Since many of us may have been underwhelmed by the recent palette of upgrades Apple put out, I've been wondering what they would have to do to impress us anymore, and I think I have a solution.
First of all, most of us are not content creators, so the pro level features of Macs and iPads, even iPhones, the super fast multicore processors, multiple graphics cores, excessive memory and storage, machine learning, neural networks...all amazing advances in their own right, are way more than I need already. So the updates don't solve a problem for me, which leaves me wringing my hands over whether I should continue to upgrade devices every year. Furthermore screens are already quite good enough for my presbyopic eyes and cameras are way beyond my photography skill set. I don't think I need augmented reality (yet). Battery life is as good as it needs to be and the devices are as thin and light as I need them. Now I do love great 3D audio, so keep that coming, but Apple's offerings are super good already. I still of course want new devices, but the direction seems to be to load them with hardware specs that I can't capitalize on.
What I really need is faster internet speed.
Wifi in particular, most of my work is done on Wifi at home or in my office, not on the road. Faster wifi internet speeds would make every single app I use and every task from my work to communications, to consuming media, even gaming, so much faster and more useful that further hardware enhancements would be essentially irrelevant. I realized that my M1 Mac mini from 2020 is much faster connected to ethernet than my M2 MacBook Air while on wifi. I pay $150 a month for gigabit speed (fastest) and unlimited data, I have wifi 6 with repeaters, and all Apple's latest generation devices, but my devices only score 100-200Mbs download speeds, unless I'm hardwired (which is never).There are 10Gb ethernet network devices available but I can't possibly make use of them. Fiber internet is still not available in my well developed OC suburb, certainly for nefarious reasons. We've been talking about improving high speed (ha!) internet availability across the country for years now but we all know that it won't happen through legislation in our lifetimes.
So I am begging Apple to forget the car and forget the glasses, forget 5G, and skip a year of spec bumping every device, and do a full-on Manhattan Project to establish a nationwide network capable of 10Gb speed, coast to coast, with 10gb wifi capability built into all of their next generation devices, and re-introduce a 10Gb Airport Max router on steroids...a SpacePort router if you will. With these connected to their own proprietary network they will maximize speed and stability, and make every Apple device 10,000x faster for real world, every day, internet based users and consumers. They will make cable internet obsolete, just as they did with cable television. They will embarrass Google Fiber. If they can build a world wide network of Apple stores and service centers, the iCloud storage system, become the repository of all music and video ever recorded for instant consumption, and create a credit card and wireless payment system that works around the world, then they can fix Wifi for the masses, for all time. My Apple Card is ready and waiting to subscribe to this service once it exists. Come on guys, you can do this...
First of all, most of us are not content creators, so the pro level features of Macs and iPads, even iPhones, the super fast multicore processors, multiple graphics cores, excessive memory and storage, machine learning, neural networks...all amazing advances in their own right, are way more than I need already. So the updates don't solve a problem for me, which leaves me wringing my hands over whether I should continue to upgrade devices every year. Furthermore screens are already quite good enough for my presbyopic eyes and cameras are way beyond my photography skill set. I don't think I need augmented reality (yet). Battery life is as good as it needs to be and the devices are as thin and light as I need them. Now I do love great 3D audio, so keep that coming, but Apple's offerings are super good already. I still of course want new devices, but the direction seems to be to load them with hardware specs that I can't capitalize on.
What I really need is faster internet speed.
Wifi in particular, most of my work is done on Wifi at home or in my office, not on the road. Faster wifi internet speeds would make every single app I use and every task from my work to communications, to consuming media, even gaming, so much faster and more useful that further hardware enhancements would be essentially irrelevant. I realized that my M1 Mac mini from 2020 is much faster connected to ethernet than my M2 MacBook Air while on wifi. I pay $150 a month for gigabit speed (fastest) and unlimited data, I have wifi 6 with repeaters, and all Apple's latest generation devices, but my devices only score 100-200Mbs download speeds, unless I'm hardwired (which is never).There are 10Gb ethernet network devices available but I can't possibly make use of them. Fiber internet is still not available in my well developed OC suburb, certainly for nefarious reasons. We've been talking about improving high speed (ha!) internet availability across the country for years now but we all know that it won't happen through legislation in our lifetimes.
So I am begging Apple to forget the car and forget the glasses, forget 5G, and skip a year of spec bumping every device, and do a full-on Manhattan Project to establish a nationwide network capable of 10Gb speed, coast to coast, with 10gb wifi capability built into all of their next generation devices, and re-introduce a 10Gb Airport Max router on steroids...a SpacePort router if you will. With these connected to their own proprietary network they will maximize speed and stability, and make every Apple device 10,000x faster for real world, every day, internet based users and consumers. They will make cable internet obsolete, just as they did with cable television. They will embarrass Google Fiber. If they can build a world wide network of Apple stores and service centers, the iCloud storage system, become the repository of all music and video ever recorded for instant consumption, and create a credit card and wireless payment system that works around the world, then they can fix Wifi for the masses, for all time. My Apple Card is ready and waiting to subscribe to this service once it exists. Come on guys, you can do this...
