the technology geek

Every year at this time it is customary for people to make predictions about their favourite topics for the year ahead. While some people might object to this as needless pontificating, at the end of the day it’s all just harmless good fun. My favourite subject of course is Apple, so, without further ado, here’s my look into the crystal ball for 2012 and what it might hold for the Cupertino company.

Apps on the Apple TV

I think this might well be the year that Apple takes the Apple TV up a notch. While some are predicting a full blown TV from Apple, personally I suspect it will more than likely be a revised Apple TV box, Apple TV software or both. Even if Apple does get into the TV business I suspect whatever software is on the TV will be the same as what’s available in the set top box.

I really do think it’s time for the Apple to start accepting Apps for the Apple TV though. There are so many potential good uses. For example, with so many local TV channels around the world producing their own player Apps, this alone is a reason to allow apps. There are dozens of other things that would make great TV bound Apps too. having said that, I don’t think there should be iPad or iPhone apps running on the TV as it would be pointless, but a dedicated API and guidelines for official Apple TV apps would be great, and I think the time has come to put this in motion.

All New Mac Pro

While there has been lots of speculation regarding the future of the Mac Pro, I don’t believe that Apple will kill it just yet. At least I hope they don’t. People have argued that the sales have declined and it’s not worth Apple’s time continuing the product, but you could equally argue that perhaps sales have declined because its has been so long between revisions.

The other claim is that a thunderbolt equipped iMac is all you need because thunderbolt solves everything. This isn’t really true though, at least not yet anyway. Even if you leave expandability out of the equation there are many industries that simply require the power of the Mac Pro, and the iMac just doesn’t cut it. 3D Animation, Rendering, Data Compression and so on all require the fastest processors available, and as good as a quad core i7 is, it doesn’t hold a candle to a 12 Core Xeon.

You can argue that these are just niche markets, but they are still large enough to support a high margin/lower volume range of products. If Apple abandons these markets, it will force the people who work in these segments to have to leave the Mac altogether and go back to Windows. As Apple has a strong connection with many of these industries, and probably uses Mac Pros in their own internal production houses, (not to mention for movie trailer compression and probably even video compression for the iTunes store) I just can’t see them killing the product line right now. I could very well be wrong, but I hope not.

The only other solution would be to allow a limited number of companies to license OS X to fill in the gaps in Apple’s product lines and address those niche markets, but that is a whole other discussion.

New iPad & iPhone

Duh

Final Cut Pro 10.1

I was one of those horrible people who spoke out about how bad FCPX was and how badly Apple botched the launch when it was released. Needless to say I got an earful from all those who know better, yet strangely never worked a day in the video industry in their life. Damn all of us pesky video professionals beating up on poor old defenseless Apple.

Anyway, all joking aside I suspect (or at least hope) that the first major revision will be released which will go a way towards repairing some of the damage the FCPX launch did to Apple’s market share in the pro video space.

Aperture X

I’m hoping Apple releases an updated version of Aperture this year. I’m also hoping it won’t be called Aperture X but given that they called the latest version of final Cut Pro, FCPX, I’m not entirely optimistic on that one.

Aperture has fallen a little behind the curve when it comes to certain technologies which are now prevalent in the image editing space, so it would be great to see Apple address some of the shortcomings of its pro photography software. It’s been quite a while too since it has seen a major revision too, so it’s more than due for an upgrade. As an avid fan of the software (I even run a blog dedicated to it) I really hope a new version is released soon.

New Macbook Pro

This is a commonly rumored probability for 2012. The Macbook Pro, while a great design, has been upstaged by it’s little upstart cousin, the MacBook Air. I suspect the rumors will come to some sort of fruition and the company will launch an optical drive-less MacBook pro this year. At the very least we will see a 15” Air.

This will undoubtadly prove controvercial (doens’t everything Apple does prove controvercial to the blogosphere at some point?) as lots of people complain that they need their optical drives, while simultaneously trying to remember the last time they actually used theirs

Tim Doesn’t Disappoint

Ever since Steve Jobs unfortunate passing there has been much discussion as to whether or not the company will continue to innovate. I think this year will show that the company is more than just one man, and we will begin to see Tim Cook put his own stamp on the company.

So, that’s aout it for my predictions really. I get a sense from reading some blogs that they don’t expect this to be too exciting a year from an Apple product point of view, but I’m hopefull that this will be one of their best years yet. I know that sounds like rabid fanboy speak, but I really do. At least I hope so. My wallet on the other hand hopes it’s a boring year.