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What's Coming From Apple in 2016: Apple Watch 2, iPhone 6c, iPhone 7, Skylake MacBooks, and More

The article seems to place blame on "intels chip delays" - I find it somewhat amazing that many other manufacturers are offering products using Skylake processors and have not been impacted by these "delays". Why is this?
"Broadwell chips appropriate for a 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro update became available in June of 2015, so Apple could release an updated 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro in early 2016 using these chips. Alternatively, and more likely, Apple could bypass Broadwell altogether in favor of a Skylake update for both the 13 and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro."
If Apple chooses to continue to use Broadwell processors, I'm moving on.
 
kdarling said:
Several types of non-cuff blood pressure wrist devices have been made, including:
  • Samsung's health sensor testbed watch uses multiple LED blood sensors to watch blood move along the blood vessels.
  • A similar type looks at the shape of the blood pulse to figure out the pressure, but has to be calibrated with a cuff first for its calculations to work.
  • Yet another has pressure sensitive bristles in the watchband itself, which "feel" the pulse amount.
No idea how accurate any of those are, except that the calibrated one apparently does pretty well.
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Inaccurate sensors are worse than useless, they are dangerous for the wearer, and they represent a potential legal/liability overhang for the manufacturer. My dentist has a blood pressure wrist cuff that yields readings 30-40 points higher than the numbers generated by other devices (doctors office, kiosk, home gadgets). When I called them out on this, the response was "This is a top of the line cuff, it's far more accurate than your consumer product".

Even though they apparently own an expensive piece of crap that yields inaccurate results, as a patient I'm not allowed to question its readings because they are medical profesh-uh-nuls. I no longer care about the validity of the readings, but the real problem is the inaccurate blood pressure readings which are recorded and placed in my permanent medical record -- with all the consequences that follow.
 
If the new retina MBP is going to have Thunderbolt 3 .. They'll have to redesign it .. Just give me the same port configuration and swap Thunderbolt 2 for 3 ports.

They've done enough data mining with their other devices to figure out what the pros will stand when they make their changes. (Note the new MacBook keyboard is not the same switch mechanism as the new Bluetooth keyboard.. This is all for learning what to do in the future as to not mess up tried and true brands like the MacBook Pro for example).

2016 should be interesting to say the least.
 
Weaselboy said:
Dang... I totally missed the boat there! Apologies and have a happy new year. :D
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Happy New Year to you too! :D

kdarling said:
Several types of non-cuff blood pressure wrist devices have been made, including:
  • Samsung's health sensor testbed watch uses multiple LED blood sensors to watch blood move along the blood vessels.
  • A similar type looks at the shape of the blood pulse to figure out the pressure, but has to be calibrated with a cuff first for its calculations to work.
  • Yet another has pressure sensitive bristles in the watchband itself, which "feel" the pulse amount.
No idea how accurate any of those are, except that the calibrated one apparently does pretty well.
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I'd like to see an Oximeter in there too. My 2016 goal is to become a private pilot, and that would be nice to have on my wrist. As for blood pressure, with the diagnostic port on there, maybe it could be built into a band?
 
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The iPhone 6 minus o_O

I really hope they don't put a camera on the watch because it would seem so pointless, yet I don't think it would detract from the overall product so it's okay I guess.
 
Unami said:
it could be a useful sensor - it's pretty useless for facetime, imho, because even holding the watch up for a phone call longer than a few seconds takes some effort, and then you would still be filming up your nose, if it were a video-call. so, you'd have to shakily hold it up in front of your face - but at a distance, not turning your wrist - until your arm hurts. it also doesn't make sense for taking photos/videos, because then the camera would have to be on the side, pointing away from you - you won't be able to pack a decent-sized chip and optics on the side of an even smaller 2nd gen watch, and it wouldn't work if you're a leftie and wear the watch the other way round.
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I'm sorry, this is just a really weak argument. who are all of these people with such weak arms they can hold them up for more than a few seconds? In order to have a successful FaceTime conversation with the iPhone, one also has to hold the phone up in front of their face at a distance to prevent the up-nose view. And it weighs substantially more then the watch, so there's the weight of the arm, plus the added weight of the phone. And the phone has to be held at a weird angle on the wrist, which could cause cramps, and whatever other concerns are being raised as a problem with holding up the watch.

And a front facing camera makes perfect sense for taking Selfies, and Tim Cook has made it clear -- serving that market is a priority for Apple.

As for the chip, I'm not sure that's true, but even so, the camera is there as a convenience, and Apple has demonstrated that the FaceTime camera is always much lower quality than that offered for taking photos on the back of the iPhone.

I get that all of these things are problems for you, but for the mass market customer Apple is trying to court by selling the watch for huge discounts at Target and Wal-Mart, that's not going to be a huge problem for most.

In the end, using the camera a sensor to improve performance and conserve battery trumps everything else in my mind, but it's using the camera for selfies and FaceTime that will sell it -- even in the unlikely event that most customers agree with you after using it, the cool factor of having the ability to do it when needed is going to far outstrip interest over any minimal discomfort they may experience while using it.

TallManNY said:
Apple Watch

I'm going to guess that the Apple Watch form factor does not visibly change with version 2. I think it gets a CPU upgrade in speed and energy efficiency and maybe a new sensor in the back. But the iPhone form factor change followed by "S" version has been very easy for consumers to understand and I can see a lot of reasons for Apple to stick with that.
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Again these are all opinions, but given Apple's focus on fashion with this product, I doubt Apple will not make any physical changes. And keep in mind, this is NOT an "S" generation product. This is a Second generation product, and Apple has shown us that they are always substantially different, having learned ways to improve the product while developing the original, but lacking the time to make the changes in time to lock the product design for mass production. The original iPhone to the 3G, major changes in appearance and features. The original iPad to iPad 2, major changes in appearance and features. And so on ... The 2nd gen watch was presumably already in the planning stages as they developed the 1st gen watch (as with all products). By the time it was in production, the R&D was already in full swing on watch 2. Add to that an alleged unplanned delay in launch time of the original watch by up to 6 months and you have even more time to make changes to the watch 2 in a yearly update cycle, as well as a unique opportunity to gauge reaction and get feedback on the original product. The original iPhone had that as well since they were forced to announce 6 months before release due to FCC filing requirements.

All of this suggests it's far more likely that Apple will change the case design in some respects, rather than change nothing about it.
 
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At this point, the only release I'm interested in is the new Skylake MBPs. It's about time I update my beloved (but worn out) MBA. If the new MBP 15" comes out with a decent dedicated graphic card (not like the m370x which was hardly adequate for a 2015 laptop costing $2,500+). If they insist in putting another gimp graph card, I might consider Windows (/shivers!).

As far as iPhone 7, iPad Air 3, iWatch 2, etc go... nah, I don't see any point on updating my current devices: my iPhone 6+ and iPad Mini 2 are going strong so I can stretch them at least for another year.
 
merkinmuffley said:
The article seems to place blame on "intels chip delays" - I find it somewhat amazing that many other manufacturers are offering products using Skylake processors and have not been impacted by these "delays". Why is this?
"Broadwell chips appropriate for a 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro update became available in June of 2015, so Apple could release an updated 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro in early 2016 using these chips. Alternatively, and more likely, Apple could bypass Broadwell altogether in favor of a Skylake update for both the 13 and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro."
If Apple chooses to continue to use Broadwell processors, I'm moving on.
Click to expand...

I find this very upsetting as well and not sure of the real reason here. I just layed out almost 3 grand for a MacBook Pro 15" with older generation processor. Maybe for some odd reason they decided to skip this generation processor and wait for the next one. All that I've read about Broadwell Processors state a nice increase in processor speed and battery life savings so it doesn't really make sense what Apple is doing unless of course they are actually in the process of coming out with a significant re-design for the MacBook Pro 15" since they did end up using the Broadwell ships on the MacBook Pro 13".

I suggest we express our feelings on this via their feedback page otherwise rambling about it here won't have any effect:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/


-Mike
 
TallManNY said:
I think your ability to buy multiple Apple products in 2015 was kind of winning. Seems like you don't suffer anything more than a year old for very long. Bad timing on those purchases, but I suspect you are just buying more new computers in 2016.
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Well unfortunately I bought them because I really needed them, had I known what was coming and when I would have tried to wait if I could. Although I always keep my machines in great shape and always resell them when I get a new machine you still end up loosing a ton of money. I now have almost 6 grand in two machines (early 2015 13" and late 2015 15") so in 2016 I am not likely to buy anything. Will likely sell my 13" soon to help pay for the 15" I just bought. Assuming all they introduce in 2016 first quarter is a slightly faster processor for the 15" with minor CPU speed increase and slightly better battery life I'll try very hard to hold off and instead wait for a more significant overhaul of the 15" like faster processor, better discrete graphics, etc. I got the latest 15" with i7 quad core 2.5GHZ, AMD dedicated GPU, fast 1TB SSD so it's still a very nice machine don't get me wrong I just wish it already came at least with an equivalent broadwell CPU. And from what I read the AMD GPU they are using is pretty crappy, it is unfortunate that they didn't go with a NVIDIA GPU as they have some really nice GPU's from what I read. I run an IT business so my machines are pretty heavily used at home and on the go and pretty much all I use is a MacBook Pro for all work.

-Mike

Phoenixx said:
It's been a lot of years since release, but don't forget the iRack.

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Hahah, thank you that is funny as hell!

-Mike

Wild-Bill said:
15" Skylake rMBP - Thunderbolt 3, NVM PCI-E, dedicated nVidia graphics, DONT' make it thinner for the sake of thinness (except for the screen bezel), keep the MagSafe, 32GB RAM option (or better yet, make the memory user-upgradable again...).

And either update the Mac Pro trashcan, lower the price (still charging premium prices for 2013 tech), or kill it off and get it over with already....:rolleyes:
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Would really be nice to once again have end user upgradable RAM and up to 32GB. And same thing for the storage, SSD should be removable and upgradable.

They should finally introduce a magnetic type cable connection on the iPhone just like with the magsafe on the laptops that would be useful and cool. Specially when you are in the car you don't have to fiddle with the darn cable jut move it close and it will attach. It wouldn't work with the lightning cable though so they would have to use some sort of similar connection like the magsafe but tinier which shouldn't be hard at all to do.



-Mike
 
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street.cory said:
I don't really understand what value there is to adding a camera to the watch. I haven't ever found myself wanting or needing a camera.

Any ideas?
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I agree. My main reason for holding out until Gen 2 is I think they'll make it faster, and possibly add a GPS.
 
mikefla said:
Would really be nice to once again have end user upgradable RAM and up to 32GB. And same thing for the storage, SSD should be removable and upgradable.

They should finally introduce a magnetic type cable connection on the iPhone
-Mike[/QUOTE

Totally agree with the RAM, but I can't see any way Apple will go back to user upgradeable memory. Even the latest Mac mini has done away with this.

Think lightning is here to stay for a while yet. The retina MacBook doesn't even have magsafe so I'm actually hoping they don't start phasing it out from all MacBooks.
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Will likely be a cheap year for me.

Kind of over the Apple Watch, at least for a few years until it's drastically better. Still use it for the gym and around the house - it's great for not missing calls/texts when I'm in the house, the only time my phone isn't attached to my thigh - but I'm kind of pleased to say my lifelong love of quality swiss mechanicals far far exceeds my interest in smartwatches. Note, this isn't a slam of the Apple Watch, more about my personal taste.

My late '13 maxed 15" rMBP is good for years yet, only a very unlikely 17" rMBP would pique my interest.

My maxed quad core '12 MacMini is great for server, download and grinding duties. Again, only a highly unlikely powerful MacMini + new 5k Apple Display combo would pique my interest. Not going to happen is it? :( An iMac will probably replace the MacMini eventually, but I'm not touching one of those till they're chinless - while the 5K iMac is a beast, the chin looks terrible to my eyes having used a TBD for so long. Have plenty of retina screens but for some reason the old hat 2560x1440 of the TBD doesn't irk me, probably due to the distance I sit from it. I wish Apple would ditch the thinness obsession, make the iMac chinless and put the guts in a back bulge..like the smart battery case! :) Again, not going to happen.

iPhone, despite being contract free, I'm firmly on the S cycle and phones have ceased to be particularly interesting to me for a while now. Diminishing returns territory currently, and Apple knows this given their pushing of the upgrade program.

Now, an iPad Air 3 with 3D Touch and more ram would be nice! I love my Air 2 strictly for consumption, and greater faster more is always nice :)
 
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mikefla said:
They should finally introduce a magnetic type cable connection on the iPhone just like with the magsafe on the laptops that would be useful and cool. Specially when you are in the car you don't have to fiddle with the darn cable jut move it close and it will attach. It wouldn't work with the lightning cable though so they would have to use some sort of similar connection like the magsafe but tinier which shouldn't be hard at all to do.
Click to expand...

Not likely. They seem to be putting greater emphasis on Lightning than ever across all of their products. So I doubt they will be willing to change the standard again so soon after changing it from 30-pin, especially in light of this expanded use. And considering MagSafe is likely going the way of the dodo, in favor of USB-C based on the Retina MacBook "single-port" connection, they are unlikely to keep it around as USB-C it becomes the standard. Many suggested a MagSafe USB-C connector, but that seems like a really poor idea for a connector that passes data. What happens if someone accidentally pulls apart the connector while transferring data? And that's even more likely on a mobile device.

More likely, once they shift to inductive charging on their mobile devices, this will cease to be a problem. In fact, even the Lightning port might go away, as data transfers become increasingly wireless, though as the storage increases and the iOS devices become more powerful, it's hard to imagine a wireless transfer when working with large files. If nothing else the lightning port will become a covered diagnostic port, which pro users can access as needed. I imagine USB-C will become the standard on the Macs, even if other legacy ports remain as well, I doubt Power will be one of them, which I believe will either be supplied by USB-C and Lightning, or eventually inductive charging ("you never have to plug in your MacBook to charge it!"), and "Pro" MacBooks will be as thin and light as the consumer grade, with only a Lightning and USB-C port with elegant port replicators for those who need to rarely access legacy ports.
 
My wife still had iPad 2 with Retina display. (3rd gen)? It works great. I do want a Mini 4 but I keep holding out for some reason. I guess because the iPad 2 still works.


FOUR INCH iPhone?!!!! Nah. I got everyone beat.... I want a 3.5" iPhone like the original.
 
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Mac 128 said:
Not likely. They seem to be putting greater emphasis on Lightning than ever across all of their products. So I doubt they will be willing to change the stan.

More likely, once they shift to inductive charging on their mobile devices, this will cease to be a problem. In fact, even the Lightning port might go away, as data transfers become increasingly wireless, though as the storage increases and the iOS devices become more powerful, it's hard to imagine a wireless transfer when working with large files. If nothing else the lightning port will become a covered diagnostic port, which pro users can access as needed.

I noticed lately that my lightning connector comes loose way to easily.
It happens a lot. I leave my phone to charge only to find it's not fully inserted or it got bumped and the charger lightning pin isn't making a good enough contact. It sucks. I'd rather stop to hesitate a micro usb insert one way only than apples convenient lightning charger connector
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djbuddha said:
They've done enough data mining with their other devices to figure out what the pros will stand when they make their changes
Click to expand...

Apple doesn't care. They haven't made products that satisfy its customer's desires & needs in a long time. Apple's ethos is to demand customers conform to what it produces.

It's why Apple "simplified" FCP, it's tablets don't have SD card slots, almost all Macs are "sealed systems" now, headless Macs down to two, one very low end, the other "pro," most laptops down to a handful of ports or just one- dongle city.

I'm a long time Mac user and Apple has gone in the reverse direction I'd prefer but I'm not going anywhere still. Apple knows this plus Mac sales are a small part of its earnings and "pro" models just a sub-line of that.
 
MacRumors said:



With the launch of the Apple Watch, the iPhone 6s and the 6s Plus, the new Apple TV, and the iPad Pro, 2015 was a major year for Apple. The Apple Watch introduced a whole new category, the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus saw the debut of 3D Touch, and the iPad Pro brought Apple's largest iOS device yet.

iOS 9, watchOS 2, and OS X 10.11 El Capitan brought refinements to Apple's operating systems, and the fourth-generation Apple TV came with a brand new operating system, tvOS. 2015 saw a huge number of new products and software updates, and 2016 promises to be just as exciting.

A second-generation Apple Watch is in the works and could launch in early 2016, while new flagship iPhones, the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus, are coming in late 2016. Those who love smaller devices will be excited to hear a 4-inch iPhone 6c may be coming early in 2016, and Apple's Mac lineup is expected to gain Skylake chip updates.

whatscomingin2016-800x514.jpg

New software, including iOS 10, OS X 10.12, watchOS 3, and an upgraded version of tvOS are all expected in 2016, and Apple will undoubtedly work on improving services like HomeKit, Apple Pay, and Apple Music.

As we did for 2014 and 2015, we've highlighted Apple's prospective 2016 product plans, outlining what we might see from Apple over the course of the next 12 months based on current rumors, past releases, and logical upgrade choices.


Click here to read rest of article...

Article Link: What's Coming From Apple in 2016: Apple Watch 2, iPhone 6c, iPhone 7, Skylake MacBooks, and More
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This is basically an article to have an article. I don't even see that much speculation.

Here's a version number and that its greater than the previous version number. It will likely contain new features.

Um, thanks?
 
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