What with the mass of rumours about the impending RevB G5s, (getting boring now, and I've only been reading them a few days) lets go a little further ahead:
What features would people (realistically) like to see on future Apple systems?
I'd like to see a built-in Smart/Flash card reader on either or both the iBook and PB.
That would be a nice touch.
And a more upgradeable Notebook (Removeable Graphics card, more Apple supported/made CPU upgrade options, the drive modules in the Lombard/Pismo were good...). Would that be an industry first? Upgradeable notebook graphics?
I'm happy about the rumour Apple have teamed up with BMW. I've thought for a while that In-car entertainment would be an excellent move for Apple. I dream of an MP3 head unit which is basically a PB in a different box with a screen in the dash. Trackpad on your steering wheel anyone? Or iPod wheel?
And Airport: Park in your drive/garage, swap songs without carrying media between car and home.
Something along these lines:
http://www.mujmac.cz/art/hw/tatra_mac_eng.html
As for future chips, I saw a post predicting 35nm chips within a few years. This seems unrealistic (there is a limit on just how small you can go), but may not be entirely necessary. Aside from the announcement to do with optical chips made by Intel a while back (The announcement, not an optical chip- some kind of breakthrough though) it was more recently announced that somebody succeeded in growing single-crystal diamond wafers. These are analogous to the silicon wafers on which current CPUs are grown, but they have better semiconductor properties and theyre a bit sturdier too. Should get the clock speeds up. Diamond G6@8GHz anyone?
I hope Apple are properly able to take advantage of the XBox 2 (and PS3?) going over to G5/6s. The gamers are the last group of Computer users who are genuinely tied up to microsoft. Games just aren't available on Mac/Linux etc like they are on Windows.
Its said that that MS have sent developer kits out for the new XBox which run on the G5, which means these games should be easily ported to OS X by developers.
Good news I think.
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