Thought this would be a good “for fun topic.” If the stars aligned and you could advise Jon Ternus on new hardware. What would you ask for? It could be realistic, outlandish, or somewhere in between.
For me:
An Apple Remarkable/Ereader. I actually like using the Apple Books app and would love to see a push there. A locked down Eink writing and reading tablet that uses Apple’s default apps (but through iCloud syncs to other devices) would be my dream device. With the push towards digital health at WWDC I could see them dabbling in the space.
On the digital health note. Cough tie the Apple Watch with the Mac and/or iPad cough. Let people have the option to opt out of having to have an iPhone.
An anniversary iPod. With Schools locking down on Phones in the classroom, now might be the time to bring back the iPod. Clickwheel iPod, with wifi, with a modded version of TVOS (no browser no social media) that is “School friendly.” Or conversely, make WatchOS a full on phone by placing a clickwheel (see TinyPod) on a WatchOS screen.
The Macbook Surface: A full on dualboot iPad and MacOS with cellular.
My tech stack would basically be a (1) MacBook Surface; (2) An Apple Remarkable; (3) An Apple Watch Ultra; (4) An iPod in my pocket. As I am increasingly aware of Smartphone addiction I want to push towards more single purpose devices.
Some end to the tradeoff between thinness/sturdiness and modularity
Ultra that can be a standalone phone, and has the ability to run in 24-hour-batetry life mode so you charge it more often, but it refreshes and computes more
Cellular in every device (and without an across-the-board price increase, if we’re dreaming.)
I wonder if there is anything in ARM that prevents Ram and SSD Expansions? Have the System on a chip but leave space for traditional RAM and SSD slots.
Performance and thermal management is compromised when you allow RAM expansion, unfortunately. This is going to become more difficult as SoCs start to become more layered/3D. If they offer more packaged memory expansions, there are challenges integrating them with an interposer or PCI lanes.
I think it’s still something they should offer, at least for the higher-end/desktop systems. Let customers decide the tradeoffs they want to make.
My first personal computer was a Gateway (rip those fabulous cow-print shipping boxes …). Like the Ship of Theseus every plank and timber—including the motherboard—had been replaced at least twice by the time I got rid of it. I know the advantages of SoCs, but I’m still a little nostalgic for computers with upgradable innards.
I think I would like three things. 1. For an iPad to be able to drive two external displays. 2. To have clustering like you can do with Raspberry Pis. That way for compute intensive tasks (say compiling large codebases when xcode eventually comes to ipad), you could couple your iPad with another devices (Mac, iPhone, whatever) and delegate compute functions across the collection of chips. You could use an iPad like a base and tether it to more compute power. 3. multiple audio/video streams. I don’t need this a lot, but it is a limitation you feel when you do need it.
Isn’t that down to the network rather than the hardware. You’d need a unique eSim on each device, but there should be a way to link them all to the same account.
I can’t even get a Cellular Apple Watch that works as Apple intended with the iPhone I have on the same network. MVNO’s don’t seem to be able to support it, even in the UK, even when the underlying network does. Very annoying.
3. multiple audio/video streams. I don’t need this a lot, but it is a limitation you feel when you do need it.