The next 6 months should see a stream of cool products from
Last year brought the 12-inch Retina MacBook and 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Both groundbreaking. (I say that as an everyday user of both.) The Apple Watch also became available. For those itching for more innovative products from Apple, remember that Apple isn't Samsung. The South Korean electronics giant churns out so many phones, tablets, wearables, and computers that innovation and product-standouts tend to be muted and/or lost in the shuffle.
iPhone 7 Plus or Pro with dual-lens camera? Apple likes the "Pro" moniker. Though applying "Pro" to a phone is a more tenuous argument than, let's say, a MacBook, Apple could pull it off if it's something, for instance, that photo professionals could flock to. Reports over the weekend from reputable Apple blogs offer more evidence of a second iSight camera on the back of the upcoming 5.5-inch iPhone. A dual-camera setup opens up lots of possibilities, including wide-angle shots, like the LG G5, or more detail, like the Huawei P9. And the expected improvement in sensor technology will move image quality up a notch.
Of course, an iPhone 7 that looks more or less the same as the iPhone 6 and 6s would unleash a flood of Apple-has-lost-its-mojo stories. But dual-lens cameras is the next big step in smartphone hardware. And a dual-lens iPhone 7 with the Apple imprimatur would bring these new cameras to millions of American consumers for the first time.
MacBook Pro with OLED touch bar, USB-C, and Thunderbolt 3: I would suggest that the new MacBook Pro would be the biggest Apple announcement of the year. Consumers and professionals still lean heavily on laptops and MacBook Pros have a large, passionate user base chomping at the bit for a long-overdue redesign. As widely reported, the upcoming high-performance MacBook will likely be thinner and lighter (an Apple obsession) with an OLED display touch bar that replaces physical function keys. More recent rumors suggest that the OLED touch panel could be contextual, with buttons changing as the user moves among different apps. And Thunderbolt-3 USB-C ports would be welcome, of course.
5K Thunderbolt display: This is probably the most iffy rumor because it's hard to figure out if Apple is getting out of the display business altogether or staying in the game with a radical new design. Indeed, it has been confusing. For instance, one of the most discouraging things (for me) about the 12-inch MacBook is that no compatible Apple display appeared along with the new MacBook. I had to go with a
And that Apple TV set? For now, those plans have been shelved.
