The future of Apple, Inc. – My Prediction

[eezing]

One year from now you’ll be in the living room, hanging with friends playing a little poker. But, there’s no poker table, poker chips or a deck of cards. The table is actually on your LCD TV displayed via iTV and you’re cards in hand will be your iPhone.

Two years from now you’re on lunch break watching Toy Story 3 being streamed to your iPhone 4G via your $14.99 per month iTunes media subscription. You pause the movie because your break is up, but you’ll continue it after dinner while lying on your couch in front of the LED connected to your iTV.

Three years from now you’ll be standing in the isle of Best Buy listening to the Sales Associate weigh the Pros and Cons of Xbox the 3rd versus Apple iTV. In the end, whenever that is, there will be no Sony or a Nintendo console; there will be only Microsoft or Apple.

Microsoft and Apple offer software as a service direct to the consumer via your Windows Live and iOS devices. The days are here where you purchase a piece of hardware and attach it to a service (iTunes, App Store, Windows Mobile Market Place, Live). The future is infrastructure, and Microsoft and Apple already have one in place.

Apple is not only a software company, but also a hardware company. They know how to build a piece of hardware, fill it with software, market it and most importantly make money from it. Because Apple knows how to make money from hardware, they have the upper hand over Microsoft which will in return allow them to in the early stages to develop and produce at a higher rate which in return will allow them to insert successfully into the console market. Once sustained, Apple will offer a pound for pound solution to the competition.

What do you think?

 

[01jamcon]

Yer I doubt Apple is gonna take over the gaming world with their iTV box. Plus Sony and Nintendo are nowhere near as out of the race as you make it out to be. Clearly a 360 owner.

 

[zap2]

Nintendo ever being forced out of the console business is very unlikely. They would have to run out of money, because that is their company. The could try to do what Sega or Atari did, but that never worked out well, so I'd imagine they'd only try that if it was their last pick.


Sony on the other had, again, I think if unlikely to leave the market. While it is not their whole company, they have learned how useful having a device like the PS3 is. It allowed them to push their format(Blu-Ray) to victory. I doubt they'll be quitting anytime soon

I think if Apple does enter the home gaming market, it will be like with the iPod touch, "hardcore gamers" will still want their button devices.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Yeah... no. If poker goes virtual, it will be with a Microsoft surface device, not an iPhone/Apple TV combo.

 

[Mousse]

Yeah... no. If poker goes virtual,

If poker goes virtual, it'll become a game of chance. No more bluffing, no more reading the other player's reactions, no more bluffing, no more studying the other player's tendencies. Did I mention no more bluffing?

Three years from now you’ll be standing in the isle of Best Buy listening to the Sales Associate weigh the Pros and Cons of Xbox the 3rd versus Apple iTV.

I gotta admit, milk came out of my nose at the statement...and I wasn't even drink milk at the time. I predict the Wii2 (pronounced Wee Squared, but I'll call it the Wee-wee) will dominate gaming industry.

 

[Corndog5595]

Yer I doubt Apple is gonna take over the gaming world with their iTV box. Plus Sony and Nintendo are nowhere near as out of the race as you make it out to be. Clearly a 360 owner.

iTV could take down the Wii, but it wont happen. Plus this is all speculation.

 

[chaosbunny]

Well, I won't be doing any of these things.

Besides, where is the benefit of playing poker on iPhones and led TVs vs playing it with real cards? Right - nowhere.

 

[0098386]

That is not going to happen.

 

[TSE]

The future of Apple sucks.

 

[Giuly]

Well, in the near future I see an iTV with Cable Card for the US plus DVB-S+S2/C/T+T2 with CI(+) for the rest of the world and/OR IPTV via iTunes TV - I expect that September 2011 or 2012. With this, I see the first world wide TV broadcaster, I guess HBO or Fox rather than CBS, NBC or anyone from another nations. This can be pretty dangerous, though.

Then it will bring games, user-developable via Xcode and distributed via App Store. That will be heavily competitive to Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.
Remote controlled via iPhone and iPod Touch, which is also used as the game controller, maybe with something like the iControlPad to put your iDevice into at home to play games.

Then the iTV plus plasma HDTV gets replaced with an up to 60" iMac with built-in TV-Receiver or IPTV if that removed already all the DVB and Cable stuff from the market. Controlled via the iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad with a Trackpad-App. A 16:9 iPad would make a cool multitouch keyboard.

Beyond that, I see the whole electrics hooked up to the internet via IPv6, like "What's in the fridge?" via RFID, "Did I leave the oven on?" and "Preheat my livingroom to 21° when I arrive home at 9:00PM, cool it down to 18° when I go to bed and shut the heating up at 7:00AM when I leave the house", and that kind of stuff. The SARAH-stuff from EUReKA is a bit SciFi, but iPhones already got Voice Control, right? However, Smarthouses are the future. Apple experimented in that Area with Homenet or whatever it was called, but those where just iPhone controllable power sockets.

After or in conjunction with that, I see the traditional PCs disappear and replaced with a XServe-like home server which is capable of driving a bunch of HD capable terminals in every room, with some sort of wall socket you just plug in your monitor and use your wireless keyboard and mouse with it, which are charged by induction on your desk.

Regular 110/230V sockets in most rooms get replaced with a central highly efficient PSU which outputs +5/12V, suitable for most devices. In reality, only thing that needs 110/230V today is heat (electric oven, light, coffeemaker, washing mashine) and rotation (coffeemaker's pump, washing mashine) - aka the most efficient ways to use power.

 

[electronicstore]

good post..........

 

[Cabbit]

Well, in the near future I see an iTV with Cable Card for the US plus DVB-S+S2/C/T+T2 with CI(+) for the rest of the world and/OR IPTV via iTunes TV - I expect that September 2011 or 2012. With this, I see the first world wide TV broadcaster, I guess HBO or Fox rather than CBS, NBC or anyone from another nations. This can be pretty dangerous, though.

There are a few world wide or nearly world wide broadcasters. BBC World is one i have seen across Europe, Asia and even the USA.

 

[Giuly]

There are a few world wide or nearly world wide broadcasters. BBC World is one i have seen across Europe, Asia and even the USA.

Deutsche Welle is world wide as well, so are RAI Asia/Africa/America, CNBC and that kind of stuff. Even Al Jazeera has an English channel now.

But what I mean is something we call "Full Program" in Germany, a channel which offers rich content based on "information, education, consultation and entertainment" and targets all kinds of viewers from different ages and backgrounds - like FOX.

 

[ChristianVirtual]

After or in conjunction with that, I see the traditional PCs disappear and replaced with a XServe-like home server ...

Regular 110/230V sockets in most rooms get replaced with a central highly efficient PSU which outputs +5/12V, suitable for most devices. In reality, only thing that needs 110/230V today is heat (electric oven, light, coffeemaker, washing mashine) and rotation (coffeemaker's pump, washing mashine) - aka the most efficient ways to use power.

That with the home server might be nice for some people but my guess (and you also said before) the infrastructure will be outside, once the optical connection are available also in country side (not like in Germany, tried that over years) why not stream on demand all that stuff you want to see. Same with your data.

Here in Tokyo I have my own glas firbe line, I often run in problems that the server on the other side can't deliver fast enough.

But I really like your idea with the low-volt power sockets instead of the need that each and every device need a power converter actually loosing efficiency.
That would be even enough for some LED light. Keep the toaster in the kitchen.

 

[Giuly]

That with the home server might be nice for some people but my guess (and you also said before) the infrastructure will be outside, once the optical connection are available also in country side (not like in Germany, tried that over years) why not stream on demand all that stuff you want to see. Same with your data.

Here in Tokyo I have my own glas firbe line, I often run in problems that the server on the other side can't deliver fast enough.

But I really like your idea with the low-volt power sockets instead of the need that each and every device need a power converter actually loosing efficiency.
That would be even enough for some LED light. Keep the toaster in the kitchen.

Japan is really crazy when it comes to internet connection, I know. In Germany, we "only" have 50MBit/s in the larger towns, and some providers offer 100MBit/s via cable tv or fiber. I hope they "unlock" the VDSL links from 50 to 200MBit/s soon, as technically possible.
Video renting aka Video on Demand via IPTV is also widely available, mostly via 50/16MBit/s lines, but I know that people 15km away in the country side are limited to 1MBit/s, which is what definitely needs to be enhanced here. They're experimenting with WiMax now, but this is also limited to certain areas right now and only available up to 2MBit/s.
We need fibers or at least VDSL Outdoor-DSLAMs all over the place, else this won't work.
The way around is Astra2Connect with 3MBit/s, everywhere in Europe and without any telephone line via satellite:

A 3Mbit/s unicast link wherever (inside the footprint of Astra 1) you are for $50 via satellite is, well, impressive. Imagine it on top of a camper, standing anywhere next to a lake in Romania or something.

720p needs about 10-15MBit/s to be broadcasted properly over DVB-S2, 1080i about 5-10MBit/s - that's at least what is currently broadcasted. I have an IPTV receiver which receives 720p, but you can forget about bringing that to the masses at the moment.
iTunes TV may implement different bitrates via multicast though, which are streamable from EDGE over 3G and up to 1080p or 4K.

IMHO, the whole infrastructure is outdated, copper cables are outdated. Instead of xDSL, they should hook up everybody via single-mode optical fiber. This is expensive, but transmits up to 50GBit/s without amplification over 10-40km. 10GBASE-ER transmits 10GBit/s over 40km, that's the way to go if you want to reach every single house in the country side.
You need a RAID0 of 9 VelocityRaptors to saturate a single 10GBit/s link, so this is actually future proof.

In Scandinavia they test LTE at the moment, which reaches up to 300MBit/s wirelessly. This is also very interesting, but cannot compete with fibers though.

But where Apple in between all this is, I don't know. If you look at the usage of most people, they use their MacBook for surfing and word processing, their iPhone to phone and their iPod to listen to music. You have to bring the technology first to the people, and then enhance it.

 

[ryan0402]

In the future apple is going to sell apples...... I see it now

 

[ChristianVirtual]

In the future apple is going to sell apples...... I see it now

They have multi-cores ?
The downside: you need to buy the iKnife to cut the custom-designed skin of the apple,no other knife is allowed

 

[01jamcon]

iTV could take down the Wii, but it wont happen. Plus this is all speculation.

iTV will need some kind of motion-sensing controller to make it a viable games alternative. At the moment, the class of games in the App Store are Nintendo DS-equivalent at best.