So I thought I would write a bit of my opinions on the current state of things at Apple.
Are they running blind? Where they wanted to go? Who is controlling their direction? Or…
Or maybe let’s talk about how they were wrong with One Thing. Specifically, Mac. The thing I’m going to tell you is not new, neither it is impossible; but it just may be too hard from business stance. First, let me remind you what Apple did right: AirPods and removal of 3.5mm socket done at the same time. Now, follow me for the Wrong Thing:
We don’t truly need MacPro, with that. Neither do we need MacBook Pro. Those are made to appeal the ever-present thirst for power, and this thirst is a Lie. We don’t need power, we need power to get things done, done fast. And the best thing about that, is that we get things done not in the café, not on the plane, and certainly not in the bathroom. We get them done on the desk, at home or at the office. And what we needed for that, was a small Mac addon, looking just like an iMac, but being just a Screen. A Screen, with 8-core Xeon processor, 16GB of RAM, pro-level interchangeable GPU, a keyboard and a trackpad, and a few of necessary ports. All of that, connected by USB-C, to your 11” or 13” MacBook, working just like a Screen, but with just that much power to get things done. Of course, you would also be able to connect it to an iMac as a second screen.
Is it possible today? No, USB-C is not for bridging CPUs; but it could’ve been possible tomorrow, if that was part of the USB-C design yesterday. Add some LZ compression, migrate slowly: first transfer only screen, then transfer GPU, then start transferring RAM and send all page-missed commands to the newly-connected CPU. Maybe 1 minute, maybe less, and almost all of your computing is now done on the more powerful thing (of course, no interruptions, just slow growth of power). From the developer perspective, it should be a GCD on steroids plus an external GPU (not a system CPU), and such GCD should be made failable. That way, the user does not need to care about ‘safe ejection’, putting this into developers hands.
Does this technology sound right? Maybe; I’m not you, I’m just one of the consumers, who would’ve loved it this way. Should’ve it been released just alongside USB-C? Certainly, since there is nothing at all justifying USB-C, and this could’ve been the deal-breaker.
So that was One Thing. Other things — maybe I’ll write on them later, maybe never. I’m not Apple CEO, after all, and I’m not in the position to make these things happen.