MacPro
Predictions For MacWorld 2008
2008-01-14
The big surprise at Macworld last year was that the keynote was pretty much about about one product: the iPhone. This year there seem to be many things that are already known: a slim laptop, an update to the iPhone, a new Apple TV and movie rentals. So none of these is probably the big thing. And the banners saying "There's something in the air" have everyone talking about wireless technologies.
[Update: Less then 100% wrong this year. Home storage yes, but not attached. In fact very unattached: Time Capsule. Apple is moving the world slowly to computer appliances. We did get the rambling CEO again]
Last year my predictions were 100% wrong. Throwing caution to the wind, I present my probably all wrong predictions for Macworld 2008:
A Home Storage System
I keep putting this one up, and one day I will be right. Nobody does home storage right, particularly for Mac users, so there is a big market opportunity there. I think it will not be a networked box (NAS), but instead will be locally attached for performance. If you want to make the storage available on the network, plug it into an Airport or a Mac. Software does the bridging.
Wireless Data Service In Every Laptop
WiMax is a little new to the market, so if Apple has built it into anything, they have been doing an awful lot of work with chip vendors and software in secret. It's quite possible that Apple is putting WiMax into everything portable, but more likely is the addition of 3G or EDGE into the laptops.
No Shows
This is not the venue for for a new release of Aperture. PMA is much more likely. There will also be no new iLife of iWork: we already got those last year. The no-show I am hoping for is the "other CEO" who comes in at about minute 35 and rambles with notes until the audience winces. I really think that Steve puts these in so we can deal with the calls of nature.
A New Mac
I think a new desktop Mac is quite likely. Something that fits between the high-end of the Mac Pro and the low end of the iMac. It would be bigger than a mini, with at least two hard drive bays and at least one open slot for a PCI card. This would keep many people happy who need some expansion and flexibility but don't have the wallet for a full-blown Mac Pro. What makes it possible now is the low-power Intel chips and the subsequent option to package the electronics compactly.
Multi-User Mac Software
This is a long shot, but I think it will come one day. The Macs are already multi-user, but not with with multiple simultaneous screens. This software will allow a number of people to plug mice, keyboards, and screens into one mac and all use that one machine as though it were their own machine. That makes things much cheaper for schools and other high-density applications.
A Recording Device
Except for building it into Macs, Apple has avoided making audio and video recording equipment of any kind. Even the iPhone and iPod can't record video or sound. So there is a product gap for some sort of device that does one or both. You sync it with your Mac or PC just like an iPod and iTunes tracks it in its library. What Apple can better the market with are ease of use, recording quality, and capacity. With iTunes, Garageband, iMovie, YouTube, all the infrastructure is in place for personal event recording, editing, and publishing. We just need the gadget.
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Why The 24 Inch iMac and Why Now?
2006-11-25
I had been toying with two alternatives to buying the 24 inch iMac now: buying a MacPro now, and buying an iMac with the Santa Rosa chip set when they come out next year.
To justify a MacPro and its accompanying hit on the wallet I would have had to keep it for a long time. It would have offered a great deal of expandability that I would have used eventually, but I would have had a mainly empty, unused computer for much of its life. The RAM is expensive and that is a big put-off. And the future of FBRAM is not one of high volume and falling costs. It appears to be a stop-gap measure to allow large amounts of memory at the expense of latency and the market for that is relatively small. I don't think we will be seeing large price reductions for a while. I would have needed a screen (23") and 4G RAM, plus a fast graphics card. And all that adds up very quickly.
The other possibility was a 24" iMac. The better graphics was a big draw, as was the big screen. The 3G RAM limit is a pain: Apple was asking $575 extra for 3G over 2G. So the solution was to wait for the new version with the Santa Rosa chip set due out early 2007. That chip set will remove the 3G limit and the iMacs will support 4G. But Santa Rosa appears to be delayed, and so it was not worth the nine-month or whatever wait to get something that might appear. The cost of the iMac was about half what I would be spending on a MacPro. So for the same money I could get a new computer twice as often.
Buying now means that I get a fairly mature machine. The Intel iMacs have been around for a while now and the 24" has the most space and the least thermal limitations, so it should be reliable. And buying now means that I get the benefit of the faster machine right now. I can live with 2G of RAM and when prices are reasonable, upgrade to 3G. I got the machine with the biggest hard drive available (750G) because I know I will fill it up and it is not replaceable.
In a couple of years I might want to upgrade. I won't have a highly expensive MacPro that is still half-used telling me that I should really keep it for another couple of years. I will have a slow, maxed-out iMac that is ready for replacement. Another thing to consider is that my Macs get handed down, and it is much easier to hand down iMacs than any other sort of Mac because the screen is built-in. And the recipients of the hand-me-downs don't need the power of a MacPro any way.
To justify a MacPro and its accompanying hit on the wallet I would have had to keep it for a long time. It would have offered a great deal of expandability that I would have used eventually, but I would have had a mainly empty, unused computer for much of its life. The RAM is expensive and that is a big put-off. And the future of FBRAM is not one of high volume and falling costs. It appears to be a stop-gap measure to allow large amounts of memory at the expense of latency and the market for that is relatively small. I don't think we will be seeing large price reductions for a while. I would have needed a screen (23") and 4G RAM, plus a fast graphics card. And all that adds up very quickly.
The other possibility was a 24" iMac. The better graphics was a big draw, as was the big screen. The 3G RAM limit is a pain: Apple was asking $575 extra for 3G over 2G. So the solution was to wait for the new version with the Santa Rosa chip set due out early 2007. That chip set will remove the 3G limit and the iMacs will support 4G. But Santa Rosa appears to be delayed, and so it was not worth the nine-month or whatever wait to get something that might appear. The cost of the iMac was about half what I would be spending on a MacPro. So for the same money I could get a new computer twice as often.
Buying now means that I get a fairly mature machine. The Intel iMacs have been around for a while now and the 24" has the most space and the least thermal limitations, so it should be reliable. And buying now means that I get the benefit of the faster machine right now. I can live with 2G of RAM and when prices are reasonable, upgrade to 3G. I got the machine with the biggest hard drive available (750G) because I know I will fill it up and it is not replaceable.
In a couple of years I might want to upgrade. I won't have a highly expensive MacPro that is still half-used telling me that I should really keep it for another couple of years. I will have a slow, maxed-out iMac that is ready for replacement. Another thing to consider is that my Macs get handed down, and it is much easier to hand down iMacs than any other sort of Mac because the screen is built-in. And the recipients of the hand-me-downs don't need the power of a MacPro any way.
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