[kscherer]

Still rumored, but it seems legit.

And why not?

27" iMac with Retina Display
New iPads with Touch ID and A8
Yosemite

—

I would add the following:

1) iPads will gain NFC support. Apple is going to be pushing the hell out of Pay, so I would assume that ability would come to the iPad.

2) Mac Mini. Way over due for an update and desperately in need of one. While they remain popular, the Mini lives with the MacBook Pro Classic® as the old-timer in Apple's lineup. Makes sense to do it now.

3) TV, the long-shot. I don't know that it needs an upgrade. I find it to be a pretty capable little box. However, it will not take off until an API is released and some kind of gaming controller. My guess is Apple will call the iThings the controller.

4) I suspect the 27" iMac Retina will come with a $3500 price tag. Rough guess, but considering the cost of high quality 5k panels, I can't see it too far under that.

—

I have no confidence in new laptops of any flavor or Retina in the 21" iMac. iPads will maintain the same form factor.

That's it.

[Quagmire]

If the iMac has AMD graphics, I riot.....

The 980M is a MUCH MUCH better GPU( in performance and thermals) than anything AMD has to offer especially when it comes to powering a retina display....

[psmith2.0]

Originally Posted by kscherer 1) iPads will gain NFC support. Apple is going to be pushing the hell out of Pay, so I would assume that ability would come to the iPad.

I suppose they will, but I can't imagine that many people using iPads that way (toting them around, taking them into stores, etc.). But it'll look good to have it across their portable devices, I guess. It's a tiny little chip, so why not? Still, it's hard to imagine it getting that much use on an iPad.

Originally Posted by kscherer 2) Mac Mini. Way over due for an update and desperately in need of one. While they remain popular, the Mini lives with the MacBook Pro Classic® as the old-timer in Apple's lineup. Makes sense to do it now.

I don't know why they let this model go so long between updates and neglect it so much, but this is about the third time they've just completely ignored it for 1-2 years (currently on day 710(!) since last update). I know Macs aren't "where it's at" now, and these are the low-end of the totem pole. But any "slow sales" Apple sees in these units are because people probably don't feel good about buying something so old, or, on the flip-side, worried about buying one now because "surely to goodness, they're going to update the damn things at any time now".

One thing is feeding the other, and it's just this ugly spiral. Update the things, and act like you still remember you sell it, and the sales and interest might be there. There are situations where I'd definitely recommend a mini. But it's hard to get excited about, or champion one, that's two years old (and try to make the person you're recommending them to feel okay about it). At the very least, if you're going to let it sit for two years, maybe knock $100 of the price or something, after that 12-18 month point? When you finally release new, current-spec models, you can price them back at $100 more and people would understand and be okay with that.

It would be nice if they got the same 9-12 month upgrades the other Macs did.

Originally Posted by kscherer 4) I suspect the 27" iMac Retina will come with a $3500 price tag. Rough guess, but considering the cost of high quality 5k panels, I can't see it too far under that.

You're probably right. Would such a thing sell in any serious numbers at that price? Are people that tuned-in/aware-of these kinds of resolutions (and willing to pay that sort of $$$) on a machine that may or may not be "special" in any other way (and obsolete-ish in three years)? That's asking a lot (literally) for an all-in-one, since you can't simply upgrade the CPU and keep the nice display around. The iMac is the kind of thing that you seem to be pushing your luck, expecting many to sell in the $2,000-2,500 range. But $3,000+? Funny how the iMac has changed over the years. Looking back at that little Bondi jellybean in 1998, would anything think "they'll have a 27" version for $3,000+ in about 15 years...".

But that would be totally like Apple...ignore the Mac mini, again, at this next event (making it officially two-plus years without an update), but release a $3,500 AIO...and then sit around and wonder why their desktop sales seem a little sluggish. Hell, just go all the way and sell the 21.5" in pink/gold checkerboard finish only, to really make sure the numbers stay low.

And if they do release such an iMac, wouldn't they want to have a standalone display with those same specs? Would seem weird that a $3,000+ iMac would get such a high-end display, but not their standalone model.

Originally Posted by Quagmire If the iMac has AMD graphics, I riot..... The 980M is a MUCH MUCH better GPU( in performance and thermals) than anything AMD has to offer especially when it comes to powering a retina display....

Why would Apple do that? They wouldn't put out such a nice, large (and expensive) machine and cripple it to everyone's disgust, right out of the gate, would they? I know they're Apple, and they have a history of some inexplicable, "WTF?!" decisions on some of their products/releases, but they're not going to saddle such a display with a GPU that isn't capable of powering it. They're not that crazy, are they?

I see people at MacRumors and other places having a fit over this, but I can only think maybe this is some brand new GPU developed in tandem with, and meant for, such a display?

If you're a tech journalist and not living in the Bay Area, I guess you just automatically accept/get used to the fact that you're going to make two flights to Northern California, about a month apart, in the second half of the year. That would kinda work my nerves. Frankly, nothing here sounds like it's worth the expense and hassle of a(nother) cross-country flight (and all that goes with it), just to see some under-the-hood iPad updates and a new iMac screen.

It's a smaller event, being held at the Apple campus in their smaller theater room. So it's nothing like last month's iPhone/Apple Watch wing-ding. Maybe they're just inviting regional press or credentialed folks from the bigger outlets (Wall Street Journal and so forth, vs. folks like Gruber, Dalrymple, etc.? Gruber lives in Philadelphia...there's no way I'd make that trip across the country, out of pocket, for something this low-key. Not five weeks after already doing it for a much larger, more meaningful event.

[Mugge]

I would love a 27" retina iMac!

[psmith2.0]

For $3,000+? For that kind of outlay, I'd feel obligated to keep it around for a good five years! That couldn't be a 2-3 years machine.

My eyes just aren't what they used to be, I guess, because when I look at these Retina MacBooks (two of my friends have them, and I see them at Best Buy and MacAuthority), but I honestly can't tell the difference. I try. I want to, I swear I do!

I can, however, tell the difference between the screen of an iPhone 3G and a 4 (or beyond) with the Retina Display. And I've held two iPad minis side-by-side, non-Retina and Retina, and I can tell a difference on those things. But I'm not able to on a Mac, so far. It's just not as obvious to me. I'm looking at my iMac right now, down in the Dock, and I'm reading all the letters on the Mail.app postage stamp icon ("Hello from California"), I can count the frets on the GarageBand guitar icon, none of the text in the menus look jaggy/fuzzy or somehow "less than".

Is it the difference in viewing distance? I've just never felt strongly about having/needing a Retina display on a Mac. Or is it the kind of thing you subtly notice/appreciate after days or weeks of real-world use (and then if you went back to non-Retina, that's when you'd really notice?). Is it more like that, vs. 10-minute, in-store comparing?

[Brave Ulysses]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 I suppose they will, but I can't imagine that many people using iPads that way (toting them around, taking them into stores, etc.). But it'll look good to have it across their portable devices, I guess. It's a tiny little chip, so why not? Still, it's hard to imagine it getting that much use on an iPad.

Seems to me that if they add NFC to the iPad they have an opportunity to make the iPad itself a pretty awesome Apple Pay register and begin killing into square's dominance.

[torifile]

Re: iPads with Apple Pay - it'll be for point of sale devices more than payment by users, if that makes sense. I use Square for my practice and I have a stupid little dongle I need to use to swipe cards through. It works pretty well and without NFC, I will continue to need to use it. If a new iPad gains NFC, I can ditch the dongle. I'm not sure that that would a compelling enough reason for *me* to upgrade but it would be a definite motivator for lots of small businesses.

edit: What BU said.

[psmith2.0]

Oh, you mean from the other end, then? The merchant/retailer? Yeah, I could see it being used much more that way. I'm sure it'll get one, if only for what it opens up on that end of things.

I assume the body styles will stay the same (those narrower left/right bezels, etc.). No outer design changes, just a nice under-the-hood upgrade (A8, Pay, better graphics, maybe some camera and battery life improvements, etc.).

Someone with a 128GB Retina iPad mini could almost rule the world, huh? That might be the most perfect combination of performance, portability/on-the-go, storage, ease-of-use and battery life in all of Apple's lineup. Almost a perfect middle-ground between an iPhone and a MacBook Air...the best aspects of each (as long as you preferred iOS over OS X, of course). These days, it's kinda hard not to...

[kscherer]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 Or is it the kind of thing you subtly notice/appreciate after days or weeks of real-world use (and then if you went back to non-Retina, that's when you'd really notice?). Is it more like that, vs. 10-minute, in-store comparing?

Yep. Go back to using an iPhone 3. You notice the difference immediately. Once your eyes get accustomed to that crispness, there's no going back.

Hell, go back and sit in front of an iMac G4. I have one, and still use it from time to time. I remember getting that thing in 2002 and thinking, "holy cow, is that display awesome!" Now, when I sit in front of it, I can't help but compare it to my 13" Pro. The iMac's screen feels old and blurry in comparison. Then, I spend time in front of a Retina here at the shop and when I get home, my Pro feels old and blurry in comparison.

[Wrao]

I'll probably get an iPad Air 2, though I expect the update will be fairly minor as far as updates go. Hopefully they have an A8 variant that is a bit more powerful than the one in the iPhone, just for the sake of being able to take advantage of the space. Hopefully the battery life is great and hopefully it's not wanting for lack of RAM(as my iPad Mini is).

[torifile]

If Apple skimps on the RAM on the new iPads I'll be less than pleased.

[turbulentfurball]

I'm guessing they're going to go 16GB/64GB/128GB on the capacities like they did with the iPhone 6. Those bastards. 32GB really should have been the base configuration. If you install all of the iWork and iLife apps you are really left with nothing much left.

[torifile]

Originally Posted by turbulentfurball I'm guessing they're going to go 16GB/64GB/128GB on the capacities like they did with the iPhone 6. Those bastards. 32GB really should have been the base configuration. If you install all of the iWork and iLife apps you are really left with nothing much left.

Not storage but RAM. But you are probably right about storage capacities.

[turbulentfurball]

Yeah, I know. My post wasn't meant to be related to the comment about RAM. I did have an iPad Air and the 1GB was definitely a bottleneck.

[Eugene]

Just install both Connectix RAM Doubler and Disk Doubler. Done.

[psmith2.0]

I had Ram Doubler back when I had my first Mac in 1994-1999-ish (Quadra 610, baby!). I'd read about it in Macworld (or MacUser) and it seemed like it might be the thing for me, so I bought it at Micro-Center in Orange County, CA (back when software actually came in these things called boxes, and was installed via floppy discs). Good stuff, thinking back to those System 7 and 8 (and 9) days, before Everything Changed. This was pre-AppleInsider/Internet for me, that whole mid/late-90's period (I got online in mid-late 1997, but it was AOL and dial-up for a solid two years, so I barely even count it). This would actually make for a good thread...everyone's memories of the "old days" (pre-OS X, the iEra, Jobs' second act, etc.), and all the quirky software, hardware, workarounds, hassles (SCSI, no hot-swapping of peripherals, etc.) we just accepted as "the way it was" (we didn't know any different), etc.

[Brave Ulysses]

Apple really doesn't seem to care much about the iPad anymore. They haven't had any exciting new developments on it for quite a while.

Not sure where they are going with it. It's not encouraging that iPad sales have slowed and even retracted. I don't think new faster models are going to do much to change that trend.

[Wrao]

I'm not sure it's so much that they don't care as much as the iPad just isn't as exciting of a device intrinsically. Until iOS 7, I was convinced I wouldn't need a new iPad pretty much ever because no matter how much 'better' they might get, web browsing, book reading and file sharing would stay the same.

Meanwhile with phones you're getting majorly improved cameras and video capabilities, you're getting innovative security features and connectivity improvements, and each performance boost has a bit more of a direct impact if it affects your day-to-day usage even by only fractions of seconds.

When I think about what I want out of an iPad I just can't think of much that it doesn't already have and more to the point I can barely see any of my usage changing to need much more than is already available.

[PB PM]

The only issue I noticed with my older 3rd gen (first retina display) iPad is that it does not like playing back 1080p video, it just chokes. No issue with connection speed, since 1080p video is fine on every other device I own. That and battery life is about half of what it used to be, so I might get a new iPad this winter. I'd just pass the current one on to a family member for Christmas.

Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses Apple really doesn't seem to care much about the iPad anymore. They haven't had any exciting new developments on it for quite a while. Not sure where they are going with it. It's not encouraging that iPad sales have slowed and even retracted. I don't think new faster models are going to do much to change that trend.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that the tablet market as a whole, not just iPad, is in a slump. I think it is likely a matter of market saturation. There isn't much exciting to do with tablets until they become more powerful.

[Brave Ulysses]

Originally Posted by PB PM The only issue I noticed with my older 3rd gen (first retina display) iPad is that it does not like playing back 1080p video, it just chokes. No issue with connection speed, since 1080p video is fine on every other device I own. That and battery life is about half of what it used to be, so I might get a new iPad this winter. I'd just pass the current one on to a family member for Christmas. Maybe I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that the tablet market as a whole, not just iPad, is in a slump. I think it is likely a matter of market saturation. There isn't much exciting to do with tablets until they become more powerful.

iPad was and is suppose to be different than the tablet market as a whole. And none of that changes the fact that it is a shockingly stale product for Apple that they have done very little to promote and innovate with recently. It's as if they don't have a game plan in place other than an iPad is a big screen iPhone.

The excitement will not come from more powerful hardware, it will come from new uses, new more advanced software, and rethinking the UI. The hardware appears to be plenty fast enough.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses And none of that changes the fact that it is a shockingly stale product for Apple that they have done very little to promote and innovate with recently. It's as if they don't have a game plan in place other than an iPad is a big screen iPhone.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses The excitement will not come from more powerful hardware, it will come from new uses, new more advanced software, and rethinking the UI. The hardware appears to be plenty fast enough.

Yup.

Consider the iPad 2 announcement. The exciting bit wasn't that it's thinner, lighter, and faster. It's not about specs; it's about applications: it introduced GarageBand, iMovie, the entire iWork suite, and even something as seemingly silly as FaceTime and Photo Booth. It added AirPlay to the mix, which combined with Apple TV or an AirPlay-supporting receiver (does anyone have those?) makes for various interesting living room applications — both for playing audio and for putting pictures or videos on the big screen.

That's good.

Then "the new iPad" (ugh) came with Retina. It was really too slow for it in many cases, but made it far more useful in reading (including, say, browsing the Web) scenarios.

Beyond that, the 3rd generation offered little. Everything since has been minor. As much as Tim rightfully highlights that good iPad apps should, unlike Android tablet apps, be much more than merely scaled up phone apps, that's exactly what they tend to be more and more. E.g., Twitter, which originally launched with a completely different UI for the iPad, eventually got merged with the iPhone version and became kinda boring. With the 6 / 6 Plus phablets, this trend of scaled UIs will only continue. It's hard enough for me to understand why I would want both, say, a 6 Plus and an iPad Air in terms of how they even meaningfully differ from each other — how is an average Joe supposed to get it?

[chucker]

Originally Posted by PB PM Maybe I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that the tablet market as a whole, not just iPad, is in a slump. I think it is likely a matter of market saturation. There isn't much exciting to do with tablets until they become more powerful.

What powers do they lack? The specs seem almost too much these days. I feel that the hardware has grown much faster than the software applications, particularly in terms of user experience. The market is in a slump because nobody is left alive to even promote what the hell the market is for — it's not about a big iPod touch™, nor about a cheap browsing device. It's not about doing less than a laptop, or about crazy hybrids. It's an entirely different category, and it's fast becoming irrelevant because nobody is championing it.

[PB PM]

I'd hardly call the iPad over powered or over specd. What powers do they lack? By that I mean being able to run full desktop apps, not "mobile versions." When I can do everything I do on a notebook/desktop at the same speed, that will be the big leap.

[Brave Ulysses]

Originally Posted by PB PM I'd hardly call the iPad over powered or over specd. What powers do they lack? By that I mean being able to run full desktop apps, not "mobile versions." When I can do everything I do on a notebook/desktop at the same speed, that will be the big leap.

Not sure speed is what the limiting factor is there. At least I see no sign that it is

[PB PM]

So you think the top of the line iPad could handle high end desktop apps, even with a slow ARM chip and 1GB of RAM? Not saying the iPad cannot do a lot, I know it can, but it is still lacking in some areas.

Besides the ability to handle higher end apps, I really cannot see any major changes required on the hardware side. OS wise, yes it could use improvements, which will come with time I suppose.

[PBMB]

I don't get the 5K iMac rumor. There are too many/strong limitations at this moment.

(1) Price will skyrocket. Good quality 5K monitors are well beyond the $2000 mark (only the monitor!).

(2) What about mobile GPU power to drive such a behemoth resolution at acceptable frame rates? What about gaming?

(3) How to manage the heat output of such a machine? Unlike the rMBP, in the iMac the display is almost in contact with hot components.

In my opinion it is much more important to offer 10-bit color and a rotating display, that can go to portrait mode, than such a high resolution and then struggle to make the machine operate properly without burning its own guts.

[Matsu]

I think Apple isn't going to fully address 10bit color until we get to UHD resolutions. Maybe a 5K iMac isn't completely crazy. As a high end option there will be photo editors who would be interested in it over even a Mac Pro.

[Eugene]

1) The price will skyrocket. The 27" iMac was considered a steal when it first came out. A 5K 27" iMac will probably cost a little north of $3000 and still be considered a steal.

2) Mobile GPUs are very good these days. An Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M is a slightly cut down version of the desktop 980.

3) Heat is not going to be an issue with a 27" iMac. Bumping up to 5K resolution shouldn't increase power consumption by an amount that would cause problems.

On the other hand...

I've had two iMacs with three warranty repairs done. The older one had another failure outside of warranty an is currently unusable. I would hate for such a pricey display to be attached to more components prone to failure. I'd rather have an updated/upspec Mac mini attached to such a display.

[Matsu]

I don't think they'll get it down to a $3K price, though I would be very impressed if they did. It will have to be something good, not shitty TN panels, and if it is, people working for print output are going to drop their desktop machines to get one, even Mac Pro models will be traded in. The resolution for 5k must be around 220 dpi, or not far off what most c print machines will do!

Over the last few months I've even gotten used to glossy screens. I have two 27" displays on my desk. One matte and the iMac. In truth, both need to be protected from glare. The iMac reflects and the HP washes out. The iMac gives a better approximation of a glossy print, the HP a matte one, there's room for both types.

[Eugene]

Not $3K, but a little north of it. Even if you don't think Apple can get a better deal on panels than Dell, $3300-$2500 is $800. You can get a lot of computer for $800, typical 27" iMac level components.