The Apple unreleased, unknown, unconfirmed product speculation thread

[peachy]

From the iphone 3g thread

	Quote:	robban
	This thread is soooooo last week - Can we start a new thread, please? "...Apple's chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer revealed that the company will make a key "product transition" that cuts back on its profit margins to help shut out rivals. ...the mystery transition will drop Apple's gross margins from 34.8 percent in the spring quarter to just 31.5 percent in the July-to-September window in which the update takes place, ultimately settling at about 30 percent during Apple's fiscal 2009. Oppenheimer is deliberately short on details, not wanting to pre-announce the product or allude to its nature, but explains that cost will be a driving factor."

I think they'll be keen to make sure Linux doesn't doesn't fill the void MS have created with Vista and my bet is they'll release a low cost EeePC rival and just completely saturate the market, they can then begin hard core vendor lock-in.

[krlock3]

that would be a sensible business strategy actually, but i rather hope, as always with apple, for something cutting edge rather than dumbed down.

krlock3

[Louis Wu]

Hmmm, maybe. I'm just not too sure about Apple anymore, I love their kit but there's always a catch. I'm using Vista Ultimate at home and I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as made out nor does it deserve its poor reputation.
As for the iPhone? Forget it, I'd rather have the HTC Black Diamond but I am waiting until HTC bring out the "Google" phone which will run on Android - it's a far sexier piece of kit than the iPhone which I think is a bit of a gimmick - nice human interface but otherwise it's a bit smoke and mirrors.
Just my opinion, I could be wrong...it happened that I was wrong once before, that was in 1976 I think....

[Polorise]

¨

Splittters !!!

Judean National Front or National Front of Judea .....

Business Week has a nice article, with plenty of suppositions to have all you Fanbois wetting yourselves.






(actually if they sorted out the Air to be a little more Enterprise friendly)

[krlock3]

	Quote:	Louis Wu
	Just my opinion, I could be wrong...it happened that I was wrong once before, that was in 1976 I think....

no, 1976 was the year your ego took over...



krlock3.

lets not turn this new thread into an iphone review thread quite so early.

[Polorise]

	Quote:	krlock3
	lets not turn this new thread into an iphone review thread quite so early.

promises, promises .....

[Louis Wu]

	Quote:	krlock3
	no, 1976 was the year your ego took over... krlock3. lets not turn this new thread into an iphone review thread quite so early.

Fairy Nuff. I think we can expect Apple to pull another rabbit out of the hat soon - wasn't there a rumour about the forthcoming iRack somewhere?

[Lob]

I'd guess on an Atom-based wonderstory. That isn't.

Or a hairdryer. iDry.

[Louis Wu]

Or a new webcam - the iSpy? and a snazzy cover for it, the iLid?

I'll get my coat.....

[Polorise]

	Quote:	Lob
	I'd guess on an Atom-based wonderstory. That isn't. Or a hairdryer. iDry.

already been done chap !!

[Rustygraben]

For those who haven't seen those classic videos:

How does this work?

How does this work?

[Polorise]

¨
rather than continue to post pictures such as this & nark Peachy off too much ...



you can have a look at this past comp from B3TA - If Apple Made Everything

[Louis Wu]

Can't see the vids at work - Thought Police have blocked the youtube - what are the vids?

[AbFab]

From a marketing point of view the world is Apple's oyster.

Just like Britain's Virgin group who used their image of being cool, fair and reliable to move from CDs to radio, an airline, cola, insurance etc. So Apple could bring us anything - and they would be advised to look outside their current markets and diversify - iHolidays? iBike? iBank etc.

[gbn]

What about an iGor to add that "mad scientist" feel to your country retreat?

[Lob]

Here's a thought - they release nothing and call it iDontGiveA****?

Edit: I know, I know - iDGAS

[Rustygraben]

	Quote:	Louis Wu
	Can't see the vids at work - Thought Police have blocked the youtube - what are the vids?

MadTV's hilarious spoofs with a fake Steve Jobs (not the fake Steve Jobs, though) presenting the iPhone and a bunch of other iDevices to the unwashed masses.

[SPB]

Marketing yes, I begin to wonder if the products are really better though. Don't get me wrong I like the Mac, I like OS X, but I slowly am wary of the advertising machine. I think there are too many products that are quickly obsolete by the next incremental product release. I guess I am no longer 100% Apple fan. On the other hand, Linux I feel is just as good as OS X for my needs and doesn't come with all the marketing hype and pressure to look at all the cool products. And on the other hand, give me either over Vista any day of the week. Vista looks so dated, muddled in its interface and thanks to its virus protection that is shipped with it slow, on a fast computer.

[peachy]

	Quote:	Louis Wu
	Hmmm, maybe. I'm just not too sure about Apple anymore, I love their kit but there's always a catch. I'm using Vista Ultimate at home and I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as made out nor does it deserve its poor reputation.

There is always a catch, but I believe MS have missed a trick or two.

Think back 5 or 6 years and many people bought desktops, now laptops are gaining market share. Part of this is technology improving and part of it is comparatively lower price of laptops compared to a few years ago because it Vista was so late that people didn't need to upgrade their hardware, a cheap laptop would do fine.

Now a lot of applications are migrated from the desktop to the web (consumer email for example) and this further reduced hardware requirements.

Apple have always sold appliances, they are vertically integrated and benefit from a Unix kernel and a very small list of drivers required. They can take their OS and put it on just about anything. Linux also behaves very well in appliances, and can be very small, as many of you know with your Linksys routers. The general consumer is happy to by an appliance, as we see with today's mobile phones, people don't care if it's running Palm, Symbian, Windows mobile etc, they just want it to be cool. The same applies with digital cameras etc. Why should computers be different?

The low cost PC/laptop is perfect for the average consumer who stores their email online, increasingly more their documents online and has a fast internet connection. It just needs to be cool, the same way a mobile phone does.

MS can't compete here, they don't make their own laptops, they have to provide drivers for thousands and thousands of devices (motherboards, disk controllers etc) and their latest operating system has massive hardware requirements.

People know Apple, the iPhone and iPod have done this for them. If Apple ship a cool and low cost laptop that costs about £300 who is going to spend £400 on a Vista laptop from HP if they have both of them side by side in PC World?

"Can I check my email"
- "yes"
"Can I open my word docs
- "yes"

[SPB]

	Quote:
	People know Apple, the iPhone and iPod have done this for them. If Apple ship a cool and low cost laptop that costs about £300 who is going to spend £400 on a Vista laptop from HP if they have both of them side by side in PC World?

No one I know for sure and at £300 I would be one of the first in line.

My only doubts with laptops are long-term reliability. I once had a power circuit board go on an otherwise fine Toshiba, the power supply and laptop were fine, but there was an additional tiny circuit board, as part of the power supply inside, that went kaput and to fix cost 750 SFR. If I remember that was a Toshiba T1200, and I was put off then. Today a lot of laptops feel flimsy on the outside! So I hope inside these cheap laptops they are more reliable and cheaper to fix, otherwise a desktop - easily modified and worked on by mostly anyone will still be a better deal. Unless one has to have 100% portability.