Future Apple Products

[mi5moav]

5 years ago Larry Ellison said,

"My opinion is that Apple is going to be the great digital appliance company. As the appliances become digital, the very coolest digital appliances will come from Apple--the easiest to use, the prettiest to look at, the most successful will come from Apple."

So, what appliances will start to become digital and thus fair game for apple to place their stamp on.

I am going to say the home phone. A great digital phone/handset that connects through broadband, uses ichat has digital mailboxes and is able to be simply set via your mac.. with a million other options. Though I think that some form of digital recorder will be unveild one day.

 

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Howabout music? Photography? Home videos? Digital content authoring? Music creation?

I'd say Apple already has become king of the jungle when it comes to digital appliances. If they don't make the best hardware, then they sure as heck make the best software to handle it.

I'm begging to be proven wrong, but I don't think Apple will make the foray into the telephone market. I don't think there'll ever be a completely computer-based telephone replacement anytime soon, or ever. It's too easy to pick up a receiver (be it at home or a cell phone), punch a button and be connected to your best friend. It takes a lot more work to sit down at the computer, wake it up and put the headset on... not to mention you wouldn't be very mobile, either.

 

[karavite]

Oh this is too much fun! Thanks mi5moav!

Well, we have been having a lively and related discussion on a somewhat similar topic, Home automation and distributed media:
http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34902

I don't claim to be any kind of seer, but a few people thought I and others who wanted to see Apple get into this sort of thing were nuts and/or said something like "stop whining and go buy a third party app/device." Then, soon enough Apple comes out with Airport Express with the interesting feature of letting us listen to our iTunes on other audio equipment around the house. This is a super neat start of things and ties in closely with the idea of Macs as "digital hubs." Eldiablo has a very good point - Apple has certainly led the way on managing, editing, accessing our digital media on our computer and that is a HUGE part of being a "digital hub and appliance", but the next step is (I think) letting the Mac be something of a media server and getting all our media to wherever we may want it. iTunes over wireless is just the start. This company (see link) has an interesting idea on this angle, but from various reports the UI and functionality isn't quite there: http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyehome

Apple could do better.

One other thought. The term "digital appliance" seems to have started gaining popularity with Donald Norman who wrote about Information Appliances in his book (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...f=sr_1_4/102-5088221-7681735?v=glance&s=books). The basic idea there is the computer can do almost everything, but not do everything well. Instead we need to look back (in a way) to dedicated information appliances. Of course, the big issue with this is we want all our data and information portable and for most people it is far from that now (just think of all the places you have phone numbers - cell phone, home phone, computer, home, office...). Any way, not only can Apple make the most cool and useful appliances (iPod is obvious proof of that), but they can also design the best apps for sharing, distributing, managing... all our information *easily* - whatever format AND they are committed to wireless. All in all, I'd say Ellison is right - good things are coming from Apple!!!