You know that sound running water makes when it flows freely down a drain? That wonderful sound stands in stark contrast to the sound a sink makes when water doesn’t flow, but backs up into a ugly, brown, smelly mess.
‘Fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.’ So said the nation’s only unelected President. No, he wasn’t talking about the nightmare of Apple’s long clogged product pipeline, but if Gerald Ford was still around he’d be wondering where all the new products got stuck. Get ready for the drain to be unclogged.
The Drano Effect
Among Apple prognosticators, futurists, critics, and know-bodies, Mark Gurman reigns supreme– either through some savant gift involving tea leaves, or some blabbermouth Apple employee who doesn’t want Bloomberg’s premier tech writer to release those damaging photos– as the best Apple product pipeline guesser of the 21st century.
What’s happening? The pipes in Cupertino are about to be unclogged, either by Digital Drano, or some other force of nature (I’m betting on divine intervention from the Ghost of Steve Jobs), mere mortals are about to possess a metric boatload of new Apple products.
What’s coming?
iPad Pro Pro – more Pro features downwind of the Pro line, including Pencil, annotations everywhere, but aimed at Apple customers who have more money than the standard unwashed masses of riffraff. Maybe after everything else travels through the pipeline we’ll see new iPads.
Mac Mac – A name so nice you can say it twice. The MacBook Air just won’t die because people still buy them which has forced Apple’s still conscious engineers to drop in USB-C and better graphics but no Retina display. The MacBook Pro gets a full on re-design due out later in the fall (not all clogs get unclogged the first time) with a programmable digital function key display; plus thinner, lighter, faster. Not soon, but soon enough (I’m thinking I need a Halloween gift).
Mac Pro 5K – No, it’s not a race that involves 10 laps around Apple’s new flying saucer headquarters in Cupertino, but an actual Retina 5K display that will work on new iMacs in need of a second display, new MacBook Pro models, and, of course, everyone’s darling and over priced aluminum trash can, the Mac Pro.
iPhone 7 – Well, duh. Unfortunately, Apple depends much on iPhones selling like McDonald’s burgers only in greater number and with a vastly higher gross margin, but the latest and greatest still won’t have a 3D Touch, Touch ID-blessed hidden Home button, but it will have a decided lack of headphone jack, replaced by Apple’s own in-house (Beats) designed earphones called AirPods. Oh, did I forget to mention the new camera? Think near-DSLR quality with bokeh built in. It’ll be huuuuge. And announced next week and available a few weeks after that.
Watch This – What? No Watch? Either Watch shows up soon, or it won’t show up at all, what with the holiday shopping season being the right time to buy yourself a gift. Just don’t expect a fully standalone Watch this year. It’s still an iPhone accessory.
One. More. Thing. – Oh, how I miss those. Yes, we’ll learn all about iOS 10 during the presentation next week, and the new iPhones are sure to, 1) catch critic’s hair on fire because new iPhones no longer excite, and tech writers have highly flammable hair, and, 2) sell by the tens of millions thanks to pent up demand and iPhone 6 touch disease, thereby making the best reason yet to upgrade to a new iPhone.
Alright, so how about One. More. Thing. This sure would be nice. You know, like announcing a cool set of wireless earphones called Beats Buds or Apple AirPods.
