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Apple ten years on

by Mike Schramm Jan 6th 2010 at 10:00AM

This is a pretty wandering post over at the NZ Herald (it starts out with a screening of Avatar, and drops a few local actor names before getting down to business), but it eventually gets to an interesting premise: what will Apple's hardware look like not in 2010, when we're all breathlessly awaiting the tablet, but in 2020, ten years from now? Of course we're talking about complete speculation here -- not even Apple knows what they'll be doing in ten years. But it's not like we haven't done it before: Apple's devices are smaller, faster, and more powerful than ever. What will they be like ten years down the line?

More gesturing and intuitive human interfaces seem like a good guess -- with the iPhone, the accelerometer has been used in all sorts of interesting ways, and it's probably not far until Apple figures out a way to track movement in 3D space, either by moving an iPhone or a controller around, or as the piece suggests, by tracking our body in some way. Slimmer display screens and extra battery life will be in the future as well. And the article mentions solid state storage, but if our predictions for this year are any indication, Apple will try to move off the hard drive as much as possible, and start placing data for multimedia and other files in a cloud server, accessible via Internet whenever they're needed.

Like I said, interesting thought experiment. What do you think Apple will be like ten years from now?

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This is a pretty wandering post over at the NZ Herald (it starts out with a screening of Avatar, and drops a few local actor names before...
 

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Christopher

"Meanwhile, on the iPhone, augmented reality is only just starting. In the future, you could be walking around (if you choose to) within a bubble of streaming info about where you are, where your friends are, where services are, which roads are jammed, what weather's coming …"

Not unless Apple let's multitask on the iphone, or has this forecast into the future missed that we can't see where our friends are when we feel like changing songs?

January 06 2010 at 3:29 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
R. Ahrens

LOL! Ratking, you've got right! aren't we all?

January 06 2010 at 12:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
R. Ahrens

No, Time Machine points backwards, it refers to past backups. It even revolves backwards in the menubar when its working.

January 06 2010 at 11:18 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to R. Ahrens's comment
RyanR

But in relation to this article...

January 06 2010 at 11:30 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
ratking

Yes, Time Machine refers to the past. This article refers to the future.

Though I suppose if they had mirrored the icon, this page would be full of even more "Shouldn't Time Machine point the other way" comments. We're a bunch of nit-pickers.

At least I am.

January 06 2010 at 11:55 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Nick

The cloud needs to die.

January 06 2010 at 11:18 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
ratking

Shouldn't the time machine be pointing the other way? Anyone?

January 06 2010 at 11:10 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Nick

iMax? Seriously? I hope the guy who wrote that article knows Apple didn't invent huge movie screens.

January 06 2010 at 10:59 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
kelly

While I believe cloud storage is here to stay, I am also convinced that people will always prefer to store information locally. Cloud storage is and will remain an accessory to local storage; albeit an important one.





January 06 2010 at 10:33 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
RyanR

Only ever so slightly related though… what will happen when Jobs and Ive finish up at Apple? Will it happen in the next decade? For sure it will happen, Jobs is getting old, has suffered serious illness and Ive will no doubt move on as Rams did with Braun... thankfully Rams kept that position for over 30 years so maybe Ive will be here for the longterm too. I hope so.

January 06 2010 at 10:30 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to RyanR's comment
Quinn Taylor

Why would Ive want to leave Apple when he essentially has carte blanche to create amazing designs at a company at the top of the industry? What other company could tempt him away with greater challenge and satisfaction that where he is now? I think it's safe to say that Apple's top brass didn't get there by being wishy-washy about whether they want to stay at Apple, and they're much less likely to leave than most engineers at the company. For them, Apple is a passion, not just a day job.

January 06 2010 at 12:53 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Peter Ent

Just as long as I don't have to wear 3D glasses all of the time, we'll be fine. Or Apple could figure out how to do real 3D projection.

I think the "computer" is going to be the size of the current Apple Remote and you'll just carry that around with you. Data will be in the cloud and whatever UI (keyboard, mouse, touch screen, air screen, vehicle, etc.) you encounter it will just latch onto and make use of it as appropriate; essentially seamless connections. The "computer" might have your personal data on it as well as your preferences. It will have wireless data, of course, and your voice service will just be a bud in your ear or a sticker behind your ear.

The downside is that this little stick will be "you" with everything that you need - just don't lose it. Maybe it will have some sort of aural identification or DNA security.

January 06 2010 at 10:15 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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