I thought a hypothetical would be fun. If you were in the labs at Apple, what kind of suite of products would you build… It could be existing products, hypothetical products, what have you.
For me:
MacBook or Mac Mini with a more repairable design. With user upgradeable ram, storage, and batteries. I adore my MacBook Air, but I do want to see more repairability in the space.
An Apple Kindle - I would kill for them to get into the Eink Space.
The Watch App on the iPad/Mac so that I can use the watch as a minimalist phone. (A better modem on the Watch as well).
A Revamped iPod Classic with TVOS built into it. I would buy that in a heartbeat.
An Apple Frame TV
A Monitor in the iMac Colors that is just a monitor. I really like those screens and would love them to bring back monitor mode for long term use.
No. That would be a complete waste of time. Amazon has already nearly perfected the Kindle paperihite.
The thing I want most from apple is REASONABLE prices to upgrade. Cut the prices by 50%, come on. 8GB for $200? Seriously Apple? Even $100 is asking a lot but it’s more reasonable.
Some clearing of the backlog first. Finalise that AirPower, and release that iPad Pro that can boot or virtualise macOS that is almost guaranteed to exist somewhere in their labs.
An Ultra watch with a camera would be sweet. Maybe three pinholes stitched together (can’t just have two, top and forward, because the reverse wearers also need a view.)
For me it is primarily suite-ing software. The things I want most are a database product — not a revival of Bento but a full SQL database with tools for both DBAs and users something like MariaDB with MySQL Workbench (for DBAs) and LibreOffice’s BASE (for end users). While SQLite is packaged with macOS, iOS, and iPadOS it does not contain all the features required for commercial-grade database work; no procedures, partial compliment of JOINs, no datatyping, no permissions, no variables,etc. (A database I developed for a local political party to track canvassing of voters will next month move to a RaspberryPi 5 running MariaDB to be accessed via MySQL Workbench/DBeaver and LibreOffice BASE with the latter for report writing. Giving others the “canvassing manager” and legal data controller in particular access and auditing. And possibly ODBC access for a die-hard Excel user.)
As an adjunct to that would love to see Apple opening up the Health App from iOS/IpadOS/Watch OS onto macOS and then allowing the user to use that suite-d database to analyse it all including medication. As medication is so far not included in any export from Health.
I don’t even care if it is upgradable after the fact. If they could cap their prices on RAM and SSD upgrades, to where they were maybe no more than 2X than normal price for competitive products, and maybe make the battery easier to replace (stop using glue everywhere on the internals) I would be happy. Given how small Mac revenue is compared to other products, it probably wouldn’t even affect their numbers all that much.
I mean, I can get an 8 TB NVME SSD for somewhere in the neighborhood of $600 or so. And that is from a reputable manufacturer, not some random company that I’ve never heard of. Let Apple charge $1200 for it - not $2400.
Same with RAM. $250-$300 for 128 GB. Let Apple charge $500-$600.
That would shave almost $2000 off a top spec MacBook Pro, and bring other models into a more affordable range where I would be much more likely to buy it. Which would, intern, probably add a couple of years to my upgrade cycle.
You’re correct I haven’t tried Panorama X which from their web page looks like what Bento could have become before Apple dropped it. However, my need for a database system is multi-platform/multi-user. I’m clearly an Apple user but some of the other members of the party are wedded to Windows plus wanting both iPhone and Android access. PX looks to be a single user system.
Plus something that could scale if adopted by other groups and allows external Python scripts to mess with the data.
Hardware wise I think I would enjoy a something like Dex on Samsung but made really well - if I could just slide my iPad (let’s say 11 Pro) into my studio display and have a full on working device with a mobile mode while on the go …
Software wise I recently wished there was a completely interoperability between the Apple apps like notes, reminders, mail, finder … something like the Hook functionality but available on all platforms to combine all data and documents easily as needed …
I think Apple could really do something special with a high-end soundbar with built-in Apple TV. I know this can be replicated with Homepods + Apple TV but an all-in-one product similar to the Sonos Arc would be great.
Along those lines, an actual TV set with the pitch of “it’s like a Frame TV, but with an OLED VRR panel and also doesn’t come with horrible ads and tracking” probably would be worth the extravagant price they would surely charge for it.
Good opportunity to dump on Apple! Here’s what I want:
Bring back the 27" iMac. Why does the 27" Studio Display, keyboard and mouse cost hundreds of $ more than the 27" iMac, which also comes with a computer?
Why we are talking of crazy pricing, RAM and SSD option prices could easily be halved and still be immensely profitable. As is being pointed out, two base Mac minis (16 RAM, 256 SSD) cost less than a single Mac mini with 32 RAM, 512 SSD.
Fix the pricing issues and I won’t mind the lack of upgradability. Reason is that electronics are more reliable the fewer the mechanical parts, such as sockets and card slots.
This, plus more HomeKit products straight from Apple.