Rampant Speculation Thread WWDC'13

[Printer Bandit]

i just came

 

[purbeast0]

i just came

hah cool!

i just hope they don't make you update to the latest OSX just to dev for ios7. i had one HELL of a time trying to upgrade from 10.6.8 to 10.8.3 just because I needed xcode 4.5.

 

[Printer Bandit]

 

[TheStu]

10.9, with all the force of a great typhoon

 

[Eug]

The fonts for 7 and X look pretty flat.

Windows Phone and Metro, here we come?

 

[GWestphal]

I would be surprised if Apple brought out 802.11ac devices before the spec was ratified, I don't think they ever had a draft-n device, so why do a draft-ac device, when there is a small chance the spec could change?

 

[smackababy]

I am hoping for a Haswell upgrade in the MBP. I might pick up a rMBP 13' finally if they do after learning I need a device running OS X to get a Hackintosh...

As far as draft-ac, there are already motherboards coming out with 802.11ac adapters, so it might be finalized enough it won't change and break them.


Now that I think about it, does the announcement of iOS7 possibly mean a new iPhone and not a refresh? Hasn't the major iOS releases corresponded with actual iPhones? I know iPhone 5 debuted iOS6. I don't really follow the Apple rumors, so this might have been debunked already.

 

[Eug]

I would be surprised if Apple brought out 802.11ac devices before the spec was ratified, I don't think they ever had a draft-n device, so why do a draft-ac device, when there is a small chance the spec could change?

You are mistaken. Apple's 802.11n Airport Extreme came out in 2007, despite the fact that 802.11n wasn't ratified until 2009, just 3.5 years ago.

Apple AirPort Extreme base station supports Draft N spec

Amid all the exciting phone and TV announcements that Steve Jobs made at today's Macworld keynote address was an aside that probably deserved a little more attention: the latest iteration of the AirPort Extreme base station supports the Draft N standard. The new base station not only supports the current version of the standard, but it's also backward-compatible with 802.11a/b/g, so it operates in both the 5GHz and the 2.4GHz bands.

Now that I think about it, does the announcement of iOS7 possibly mean a new iPhone and not a refresh? Hasn't the major iOS releases corresponded with actual iPhones? I know iPhone 5 debuted iOS6. I don't really follow the Apple rumors, so this might have been debunked already.

The iPhone 5 was released in the fall, but iOS 6 was demo'd at WWDC, several months before release. So, if iOS 7 get's demo'd next week, we may not see the iPhone 5S until September or something.

I actually don't expect a new iPhone at WWDC.

 

[smackababy]

The iPhone 5 was released in the fall, but iOS 6 was demo'd at WWDC, several months before release. So, if iOS 7 get's demo'd next week, we may not see the iPhone 5S until September or something.

I actually don't expect a new iPhone at WWDC.

I wasn't so much expecting a new iPhone. Just speculating that since this is a new iteration of iOS, which if I recall correctly, has come with a new iPhone, not a refresh.

And I just researched a bit and it seems iOS 5 came out on the 4s, not the 4. So, this might debut with the 5s after all. =(

 

[manly]

hah cool!

i just hope they don't make you update to the latest OSX just to dev for ios7. i had one HELL of a time trying to upgrade from 10.6.8 to 10.8.3 just because I needed xcode 4.5.

I'm guessing Lion will still run Xcode 4.7, but that does depend on how quickly OS X 10.9 is released. Wouldn't surprise me if they quickly deprecated Lion (except for security updates) once the next OS X is released.

iTunes is the rare Apple app that supports legacy operating systems (primarily Windows XP) and even then, iTunes 11 already requires Snow Leopard or later.

 

[Kaido]

10.9, with all the force of a great typhoon

Mysterious as the dark side of the moooooooooooon :awe:

 

[Zink]

I think the 13" MBP Retina design is going to be updated slightly to handle a higher TDP processor with Iris Pro graphics. There is also the possibility of an improved IGZO Retina display like was shown by Fujitsu this week but I don't think they can make enough yet to be used in any of Apples product lines.

GT3e graphics with the 128 MB Crystalwell L4 cache seems to be an excessive amount of cache that will be too expensive for most PC makers to use. Intel also isn't marketing it that strongly with only a couple CPUs taking advantage. Apple has been pushing Intel hard to improve graphics performance according to Anand so I can't imagine them ignoring this option.

It seems basically impossible that Crystalwell will find it's way into the Macbook Air and the chip will be too expensive for the base configuration MBP 13. If Retina is meant to become more mainstream an extra $100 price increase could even be unattractive for the base model 13 MBP Retina as well. The 15" MBP Retina seems like it would be better off with GT 750M than downgrading to integrated graphics, so that leaves the 13" MBP Retina as the ideal candidate for this chip.

The question then is what CPU is Apple going to use, Intel has only announced 47 W quad core chips with the GT3e graphics option. I think a high frequency dual core part probably remains ideal because Retina resolution scaling has issues with single threaded performance that cause low frame rates. Quad core parts still have lower single threaded performance at the same TDP even with Turbo boost so a dual core part would improve smoothness slightly. Hopefully Apple is able to either get a custom dual core part or adjust the power use of a quad to allow for a 13" system with bit more graphics power.

There is also currently a 2.5" hard drive shaped hole in the middle of the Retina 13" design that I think will be filled with more battery or rearranged to allow for greater cooling capacity. There must have been a fairly serious misstep by Apple product planning to allow that to get into the final design. My theory is that someone thought it would be a good idea to have a 1 TB equipped MBP Retina for digital media professionals but the idea was scrapped after the hardware was finalized. Now there is just wasted space in the middle of the laptop that should be put to better use to reduce the size and weight of the laptop or increase battery life and performance.

I'm also exited about iOS 7, my iPad needs some new pretty.

 

[_UP_]

Hi, relatively new here, been stalking the forum for a while though.
My guess is pretty close to Zink's. Other than the software (iOS 7 and OSX 10.9 beta), I think that the MBA will get an upgraded screen (1680*1050 or even 1920*1200), but no retina. The base model will now have 128 GB. It will have regular processor (no Iris Pro).

Like Zink said, the best candidate for the Iris Pro will be the rMBP 13". No dGPU but in desperate need for better graphics to run the screen res. Also, the base model will have 256 GB (instead of 128 GB).

rMBP will have a new processor and the Nvidia 750M or even 760M (to separate it even further from the 13" rMBP).

Regular MBP line will be discontinued, since there's no point in having those two lines. MBA is close enough in performance, but has lesser screen and an HDD. No point in updating this line at all.

The 27" monitor will be updated this year, but I doubt it will happen Monday.

And, of course a new Mac Pro.

If all of this will happen, the rMBP 13" might be my first Mac later this summer (never thought I'd say that... Not a big Apple fan...).

 

[Eug]

Regular MBP line will be discontinued, since there's no point in having those two lines. MBA is close enough in performance, but has lesser screen and an HDD. No point in updating this line at all.

I'm not sure I agree. The screen is on the non-Retina MacBook Pro is the differentiating factor from the Air, being superior to the Air, yet costs less than the Retina.

The Air is simply not a "Pro" or prosumer machine, but the Retina is too expensive for the low end Prosumer market. The non-Retina Pro fits the in-between crowd perfectly, with a better quality screen, and a more appropriate pixel density for OS X than what the Air offers.

OTOH, if Apple drops the entry level price of the Retina significantly, I could see what you say happening. eg. 256 GB Retina 13" with 8 GB RAM for $1399. It's not as if that would happen though with Iris Pro, even if the design could handle the wattage.

 

[vailr]

New Apple products would like to see:

1. A ~$900 Mac "semi-Pro" with single Haswell CPU, in mATX format with Thunderbolt, FW400, FW800, & USB 3.0 ports. And: video card slot compatibility of being end-user-exchangeable with most current generation PC video cards (nVidia or AMD), as long as it's PCIe 3.0 or better.
2. More monitor sizes to choose from, such as maybe a ~$400, 21.5" Apple IPS monitor with video camera (with a mini sliding cover), 2x USB 3.0 ports, Display Port, HDMI (with an audio pass-thru port), DVI & Thunderbolt ports.
3. OSX driver support for Hauppauge PCIe TV tuner cards. Maybe even offer an x86 version of the Apple TV operating system as an alternate boot O.S. included with the above mentioned ~$900 Mac "semi-Pro". Watch TV from off-air, via cable, or via internet.

 

[fr]

New Apple products would like to see:

1. A ~$900 Mac "semi-Pro" with single Haswell CPU, in mATX format with Thunderbolt, FW400, FW800, & USB 3.0 ports. And: video card slot compatibility of being end-user-exchangeable with most current generation PC video cards (nVidia or AMD), as long as it's PCIe 3.0 or better.
2. More monitor sizes to choose from, such as maybe a ~$400, 21.5" Apple IPS monitor with video camera (with a mini sliding cover), 2x USB 3.0 ports, Display Port, HDMI (with an audio pass-thru port), DVI & Thunderbolt ports.
3. OSX driver support for Hauppauge PCIe TV tuner cards. Maybe even offer an x86 version of the Apple TV operating system as an alternate boot O.S. included with the above mentioned ~$900 Mac "semi-Pro". Watch TV from off-air, via cable, or via internet.

I doubt they would do any one of those ever.

 

[dagamer34]

Apple's probably going to leave the MacBook Air with a meh TN screen until it can do IPS Retina. So maybe 2014.

More importantly, the new version of OS X needs to get rid of any lag having a Retina screen causes. Hopefully they've had more time to optimize the code.

 

[joshhedge]

Apple's probably going to leave the MacBook Air with a meh TN screen until it can do IPS Retina. So maybe 2014.

More importantly, the new version of OS X needs to get rid of any lag having a Retina screen causes. Hopefully they've had more time to optimize the code.

That would be the GPU drivers, I believe. 10.8.4 appears to have helped somewhat so far for my rPro.

It can only get better!

 

[gevorg]

I hope Apple adds multi-user support to iPad with iOS 7. I will likely buy it.

 

[_UP_]

I'm not sure I agree. The screen is on the non-Retina MacBook Pro is the differentiating factor from the Air, being superior to the Air, yet costs less than the Retina.

The Air is simply not a "Pro" or prosumer machine, but the Retina is too expensive for the low end Prosumer market. The non-Retina Pro fits the in-between crowd perfectly, with a better quality screen, and a more appropriate pixel density for OS X than what the Air offers.

OTOH, if Apple drops the entry level price of the Retina significantly, I could see what you say happening. eg. 256 GB Retina 13" with 8 GB RAM for $1399. It's not as if that would happen though with Iris Pro, even if the design could handle the wattage.

I agree that the MBA is not a prosumer machine, but I've heard of people buying it for the higher res (even if the panel is lesser) and for the SSD.

There was a rumor going on a while ago about the rMBP getting a price drop to MBP levels, and MBP being cancelled (couldn't find it again after reading it once), and as much as that could be nice - giving Apple the best price\performance ratio (for the first time?) I doubt that would happen, especially if they put the Iris Pro. I also don't thing that they will have two different 13" models. The Iris Pro only comes with the BGA motherboard as a single unit, so that would require 2 completely different setups (the other one being the regular LGA setup). That might also be confusing for the customers. I don't see that because AFAIK Apple is usually trying to have less lines rather than more...

I don't know. I guess we'll know tomorrow.

 

[amyklai]

MBA needs to go Retina. There are quite a few Windows Ultrabooks going that roure and I don't think that Apple wants to be seen as staying behind after having pioneered both (Ultrabooks and retina screens).

Also, I can't see cost being too much of an issue. A retina version of the 11.6 MBA screen wouldn't be that different from a retina iPad 10" screen, and if a retina iPad can be sold for less than $500, that screen should fit into the budget of a $1000+-machine as well.

 

[Patranus]

I think a rework of the iMac would be nice, make it like the Samsung 9000 series TVs, where the screen is like 3mm thick and all the hardware is in the base. I feel like that would be way easier to produce than all the curvy metal on the current model, it would also lower the center of gravity and make potential upgrades more user accessible.

Man, are you crack baby high? The iMac is almost PERFECT in its current form factor.

 

[Patranus]

I would argue that since Android was so far behind at launch that they had to move double-fast to catch up to iOS. Whether that velocity carried them and they have passed iOS... that's up for debate. I haven't used Android 4.0+ extensively, but I have read articles, of people switching to Android since it had finally caught up to iOS. I just re-upped a contract, so I'm not going to be checking out Android personally for at least a year and a half.

All that said, I think that iOS 7 is going to deliver the 'innovation' (read: window dressing) that people have been clamoring for and hold up as their evidence that iOS has fallen behind Android.

The difference is that Google doesn't make hardware.

 

[Patranus]

 

[amyklai]

iLightsaber? That product would certainly catch a lot of people off guard...