Slashdot Mirror
Roundtable on Apple's Future
John Murrell writes "Given the insatiable appetite for Apple rumors, analysis and speculation, SiliconValley.com has opened a week long roundtable discussion on the company's post-Intel future. Among those on the panel are Andy Hertzfeld, Tim Bray, Brent Simmons, John Gruber, Keven Krewell, Mark Gonzales and Leander Kahney."
Surely should be post-PPC, unless they've ditched Intel already.
I guess today is a passable day to die.
Somebody willpredict great success, somebody will predict total failure, and many slashdot assholes will bitch about the iPod throughout this thread.
Check out my foes list to see who is so retarded that they can't use the signature line!!!
Rumors are that the table is not round, but oval. Is the thinnest table on the market (thin as a pencil) and has a color surface. Some talk of video capabilities in future table models. Apple bought massive amounts of table legs from a undisclosed south korean company at great discounts. Introducing this tabel was a bold move, since it's highly succesful Apple footstool was introduced last year and is now the best selling piece of furniture in the world..
You can buy a fancy computer that is relatively well built that runs OS X. But if you don't like OS X then you can put Windows or Linux on it. Most older PPC applications should work, Newer Applications have Fat binaries so both platforms work for a while. The OS has been tested on x86 in duel Development from day 1. All this ends are the annoying xPlatform is faster then yPlatform debates. Sure PPC may have its strong points but not much, this is probably a good move for Apple. While I am sure hacks for OS X that will make it run on any PC will be out most people are not going to try to hack there system to run OS X, or bother looking for it, when OS X says I can't install on my platform, most people don't have the time to make a hack for the OS. So not much will change, with the exception of some compiler flags that are different in some applications.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
First, the move to Intel will not impact their sales negatively. It will irritate some current Mac owners because of the loss of compatibility. Eventually those faithful will stop fighting the tide and buy into Intel/Apple.
Apple's operating system will come full of DRM. The industry is moving in that direction, and Intel is incorporating it in their designs, so Apple would have been left out in the cold (and not where the content providers are) if they didn't make the switch. Now that they will make it, DRM will be a big part of their next OS.
Apple will continue to move into areas where they have little expertise but seem to be a good fit. Cell phones, (more) portable music players, and other gadgets which can help spread the Apple brand. They will stay away from the medical industry, auto industry (though they may seek partnerships to get iPod technology into cars), and overseas shipping (for the time being).
Apple's future is bright, but they need to focus on keeping their products tightly controlled. They can't start branding everything they see and expect to keep a good focus and positive revenue stream. They will continue to focus on music, but probably start looking into video as well.
Their OS will remain a non-commodity item. You will be able to buy the OS off the shelf, but it will only run on Apple-branded computers. Hardware selection will be limited as well, but for the user experience, such a scheme will benefit the end users.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
As a developer, I'm far more interested in a forum on the future of Objective-C. While a totally fantastic language, it still is lacking some amenities one expects from modern languages. Automated garbage collection is one such example. There are rumors (as recently as April) that Apple is/was working on a garbage collection system for Objective-C.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I wonder if this is to counter FUD or if it's just another step in the Apple Product Cycle: http://www.misterbg.org/AppleProductCycle/
Upcoming Events: What features would you like in the of the MacIntel?
It is important for them to take the actions of Sun into account while discussing the future of Apple. Indeed, these days were are seeing an effort by Sun to reattract some of the more technical users they have lost.
Sun is now putting out powerful, relatively inexpensive Opteron-based workstations that run Solaris 10. They could, in theory, provide what Apple is providing for developers, but with some added benefits.
Since they're not as gung-ho with the media industries as Apple is, they should not feel the need to incorporate DRM into their systems. That alone will be a major purchasing factor in many technical users' eyes.
If they're able to get their act together and provide a very fast, very efficient desktop Java implementation, then they could lure developers away from Apple.
Sun has the potential to regain their late-1980's, mid-1990's reputation as the supreme workstation vendor. While there were some doubts as to their direction the past few years, it appears as though they are on-track and soon to be very successful.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I think Apple should make an MP3 player. I hear youngsters use these quite a lot nowadays so there might be a market for it.
I'm too cool for a sig.
No way. They don't trust anyone with their image/name, there's no way they pull an IBM here. They *might* contract out all manufacturing and some of the crap work, but Stevie's a control freak so they're not selling it.
Apple itself will then rename itself to iTunes.
They're not changing the name either, and not to that of a product, for two reasons. One, the Apple name is incredibly recognizable. Two, they're not going to hardwire themselves to a product, as that would be stupid.
The Macintosh, in some ways, is dying. It's still a profitable niche, and will be for a long time to come, but it has to beat an 800lb Gorilla, and it's questionable it'll ever be able to do so.
So since it's rather profitable, why sell it off? Everything they've done with the Mac mini etc. suggests they're trying to leverage their iPod windows userbase to try the Mac. Remember, Stevie still loves the Mac, and that's all that matters. Its marketshare isn't dropping anymore, and their long term plan seems to be to sacrifice some of their famous margins to boost share.
As far as Mac goes, they won't kill it, and they won't sell it, but they might contract out more of the work.
This is utter nonsense. I'm feeling silly just replying to this. Apple in its current form is all about having the designers of every link in the chain that is the Mac-OSX-iLife-iTunes-iPod experience orbiting around Steve Jobs at 1, Infinite Loop in Cupertino.
... you name it, all are built by OEMs in Asia. That means scaling back is not a problem in case sales should stagnate for a while, but they are still in control and can continue to perfectly coordinate their computer products with their other ventures.
They are NOT going to give away OS X to anybody else, and just buying the Apple brand would be worthless to Dell and other potential buyers.
You are right in a way: Apple does not want to build their computers themselves - and that's exactly why they don't do it, even today. iBooks, Powerbooks, iPod
If there is one word to sum up Apple's success, it's "integration". Everything has to be so fucking integrated, they even started writing Windows software because they knew that, without iTunes, the iPod had nothing but design on it's competitors. (Of course they also used iTunes Windows to push Quicktime, which is automatically installed with it, but that's an other story...).
You seem to think they make boatloads of money in the music business. Well, think again. Their music store just broke even. The iPod line as a whole may have fairly high profit margins right now, but Apple is already pushing to commoditize the portable player industry. Take a look at the iPod nano's prize-tag. The margins on this thing are probably razor-thin, considering all the engineering that went into it and all the marketing dollars that are spent to promote it now.
I thought the comment regarding the yellow box implementation (sic Rhapsody era) was very interesting and plausible.
This idea is that with the switch to Intel, Apple will be porting (has already ported) and developers will be porting all their apps to Intel compile to run native... has to happen...
to continue...
iTunes on Windows has already introduced a significant amount of OS X AppKit codebase to Windows (on Intel of course)...
which means that anyone with iTunes on Windows is ready to run many of these soon to be available intel compiled OS X Apps
inside Windows, ala Yellow Box (basically an OS X runtime space on Windows).
SO..... we will end up seeing all of the Apple consumer / free apps for OS X also running on Windows inside the YellowBox space at native speeds (cause they're built for intel) and an increasing number of developers using XCode to compile apps that run perfectly on both OS X and Windows/YellowBox and decreasing number of developers not doing so as there will be no performance hit or added overhead and thr upside is you hit two OS's for the price of one. Which also means consumers can pay for one license while being able to install their purchased software on both Windows and Mac.
Over time people start thinking "I really only use the free Apple Apps and all my installed and paid for apps will run on Macs, so why not buy a Mac?"
This could take less than 5 years but at least 2 years... just long enough for Game developers to start the process.
IMHO
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.