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Apple hosts “Back to Mac” event on 20 October

Published by on Oct 14th, 2010, 3 Comments

With all the attention on iPad, iPhone and iPod in the last quarter, you might have started to think that Apple forgot about their Mac business. Seems not.

On 20 October Apple is hosting a “Back to Mac” event with their familiar cryptic invitation card shown above. You can clearly see the Lion in the background. True to Apple’s codenames which stick to the cat family names. Past codenames included Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard and the most recent Snow Leopard. Will the next won be called Lion? I really do not expect them to announce a launch date, but just give a preview, similiar to what they did with Snow Leopard. My big expectation for the next OS X is multitouch. Cannot wait to see a touch enabled iMac, but only if it has the recently patented hinge we wrote about earlier. If you have a look at the Apple logo in the invitation, you will see that it’s on a hinge, so maybe that hints at the new hinge patents. But I really doubt they will upgrade the iMac by now already, but maybe in future.

So what else can we expect? Well the Macbook Air hasnt got an upgrade in more than a year. The standard Macbook Pro has also seen its last upgrade in April 2010, and the XServe hasnt gotten any love since April 2009. I also expect a bigger focus on enterprise features for new Macs and new versions of OSX Server, with better iOS mobile device management coming in future (or at least I am hoping for that).

By the way – if you are planning on buying any Apple hardware, take a look at the MacRumors: Buyers Guide. It shows the upgrade cycles for all hardware and gives recommendations on the purchase timing of the hardware you are interested in. For example their guide clearly states to not buy a Macbook Air at present. Its not a great feeling buying an expensive computer only to see it being upgraded 2 weeks later…

Give us some feedback – what do YOU expect to see on 20 October?

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Comments

  • http://www.jonathanpeel.co.za/ Jonathan Peel

    This is interesting

    I think I might be excited, but I am not sure.
    I am extremely close to leaving Apple completely, and the only think that has stopped me so far really is just lazy procrastination.

    I still think they will need to do a hell of a lot to keep me excited, as I am not looking to upgrade my hardware anytime soon they will have to make me want to pay for the software.

    I am also interested to see if they are going to be updating iLife (although I only really care for iPhoto).

    The Lion is also interesting.
    If the release Mac OS X Lion (or call is something fancy like Leo), then where next.
    I see Lion as being the “Last Cat”. You cannot really trump it.
    So I am a lot more interested in what comes after Lion, than Lion it’s self.

    Will Lion be the last Max OS X?
    after that will everything be on iOS? I don’t know if I want that…

  • http://www.mpieters.com Minnaar Pieters

    Wondering about the “Lion” name as well – agreed, it is the ultimate cat right?

    Why are you leaving Apple specifically Jonathan? With the current upwards shift in their sales I would think that most people are starting to like Apple more and more?

  • http://www.jonathanpeel.co.za/ Jonathan Peel

    The truth is I have gotten board.
    My first Mac was a mini in 2005, and then I got a MacBook in 2007, and have really loved both. I have had an iPod Nano, and iPod Video, and an iPod Touch, and loved all of those.

    I think Windows has caught up drastically, maybe not yet taken over, but the gap is starting to get very small.

    I also don’t use any “Pro” apps, so like I said in my comment, iPhoto is my biggest interest at the moment, but I think Picasa is quickly catching up to that too. Again, maybe it’s not quite there, but has the potential to be there very quickly, unless Apple do something very exciting with iLife, and then I do think there is a finite level you can go to before it starts taking away from Aperture.

    I have also recently gotten an Android phone, and seriously loving it.
    I have never had an iPhone, but I feel my iPod Touch was a very close comparison, to everything except phone calls. Like everything else, there are one or two things it did better, but on a whole I much prefer android. I will still use my iPod once every week or so, and whenever I do I am glad I never went for an iPhone.

    So, I guess, it’s not that I don’t think Apple are way up on top, I just feel that everything else is very close behind.

    If I was looking to buy a new computer it would be a more difficult choice, as I hate all the (looking for nice word) that comes with most PC laptops.

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