Apple gear 2017 for
From new iMacs to the ‘iPhone X’, 2017 could be a huge year for Apple. Here’s all the new kit that’s just over the horizon
Apple is known for running a notoriously tight ship, and it’s a rare leak indeed that escapes its sleek, svelte glass walls.
That’s not to say leaks do not exist, of course. Just as well, because it lets us take a look at what we can expect Tim Cook and friends to unleash upon the world in the upcoming year.
Depending on your perspective, 2016 was either a big step forward for Apple or a huge disappointment. The iPhone 7 got a load of performance boosts and an amazing dual camera setup for the 7 Plus, but ditched the headphone jack, to much consternation. We got shiny new MacBook Pros with the flexible, functional Touch Bar, but many users felt let down by the so-so spec updates. And then there was the Watch Series 2, which still hasn’t lit the world on fire.
Apple needs to put that divisive year behind it and have a solid 2017. To do that, it needs to release some pretty special products. Here’s what we think we’ll see.
Return of the Mac Pro?
Apple’s last update to the iMac came in late 2015, but don’t expect a major overhaul in 2017. While updates are expected to the iMac lineup, all talk is of ‘minor bumps’ rather than anything truly drastic.
For one thing, expect USB-C ports to make their way to Apple’s desktop system, along with support for Thunderbolt 3. The graphics chips are also widely said to be facing an update, bumping up from the choice of AMD R9 M380, M390 or M395 chips (although these discrete cards are only available in the 5K iMac).
Interestingly, it was reported in late 2016 that eagle-eyed users had found code in a macOS 10.12.2 beta that made references to three graphics cards – named ‘Polaris 10XT2’, ‘Polaris 12’ and ‘Vega 10’ – that are not
currently present in any iMac. Polaris 10XT2 is simple enough – it could be an improved version of the Polaris 10 chips currently in iMacs. It is not clear what the Polaris 12 is a reference to, though. Tantalisingly, the Vega 10 snippet could be a reference to updated Mac Pro video chips. Vega is AMD’s high-end chip architecture, which, if it ended up anywhere, would logically make its way into the Mac Pro. Yes, the very same Mac Pro that Apple has not updated for several years. Now that the software support is there, all that we’re waiting
for is supported hardware to make its way into Apple’s desktop Macs, be they Mac Pros or otherwise.
We’re certain the MacBook range will also be refreshed, but again we’re looking at minor bumps in performance here and there. It’s likely we’ll see improved processors in the MacBook Pro, with Apple transitioning to Intel’s Kaby Lake CPUs from the current Skylake processors; the 12-inch MacBook might also see CPU improvements.
It’s also interesting to note that Bloomberg has reported that “some Apple engineers wanted to add a Touch ID fingerprint scanner and a second USB-C port” to the 12-inch MacBook in 2016; it’s possible that these features could make their way into a 2017 update instead. The addition of Touch ID alone would be a great little boost, in our opinion.
10 years young
No one seems to know what the next iPhone will be called. We’ve heard iPhone 7s and even iPhone X (for the iPhone’s tenth birthday), but the consensus seems to rest on iPhone 8. We’ll stick with that.
In practical terms, there’s a lot to get excited about. As we covered in Apple Rumour, most of the talk is that Apple will go for an iPhone with an edge-to-edge, OLED display, and may even incorporate curved sides in the vein of Samsung’s S7 Edge. That latter concept gained some momentum in January 2017 when screen maker Japan Display confirmed that it is ready to begin making curved displays. While the company didn’t explicitly mention that it would do so for Apple, it did state that it was building the screens for its hardware partners. Tim Cook’s firm is one of its customers, so people have since joined the dots on that idea. Of course, having a display with curved edges necessitates the removal of the iPhone’s bezels, at least on the sides. But the talk is that
The addition of Touch ID to MacBooks would be a great little boost, in our opinion