Since I first came out with my 2013 hardware predictions in January, there have been wild rumors of an "iWatch" from Apple. These rumors have exploded after Bruce Tognazzini, one of Apple's early human interface design experts, came out with a blog musing such a device. Tog admitted he was just wondering what Apple would do next, and his ideas were not based on any inside information from Apple. Strangely, similar rumors came out in major newspapers six days later; rumors claimed to be based on Apple insider information. Oh sure.
These rumors have persisted without any reasonable analysis of the possibilities. Current "smart watches" such as the Pebble handle notifications from your smartphone of incoming calls, emails, and social communications such as tweets. Similar smart watches can be paired with exercise equipment, track GPS data, and control music on an iDevice in your pocket.
Tog was predicting an Apple iWatch could have all of these functions, plus track exact altitude using a barometric device (nope!), automatically handle passwords for you, track the location of your iPad or iPhone, make electronic NFC payments at cash registers, show you who is calling, monitor health and fitness conditions, provide weather data, and even tell the time!
Such a device would likely have to be paired with an iPhone or iPad for functionality, and people are hoping this would cost under $100. Well… I have to wonder if it is possible to fit all of this functionality into a watch sized device that doesn't look like a Rubic's Cube strapped to your wrist. Some of the desirable functions would require a fairly capable CPU chip and battery to match, along with a plethora of sensors. Apple is known for sleek designs, and cramming all this in would be difficult. And, cost goes up as miniaturization increases, so I am not looking too soon for an iWatch from Apple.
While I am very cautious about the rumors for an Apple iWatch or an Apple TV set, I am almost certain Apple will come out with a new Mac Pro tower soon. They have already discontinued sales in Europe due to non-environmental friendly materials in the existing model. My hopes are for a more compact machine. I have spoken to many engineers, gamers, programmers, video and graphics creators who want a smaller, lighter machine. As I have often said or written, it's my hope Apple will redesign the new MacPro along these lines.
The old design had lots of room for several expansion slots and large hard drives, more than most the potential MacPro customers want. What is really needed is a small machine with computing power; Xeon processors, a full width bus and lots of RAM. The smaller machine could still have room for one or two expansion slots, and a couple of hard drives. Most people would be satisfied with this *luggable* machine, something engineers could lug into the field, and gamers take to a friend's house. Apple needs to know the built in expansion slot should be capable of handling the biggest, baddest graphics cards found in the peripheral world.
For those needing additional expansion, Apple could make a companion expansion box for additional hard drives, solid state drives and expansion cards. With Thunderbolt available on new Macs, the connection to the expansion box would be easy. The expansion cards would be slowed a little, due to the latency found in the Thunderbolt connection, but the ability to group multiple drives in a single housing would be welcome. The expansion box could not house more CPUs or RAM.
The icing would be the ability of this expansion housing to be an addition to any Mac having a Thunderbolt plug. Imagine plugging your MacBook Pro into this box, when you get home. We can only hope that Apple wouldn't use this box as an excuse to pump up their margins. If Apple satisfies all of these dreams, sales of their top end machine will increase dramatically.
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