idea here being a software based MMI interface on the iOS device with the minimal instrumentation hardware in a separate device. This keeps the hardware cost low and could be a huge advantage for technical education. Of course the hardware needs to be open to work with all computer systems. At the start a DVM, signal generator, counter and a modest oscilloscope are needed. Frankly these days that could all fit in one little box. The primary goal here again is education but such a device would have wider applicability.
17. An Apple 3D printer. Probably a long shot but the field is ripe for innovation.
18. Likewise an Apple laser cutter and engraver. In the case of 17 and here, Apple could bring a lot of software skill to the technologies.
19. Apple car? Nah how about Apple pickup instead. Mainly because I'm too big to fit into most cars.
20. Actually id like to see apple offer a electric automobile motor and electronics set so that people can power the vehicle of their choice electrically. It is next to impossible to find an integrated solution with a modern battery system these days.
21. An Apple golf cart. Basically a NEV but again the idea is to bring modern tech to the product niche. Neighborhood electric vehicles never really took off and part of the reason is the quality of the offerings. The other part being that people like to drive like a bat out of hell. The idea here is to modernize the class with advanced technology.
22. Apple wallet. An iPhone sleeve that offers solar charging. Yeah i know, not much good in your pocket. However imagine throwing said iPhone on the dash during a drive.
23. An iWatch id actually buy. If Apple watch gets blood glucose level monitoring it might be worth purchasing. It is a little niche that might get me to buy an Apple watch.
24. In any event i expect a big Apple watch update in 2017. That update will be powered by a shrink to 10nm processes. This means a bit more performance but could be a huge power win. Combined with new battery tech we could see impressive specs out of a watch.
25. Software improvements all around. This is of course ongoing but I'm expecting to see greater use of Swift in Apples Mac OS apps suite. This will lead to some frustration but Apple will eventually have updated and improved many apps on the platform. In some cases total rewrites will be done to delete a lot of cruft.
26. Apple will start to implement AI tech directly into Mac OS and iOS. This to improve performance but also to reduce server loads at Apple. A side benefit is petter personalization or training of the machine learning tech. I may be a year or two early here as the hardware to accelerate machine learning is just being integrated into GPU, CPU's or as standalone subsystems. However i don't think Apple or anyone else for that matter can hold off for too long. Apple has already started to sneak software into Mac OS / iOS so the next step is hardware support.
27. A stable Swift ABI. This is actually very important as it means far more Mac and iOS software can be implemented in Swift. Keeping my fingers crossed for this happening in 2017.
28. Ohh Apple finally gets with the program and starts to ship Mac OS with Python 3,x.
29. Probably zero chance here but the MBP's and the desktops could really use a slot for an additional SSD storage stick. Apparently nobody at Apple grasps the need for storage. This is especially a problem on MBP's used in the field and would give pro users an ideal way to correct the problem.
30. Apple CAD! Seriously they have the resources to offer a reasonably priced CAD system. Make it scriptable with Swift and it will have a bright future. Im totally frustrated by the cost of CAD software and the utterly rubbish interfaces of such software. Somebody needs to bring a fresh prospective to the market.

Running out of time but 30 is a good start.

 

[akashrajpal]

Time to get Elon musk to head the vision as apple is only inventing gimmicks.
Product wise on iphone : quick charging, two day battery, min two yrs warranty and unlimited cloud space.
Also as a goodwill gesture repair all defective products for free even if out of warranty as Apple products are bought at premium due to high expectations on quality.
Make good quality charging cable and replace it for life.

We've covered what we expect to see from Apple in 2017 based on the rumors that are circulating so far in our recent What to Expect post.

On the horizon are a new iPhone 8 with a radically redesigned body and an edge-to-edge display, a revamped iPad Pro also potentially with an edge-to-edge display, long-awaited iMac updates, and new software, but there's always the chance there's a wildcard update or new product in the works that will surprise us all.

A redesigned Apple TV, a new home hub, and augmented reality smart glasses are all products that are rumored to be in the works with no prospective release date. We want to hear from the MacRumors community -- what are you expecting or hoping to see Apple release in 2017?

Are there specific features you're hoping Apple will implement in iOS 11, tvOS 11, watchOS 4, or macOS 10.13? Popular wishlist items from last year included a dark mode for iOS, home screen widgets, and a customizable control center.

Let us know what you want to see in the comments, and make sure to check our our What to Expect post for the latest rumors. Apple's plans for 2017 will likely become more clear in the early months of the year, and as always, we'll be covering all of the rumors in-depth here at MacRumors.

The MacRumors forums are also always a rich resource for talking about upcoming products and rumors, and with the biggest iPhone change in years set to happen in 2017, our forums are the place to be for lively discussions.

We'd also like to thank all of our readers and our forum members for making MacRumors the absolute best source for Mac news and advice on the web. We wouldn't be here without you, and we look forward to another rumor-packed year.

Article Link: What Do You Want to See From Apple in 2017?

The

 

[rp2011]

On an iPad, use two fingers on the keyboard to turn it into a trackpad/cursor thing when editing text.

Didn't know that ! Thanks!

 

[HiRez]

A Mac mini would be nice..... *stares at Tim Cook*

Only if it goes back to slightly more "pro" options like quad cores, dedicated GPU, and 32 GB RAM.

Also Apple needs to be "courageous" enough to never ship any Mac without an SSD again (although I can still see needs for Fusion Drive options until SSD prices come down more). MacOS booting from spinning disks is a god-awful experience, even on brand-new iMac hardware.

 

[elbym]

• An update to the MBA
• iPhone 8 with USB-C
• A MacBook Pro like it should be

 

[lastnameherring]

iOS swipe-between-folders