"... grist ....tea leaves and dove's entrails ..."
You're making a meal of it Rik.
Apple has tarted up San Francisco's Moscone West convention center, where it will hold its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) beginning on Monday, as well as plastering humongous signs on the Metreon entertainment center across the street. In doing so it has provided more grist for the rumor mill. It is from such tea …
He's making a meal of it because he has no idea what will be announced, he has to fill in the white space with something, anything...
No point in speculating, Apple only 'leak' information for their own benefit, it's all choreographed. Don't ever thing the leaks are ever 'accidental', they play their cards close to their chest.
Let's just see what they come up with, there will be plenty to slag them off with on Monday.
Now they've had time to photocopy the flat icons from Androids ICS of 2 years ago, its suddenly their newest, greatest innovation.
As will be NFC, which miraculously transformed itself from being something their users "don't need" when only the competition had it, to another of their stunning breakthroughs essential to every smartphone from now on.
I am pretty sure that they are merging their 2 UI from ios and OSX into one. When you boot up your next iMac you will be presented with a begin screen full of icons. The old desktop will be behind one of those icons but the other Apple store apps will get an icon as well. To get back to the begin screen full of icons you just move your mouse to one of the corners and wait for the new icharm menu to display.
I tried to read this through to the end, perhaps I wanted to know what new thing I would not want, or perhaps I wanted to fall asleep. In the end I managed neither and wondered why I took any interest. I still do not know, except that (Cr)apple will never interest me with their toys or their games.
On second thoughts the grist, tea leaves and dove's entrails might have been interesting... Shame they were not better explored.
"and wondered why I took any interest."
Because you don't feel able to reverse the public Apple critic mask you wear, secretly you're envious, have even taken to reading articles you tell yourself you have no interest in, and can't admit it to the real you under the mask ?
Go on, come out the closet, you know you will feel better in the end.
Can't stand flat, flat is boring, not next gen.
Ok, I hated the stupid green baize in the game centre app but you know what I hated more? that fricking fracking unused skeuomorphed bookshelf icon that I'm not allowed to hide, not being able to see at a glance what the weather's like outside my door, the very basic notification system...
I'm actually expecting to be underwhelmed (unless they bring out a contact lens screen wirelessly connected to my ipad) - that'd shut up Google.
DISCLAIMER: I love Apple, Google, the NSA, GCHQ and the glorious land of America.
I may have sprinkled to much Cynicism on my Mehflakes this morning, but I can't really get terribly excited about keynote product launches these days... mainly because it's all gone terribly conservative.
In fact, I think the last genuinely surprising launch was the Surface RT - steaming pile of mediocrity it may have been, but at least it was different.
The only surprise about BlackBerry's last effort was Alicia Keys.
Nokia are fully paid up members of Darwin's theory of IT product development.
Samsung just make it MOAR SKREEN! each time (I heard the Galaxy S7 will have wheels)
Will Apple launch anything different, radical, or revolutionary? Probably not. Will whatever they launch sell like hotcakes? Absolutely.
It's still an Apple and Microsoft world. They are still the big two innovators generally. If you disagree look at their products in the 1980s compared to their products now, there's been a lot of change over the years. This heritage and experience is what others don't have.
The current smartphone market is now mature, you aren't doing to see much more innovation with the touch screen phone. Just better facilities.
“It's still an Apple and Microsoft world. They are still the big two innovators generally. If you disagree look at their products in the 1980s compared to their products now, there's been a lot of change over the years. This heritage and experience is what others don't have” .
Microsoft was *never* an innovator what it does do best is play catch-up. Apple never made 'product`, what it did was build a series of iconoclastic designs that people would want to buy. Comparing Microsoft to Apple is like comparing a bucket meal to haute cuisine ..
Moreover, they would NEVER announce such a consolidation with giant banners devoted to the two technologies being replaced — they'd have some whizz-bangey new name for the common platform, and the old names would never be seen or spoken ever again.
Apple is very much a sweep-the-past-under-the-rug / meet-the-new-boss sort of company. All of the tapdancing they do at these events is precisely to draw your attention away from where they had been (or were supposed to be going), and keep your eyes locked on whatever direction Tim Cook happens to be pointing this time.
Not entirely — MS's failing was more about trying to get their one OS to serve everywhere, they really didn't have anything worth mentioning on the mobile side to consolidate it with.
But more than that, where they went wrong was doing it badly. Apple dovetailing their two established and generally well-liked platforms to run on a single OS (and a friend likes to claim that "iOS is just a tweaked version of OS X", though I think that's overstating how closely they're related today) has a lot more potential to go right, assuming they do a smarter job of marrying the two sides. (For any Apple devs listening, a tip: When seeking to unify your desktop and mobile interfaces, resist the temptation to introduce a vocabulary of strange and confusing gestures and interactions, unfamiliar ones that didn't originate in either world!)
I think you're about 10 years out - MS "trying to run their one one OS everywhere" was more what they did with Windows Mobile. Windows Phone is very much a mobile OS, and the supposed criticisms are them trying to make their one OS more touch friendly, not run it everywhere.
"Apple dovetailing their two established and generally well-liked platforms"
MS have two established and generally well-liked platforms (sure, there are haters, but look how many haters there are of IOS). Three if you include X Box. Sure, WP has smaller share than IOS, but then OS X has smaller share than Windows.
OS X and IOS share the same kernel, but aren't the same OS. Same as with Android and GNU/Linux, or Windows and Windows Phone. And the assertion that they'll unify them better is just a made up claim - it's the same old story, people claim Apple are better even before a product even exists. Same as the way the media gave vast amounts of media coverage to only Apple before the ipad was even announced - yet when Android tablets finally got the coverage, Apple's sales collapsed and Android dominated.
Apple sales collapsed in your own dreams.
Apple own over 70% of true market profits.
Samsung with its fake claims of number of units sold just lost $12billion in a single day.
Apple sold more iPad and iPhone in each quarter of 2013 so far compared to 2012.
And Apple customers buy content, apps, music, movies... Android users go all piracy or buy nothing.
You seemingly care enough to troll the comments...
"They still haven't sorted out the broken maps..." how so? Do you *use* iOS Maps yourself regularly? Or is your opinion informed second hand from a 'friend' or 'spouse'?
Anonymous because I know it annoys you...
"An announcement that Apple might announce something!"
Next please. How about coverage of actual product releases? Takes me back to the days when the media would go on about iphones for months, whilst ignoring the better selling phone companies like Samsung and Nokia. Oh wait, that's still the case now.
So it's 3.43am and I can't sleep. I managed to read the whole article AND all the whiney comments, on my iPhone, and I'm still awake.
Glad to have a sneak into the conference centre, will keep an ear open on Monday for any interesting news. Re homogenisation, I think apple have a golden opportunity to learn from M$' mistakes with win8. We don't have touchscreen computers folks, please remember that...