What to Expect From Apple in 2017: iPhone 8, 10-Inch iPad Pro, Refreshed iMacs, and More

[tentales]

I don't disagree with what you're saying. When Jobs died, it was a difficult time for Apple, and Tim handled it. But it seems like he'd have made a better interim CEO while Apple searched for a new visionary.

A recent article about how Apple has handled the Mac indicates that Tim basically pillaged the MacOS division so that Apple no longer has a dedicated MacOS team. The folks who design Macs are also getting less access to Jonny Ive's team for design purposes as well. It seems like Tim believes Mac users are a bunch of idiots who will pay an extreme premium for products that have little to know improvement just because they contain the Apple logo.

I'm not going to go into detail here, but it appears Apple is trying to simply be a fashion company which ironically is going to make Apple less fashionable. Apple was cool in the past because they offered a level of innovation other companies could only dream of. Apple's control over both hardware and software made them unique and eventually brought their profits above other companies. Now Apple is losing that focus and has no clear path.

One can argue this is likely to happen to all companies when they reach a certain size, but I believe that Steve Jobs would have not have risen profits as quickly as Tim, but due to LONG TERM VISION, Apple would have remained more profitable LONG TERM. With the way Tim is running the company, I believe the new iPhone that comes out in 2017 will lead to record profits for Apple and than I believe that will be the LAST TIME Apple has record profits going forward.

I believe that in 2018 and beyond, sales will slow down for Apple and Apple will fail to provide any real innovation. I hope I'm wrong, but frankly I don't believe I'm going out on a very big limb here.

Well said. Anyone who's read SJ's biography knows, he didn't care about the stock price or amassing wealth. His only luxury was driving a new Mercedes every 6 months without California plates.

He cared about the UX, UI and indeed, the LONGTERM goals. Tim is like John Sculley after SJ departed the company in the 80s. He milked the products for all their worth and was quite successful for about the same number of years that Tim's been successful in increasing the bottom line.

Now the well's running dry and Steve's not around to save it again. Nor do I see anyone stepping into someone else's vision. Apple will be usurped by another company, it might even be Microsoft given their current impetus and product pipeline. Mac OS isn't fairy dust. Steve took a bunch of smart engineers stuck'em in a room, gave them the BSD Mach Kernel and said, build me a NeXT GUI on top of that.

No reason, a business-savvy visionary couldn't do the same on top of one of the many Linux flavours floating about.

 

[NY Guitarist]

Tim Cook: "We love Mac". Just not the Mac Mini or Mac Pro.

iMac is the end of the Macintosh line as Apple 'redefines' the Mac and MacPads become the new 'Mac'.

 

[Martyimac]

@Martyimac You just typed your responses directly into the quote boxes, making it all but impossible for me to quote your responses and reply to them.
Hmmm. That worked pretty well didn't it?

I acknowledge that multi-quoting might be very difficult in an app like Tapatalk, so here's what I do.
See below.
I think it's a simple of respect when you are posting in a public forum and want to make it easier for other people to view your posts.

What is "a simple of respect"? Hmmm, nobody else has mentioned having a hard time viewing my post. I even have 6 likes at last count. So at least 6 folks found it easy to view my post and say they liked it.
Secondly, I didn't use Tapatalk.
Third, I would go through and do the work of making my post easier for you to respond to but to tell you the truth, I don't think it's really worth your time or mine. I just wanted to be another poster telling you why I disagreed with you and vis-a-vis my response letting other folks know I support what they are saying.

 

[alvindarkness]

- a prosumer headless Mac like the old entry level cheese grater Mac Pro or a Mini with the power of a 27" iMac.

If it contains a replaceable desktop GPU and is priced fairly, I'd buy two, possibly three. Could not even care about how it looked, provided its form factor isnt so small that its thermally crippled. But dare I say its not gonna happen, so I'll continue dreaming.
[doublepost=1483332788][/doublepost]

Two and a half minutes of real insight:

What a great clip, absolutely stunning that Apple today is (arguably) the Xerox he described in the video.

 

[BlargKing]

I expect more products that sacrifice ease of use and functionality in favour of another mm off the thickness, another 5 grams off the weight, and another way for Apple to sell expensive dongles.

 

[Mac 128]

I come here every other day for an hour or 2 while waiting to finish running a few transcodes in the background.
I admire your and others' tenacity and patience with Miss Argue. It's becoming comical at this stage.

My last straw was when I was defending the same position as Abazigal, and they started criticising me; for not making it enthusiastically enough I guess?

 

[plexdk]

Please don't fragment the iPhones more.

How are they fragmented? its not like its difficult to develop for all of them, like android. The big iPhones are great imho, but some people prefer small iPhones.

 

[Xade]

If an updated MacBook is >25% faster, and includes a second USB-C port on the other side, keyboard with the new switches like the MacBook Pro, and a larger trackpad, I'm in. A 16GB RAM option would also be nice but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Right now I like the concept but it's too underpowered and restrictive to replace my old MacBook Air. But I'm hopeful because the original Air was a similarly crippled machine that eventually evolved into a wonderful design, one of the best-ever laptops.

Agreed! I'd be happy with just two usb c ports. The number of times I've looked at one as a mac air replacement for travelling and can't justify as it only has one port.

 

[Guy Clark]

The iMac. If its not broken don't fix it.

The iMac in its current form is just fine. That being said the superior design was before it went low profile in 2012. The older design had a Superdrive included which meant there was no need to make a separate purchase and the machine as a whole was user upgradeable. This was especially useful in the case of the 21.5" model. The mid 2011 iMac range were great offerings complete with the superb Intel (Sandy Bridge) processor and introduction of Thunderbolt.

The Retina MacBook Pro.

Apple's obsession with thin makes the design of the previous generation Retina MacBook Pro vastly superior and who needs that ridiculous Touch bar.

The MacBook.

A Fashion accessory nothing more.

The MacBook Air.

Should have been given a Retina display four generations back and despite consumers crying out for this Apple turned a deaf ear. Apple are entirely out of touch with the consumer.

The Mac Pro.

Far too much time and resources were spent on redesigning the Mac Pro. which to all intents and purposes is dead in the water.

The Mac Mini.

Has virtually died with the last decent release being in 2012.


Other issues.


The consumer for years has been crying for the resumption of the 17" MacBook Pro. yet Apple do not listen.

OS X Snow Leopard is in desperate need of attention. Currently iTunes on Snow Leopard will not sync with iOS 10 therefore iTunes 12 is urgently needed along with Safari 9. It's not as though it would be difficult. Many Macs are stuck at Snow Leopard therefore deserve attention. Sure there is the argument to upgrade to a later OS X release but there are plenty of cases where this is not an option and why should the user purchase a new Mac when their current one is working just fine and thats not mentioning Rosetta.

 

[canonical]

Maybe Apple could figure out how to make a modern monitor? Wow - that must be a hard nut to crack.

 

[navaira]

OS X Snow Leopard is in desperate need of attention. Currently iTunes on Snow Leopard will not sync with iOS 10 therefore iTunes 12 is urgently needed along with Safari 9. It's not as though it would be difficult. Many Macs are stuck at Snow Leopard therefore deserve attention. Sure there is the argument to upgrade to a later OS X release but there are plenty of cases where this is not an option and why should the user purchase a new Mac when their current one is working just fine and thats not mentioning Rosetta.

I don't think you understand how corporations work. The user should purchase a new Mac because stockholders want to see money coming in. In fact, I am quite sure Apple will never make a mistake such as making a computer that works fine for so many years. Our iMac 2011 still works. Big mistake. Huge. It should break every three years and one day* (to make sure Applecare doesn't cover it anymore) and require replacement, or get forced system updates impossible to revert that would slow it to a crawl. /s

* I owned a Sony walkman that broke precisely one day after warranty expired. THIS is how you do it!

 

[Guy Clark]

I don't think you understand how corporations work. The user should purchase a new Mac because stockholders want to see money coming in. In fact, I am quite sure Apple will never make a mistake such as making a computer that works fine for so many years. Our iMac 2011 still works. Big mistake. Huge. It should break every three years and one day* (to make sure Applecare doesn't cover it anymore) and require replacement, or get forced system updates impossible to revert that would slow it to a crawl. /s

* I owned a Sony walkman that broke precisely one day after warranty expired. THIS is how you do it!

The point is it is unacceptable how Apple treats its consumers. How corporations work has nothing whatsoever to do with it. The bottom line is the consumer should always come first.
One can only ponder as to what Apple would be producing had the late great Steve Jobs had still been with us. Under Tim Cook Apple is producing fashion accessories and nothing more. Did the Mac Pro really need to be so radically redesigned? Did the Retina MacBook Pro really need a Touch Bar and become so thin that it kills the graphics due to overheating? The answer is a categoric NO in both cases.
The Retina MacBook Pro has been turned in to an abortion in the name of fashion. Of course there are those who will defend Apple to the hilt but they are not real Mac users. Apple no longer produce the quality gear they once did. Period. If Apple were to bastardise the iMac as they have the Retina MacBook Pro. it could well be the final nail in the coffin. The 5k 27" iMac is an amazing machine which needs absolutely no messing with.

 

[BlueMoon63]

Well said. Anyone who's read SJ's biography knows, he didn't care about the stock price or amassing wealth. His only luxury was driving a new Mercedes every 6 months without California plates.

He cared about the UX, UI and indeed, the LONGTERM goals. Tim is like John Sculley after SJ departed the company in the 80s. He milked the products for all their worth and was quite successful for about the same number of years that Tim's been successful in increasing the bottom line.

Now the well's running dry and Steve's not around to save it again. Nor do I see anyone stepping into someone else's vision. Apple will be usurped by another company, it might even be Microsoft given their current impetus and product pipeline. Mac OS isn't fairy dust. Steve took a bunch of smart engineers stuck'em in a room, gave them the BSD Mach Kernel and said, build me a NeXT GUI on top of that.

No reason, a business-savvy visionary couldn't do the same on top of one of the many Linux flavours floating about.

I'm just curious if this is all facts or opinion? It's written like facts but is sounds like opinion. I hate the old SJ references like he was a god. He took others peoples visions and products and marketed the h3ll out of their visions. He was the best marketer, maybe ever? He bombed as a CEO because his products that he designed were so overpriced and terrible looking and his bullying and arrogance didn't work. His decision to hire Sculley was his biggest mistake. He came back and a visionary designer/engineer came up with a better MP3 player. Jobs marketed the h3ll out of Ivy's idea. That one product made the iPhone (Ivy's design) the best selling product and close to 90% of all profit for Apple for the last 10 years. Many people purchased Mac's because of and only because of the iPhone or iPod because it didn't work well as well on other O/S.

Now, the wells running dry? Based on what? A few down quarters? The stock doesn't look like the well is running dry. It's within 10-12% of the all time high. Remember, Steve drove the stock from 80's to less than 10 when he was CEO.

I'm not ripping your post as much as trying to say that Steve really did get a little lucky with the iPod that Ivy designed. That one product made Apple what it is today because it became the iPhone that Steve did not create as a vision in his head. The entire world wanted Apple to make the iPod into the iPhone and when the iPhone was so-so for several years, Steve called every person who complained a a$$ or using it wrong or an idiot.

So Tim must go because the media rips the current products. Won't make any difference unless the stock goes to $70 or $80 by this time next year.

 

[fischersd]

They should be building the Echo functionality into the Apple TV - it should be your "hub" for home automation - just connect a webcam with integrated microphones to it (for FaceTime and Siri). It's already connected to your TV / home theatre, so no speakers required.

And, if you have multiple Apple TV's, turn them into a compute cluster. Heh. Maybe we need a processor and memory update for that though. (give it 4k@120Hz, gigabit ethernet and screaming 802.11AC while you're at it).

 

[canonical]

MacBook Air wedge shape is a superior (better) industrial design than the new MacBook Pros rectangle, so I look forward to an update of the MacBook Air - you can buy a couple of Airs for the price of a MacBook Pro, and I prefer the Air anyway. TouchBar is a gimmick - if you want to get all touchy/feely, make the whole monitor a touchscreen (no thanks).

 

[navaira]

Under Tim Cook Apple is producing fashion accessories and nothing more.

That is 100% correct and something that I mentioned for the first time when Apple Watch Edition came out. During an economic crisis, most people cut down unnecessary spending. This, however, does not apply to the rich, who generally tend to get richer. It is a better investment at a time like that to produce rose gold, thin slow computers or watches that are literally made of gold than €999 laptops with retina screens that the masses would buy... if not for the fact they are busy paying mortgages and, um, eating.

The Mac Pro and rMBP 2016 are perfect examples of this. Functionality, speed, etc. are now relegated to second place. It is the thinness and special form that resembles nothing else that matters. Who cares Mac Pro hasn't seen a speed bump for three years? You can't see a speed bump. What you can see is this trashcan computer that looks like nothing else. Touch Bar? Maybe it will prove useful, maybe not. But who else has a Touch Bar? Nobody, that's who. The 2015-2016 Macbook may have a keyboard that (to me personally) is barely usable and one USB-C slot. But who cares? Did you see how thin and how rose gold it is? Is it worth €1449? For people who are now Apple's target, it is.

There are products that are exceptions, of course. Basically mobile products (except aforementioned AW Edition) and cloud (including Apple Music). You can now get a S7 phone for half the price it originally cost. But you can't get an iPhone 7 for half price even a day before 7S is released. Why is that? Because you are buying a fashion statement. iOS looks absolutely ridiculous on the large iPad Pro. But who cares? It's an iPad Pro. It says "I can afford an iPad Pro". The fact that there are four icons in a row divided by huge amounts of blank space means nothing. This is where Apple made one crucial mistake: iPhone 7 is too similar to previous models. You have to buy the scratchable Jet Black to show people you have The New Thing. Angela Ahrendts does not approve of that.

MacBook Air wedge shape is a superior (better) industrial design than the new MacBook Pros rectangle, so I look forward to an update of the MacBook Air - you can buy a couple of Airs for the price of a MacBook Pro, and I prefer the Air anyway.

It absolutely is a better design, but it's old by now. Air will not see an update. rMB is the new Air. Not price-wise, not specs-wise, but as an accessory to be seen with.

I've seen someone say that people who are the most critical of rMBP 2016 are ones that can't afford it. That's the point. rMBP 2016 has not been designed as a pro machine. It's been designed as "I can afford this". Removing the battery time indicator is a good example of this. It doesn't matter how long the battery lasts. It's thinner and comes in two colours. Expect Apple to go further in that direction.

 

[jlc1978]

No reason to update the Apple TV? Really? I can think of two really good ones: 4K and HDR. Every other streamer has it at this point and I'd be shocked if Apple doesn't do it too before the end of the year.

While they might, the real issue is not Apple's lack of the feature but ISP's who have data caps as well as bandwidth/speed issues that make 4K /HDR no a viable option for many users. If Apple adds them it'll be more of rtes "me too..." effect than addressing a real world need for those features. Some users may be able to take advantage of them but a significant percentage won't.

 

[cwt2nospam]

very hard with that car...i better advise Apple to go for an all in one Television, with build in apple tv

Televisions are very low profit, and there is little room for differentiation. Even worse, increasing resolution has limits. Most people can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p, so 4K and 5K are wasted on them.

Today's cars on the other hand, are terrible. They waste enormous amounts of energy and require far too much maintenance. Tesla's pointed the way forward, but most companies aren't yet following. Apple could make a real impact in that market.

 

[jlc1978]

Functionality, speed, etc. are now relegated to second place. It is the thinness and special form that resembles nothing else that matters. Who cares Mac Pro hasn't seen a speed bump for three years? You can't see a speed bump.

True, but how necessary is a speed bump for most Mac users? For email, web browsing, writing, etc. current machines are more than sufficient. Unless yo are doing some real heavy lifting a speed bump will have no discernible impact on the user. As much as I'd like one the reality is my current mac is fast enough for 99% of what i do, and i can live with the other 1% since the speed is acceptable.

What you can see is this trashcan computer that looks like nothing else. Touch Bar? Maybe it will prove useful, maybe not. But who else has a Touch Bar? Nobody, that's who.

It will be interesting to see how the touch bar plays out. Personally, adding TouchID was a plus for security reasons, for me; but I am not sure how useful the rest of the features will be. However, Apple has tended to do thing others don't rather than simply follow the pack, for better or worse.

The 2015-2016 Macbook may have a keyboard that (to me personally) is barely usable and one USB-C slot. But who cares? Did you see how thin and how rose gold it is? Is it worth €1449? For people who are now Apple's target, it is.

The lack of additional USB slots and SD card slot bother me as well; especially since I use the SD slot as an automatic backup location in case my SSD dies while traveling so at least I have all my work files available until I can do a restore. I'd like to see a good wireless option so I could at least continue to automatically backup without having to add a hub.

Thin is nice, from traveler's perspective, although I will trade slots for thin as long as possible. I suspect we'll see more companies coming out with thin machines with few slots.

 

[Woochoo]

The iPhone 8 might fall on my hands, but 2017 will be the year when I finally get rid of Mac and swap to Surface. Already owning a custom tower and really happy with it as my main computer.

 

[9081094]

That's why I use Apple products. That's what I pay Apple to do. The things that no other company can or will offer me.

Others already noticed and Apple is still in its own bubble thinking they're better than the rest. It's ignorant and sad.

 

[pmau]

I admit that I have not read all remarks above, but the most important / disappointing topic is iOS on the iPad.
Apple has shown no motivation to make the iPad plus pencil a unique experience.
Holding back on innovation to have a unified experience between a phone and a tablet is the biggest mistake they have made.
Look at the springboard, look at the fact that most Apps are just iPhone Apps that try to use more space.
There is no justification to buy a really expensive iPad Pro with accessories if there is no useful OS that comes with it.
iOS for iPad has to happen.
Even watchOS and tvOS are focosing on completely different user experiences.

 

[cwt2nospam]

Others already noticed and Apple is still in its own bubble thinking they're better than the rest. It's ignorant and sad.

They are still better, but that's not enough. Better than crap is never good enough. The problem is that Moore's law is effectively over. Improvements are incremental now, and so it's difficult to come up with new capabilities. Smart phones and personal computers aren't going to do dramatically more than last years model.

Now it's about the ecosystem and securely networking everything together. Apple is best at both of those, but neither is visible to most people, especially when they're on a budget.

 

[pmau]

but neither is visible to most people

I would even go so far to say that most people do not care at all.

 

[Silver78]

same as allways ...thats all great....no talk of AR/VR/MR that is the biggest news