Here’s a magic formula to get some traffic: Create a headline mentioning Apple in connection with something bad or potentially bad. It’s a surefire hit, because it seems most everyone wants to hear unfavorable news about the company. Well, at least that’s what it seems.

So I wasn’t surprised to encounter a headline entitled, “Will Apple Continue to Innovate?” from a news outlet that bears the name of a certain outgoing mayor of New York City. This particular report, such as it is, was a video presentation.

Of course, it really doesn’t matter what’s in the piece. It was all about the headline and the perception that Apple has lost it, that innovation is limited to annual product updates and Samsung and other companies have taken over. iOS? Forget about it, as Google owns the mobile space, and Apple is doomed, all over again, to niche status.

At least that’s the sort of thing you read in article after article. The same theme played out over and over again regardless of the facts. So let’s talk about innovation, and the best example is the 2013 Mac Pro. It doesn’t resemble any other personal computer on the market, early performance benchmarks are excellent, and it’s already back ordered. Sure, maybe Apple hasn’t fully ramped production at the Austin, Texas manufacturing facility that’s making them. Maybe there were production issues, but it’s not as if such fine details are generally disclosed.

Sure, the Mac Pro can be mighty expensive, with a fully-outfitted version costing close to $10,000 including keyboard and mouse, plus the display. But a recent published report in AppleInsider clearly demonstrates that building a similar box with PC hardware will cost far more, and that’s for a built-it-yourself box for which you buy the parts. I tried to configure an HP workstation to match the Mac Pro as closely as possible, but it’s not really possible. I got up to $11,581 for a custom Z820 workstation before I gave up. There doesn’t appear to be any Dell Precision Workstation configuration that comes close regardless of price.

Sure, the Mac Pro isn’t the kind of computer that many people will ever consider, even the entry-level $2,999 configuration. But the people who do want them are happy to pay the price.

All right, the Mac Pro may not be the volume seller in the same spirit as any Apple mobile device, but you can’t deny it’s an original.

When it comes to the iPhone, the 5s may look like the 5, but Apple beat major chip makers to the punch with 64-bit support, and Touch ID is far superior to the most prominent contender in the fingerprint sensing realm from HTC. It’s actually fairly easy to set up, and it’s quite usable. Apple’s purchase of a company pioneering such technology, AuthenTec, clearly paid off.

To be fair, there are other slim tablets, so maybe the iPad Air doesn’t seem so original, at least until you compare it to the original iPad form factor, but the reviewers love it, and that even goes for reviewers who tend to be critical of Apple gear.

But it’s quite true that Apple still has a lot to prove. There’s Tim Cook’s promise that new products, and new product categories, will debut in 2014. It’s not at all certain how that will play out. Will there be a larger iPad and iPhone? What about the iWatch, and is wearable technology ready to conquer the mass market? What’s more, will Apple even build a smartwatch, or this there some other wearable gadget under development?

Sure, Apple reportedly trademarked iWatch in some countries, and allegedly has 100 engineers working on the project. But that doesn’t a product make, and even if there is an iWatch in our future, will it come in 2014? It’s not as if any existing smartwatch has done terribly well.

The other category mentioned over and over again is TV. Is an Apple connected TV forthcoming? Well, they said it would come this year, and time is short. The chatter speaks of the 2014 holiday season, and perhaps that’ll happen, though it doesn’t seem the sort of product you’d pick up and drive home from your favorite Apple Store. It’s just not a good mix, the Apple Store wasn’t designed to stock something that large, and I don’t expect Apple is going to remake a large number of stores simply for a TV set.

But what about the unknown? Is there something else in Apple’s arsenal that the pundits haven’t been thinking about? No, as I indicated in yesterday’s column, I don’t think Apple is going to invest $18 billion or so to acquire Tesla Motors, the electric car maker. Sure, Tesla appears to be doing quite well as a niche maker, and maybe a large number of our readers will have electric cars before long. But another survey recently suggested that, by 2040, most cars will still be using gas, so maybe not.

Besides, I hardly think Apple would invest a boatload of money to hire a visionary from a different field. It’s not the same thing as buying NeXT in 1996, a transaction that cost $429 million and brought Steve Jobs back to the company. NeXT made operating systems, and even computers in the early days. There was a clear synergy between the two companies.

That doesn’t mean new cars won’t have an Apple designed interface. Clearly many will, but that’s a matter of licensing rather than buying an auto maker. Sure, Tesla may seem a decent fit to some, but I don’t see it.

Meanwhile, the critics will complain that Apple can’t innovate. Just show them a picture of the Mac Pro and say, “yeah, sure, right.” Besides, where’s the innovation from Samsung?

There’s no shortage of tech and financial pundits telling Apple what to do. They evidently assume that Tim Cook and his team don’t know anything, or, when Steve Jobs passed in 2011, everything that made the company great died with him.

Unfortunately, that’s a meme that’s been played out in the media since then. That, along with sometimes false reports about alleged reduced demand for the iPhone, has helped fuel Apple’s stock price drop over the past year. Of course, as I write this article, the price is up again over news of a deal with China Mobile, the world’s largest cell phone provider, which means lots more iOS gear will be sold in 2014.

Yet it’s a sure thing that Apple will be under huge pressure in 2014 to deliver the goods. Yes, the iPhone 5s had some fancy innovations, such as the world’s first ARM-based 64-bit chip, and a pretty workable fingerprint sensor known as Touch ID. Indeed, other mobile chip makers, such as Qualcomm, were reportedly freaked over the introduction of the 64-bit Apple A7.

But will 2014 bring more iterative improvements to existing products, or will Apple open up new markets? One possibility is a wearable device, most often known as the iWatch, along with a possible Apple connected TV set.

As to the first, even if it happens, will Apple magically sell 50 million out of the starting gate, or will the market, if it has that potential, grow slowly over a period of a year or two? Apple plans long ball, as is being done with Apple TV, so initial sales may not be so magnificent. But anyone waiting for instant gratification could be disappointed, or maybe the alleged iWatch will be a must-have gadget for the 2014 holiday season that will be sold out for months.

The prospects for an Apple smart TV are probably just as hard to predict. Based on Apple’s commitment to 4K or Ultra HD with the new Mac Pro and the latest MacBook Pro with Retina display, there seems little doubt that a TV set will also be 4K. If that’s the case, will Apple be able to somehow bring the price down to the point where it represents just a modest increase over existing high-end 1080p TVs? Even then, is the market too saturated to absorb another volume player?

Just as important, an Apple Store is not the best place to display big screen TV sets, so would Apple depend on third-party resellers, such as Best Buy? Or will they even bother? It’s yet another question that may or may not be answered next year, but the company’s perceived prospects could suffer if there isn’t a visible Apple TV solution of one sort or another. Even then, Apple’s living room invention may just be an enhanced set top box with 4K support and some other bells and whistles.

But smartwatches and TV sets may not impress some analysts. They don’t seem to be impressed by anything from Apple nowadays. So, instead, there’s a renewed request for Apple to acquire another company in a totally new market, specifically Tesla, the electric car maker.

Tesla?

Despite a recent flap over a possible vehicle fire in a recent crash or two, the Tesla S supposedly has the best highway safety rating in the industry. But above all, an alleged Apple acquisition of Tesla would bring with it the company’s founder, chief executive office, not to mention resident visionary, Elon Musk.

Now Musk, in case you forgot, was also a founder of PayPal, the popular if sometimes controversial online payment service. He also runs SpaceX, which is in the business of building rocket ships to fly payloads into orbit.

But why would Apple want Musk? Well, being that he’s a visionary, and Apple lost a visionary when Jobs left this plane of existence, the critics say that Apple cannot survive without another. What about the existing members of the Apple team, particularly head hardware and software designer Sir Jonathan Ive?

Sure, Apple is not above buying smaller companies to acquire technology, but where does an electric car with a starting price over $70,000, minus tax incentives, fit in the marketing plan? While such an expensive motor vehicle would seem to be a plaything for well-heeled, you can evidently finance the entry-level model S for a $609 “Effective Monthly Cost” after a $2,500 deposit.

Regardless, it’s hard to believe that a limited production car of this sort, which promises delivery in two to three months, would provide a synergy for Apple.

True, Tesla is planning on eventually offering lower cost models that may have a starting price of $30-35,000. That would take it into well-equipped Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Ford Fusion and Kia Optima territory, for example. If the “cheap” Tesla can be mass produced, and offers a driving range exceeding 200 miles, perhaps there would be the potential for success. Perhaps.

But why should Apple care? Where’s the synergy between Apple and Tesla? Sure, perhaps Tesla could offer the iOS interface — as other auto makers have done — but why would Apple consider buying the whole company? How would that move advance the company’s goals? Besides, why would Tesla need Apple to succeed? The company seems to be doing well enough on its own, and that itself seems almost a miracle at a time when starting a new car company from scratch seems the impossible dream.

As usual, it’s just talk, another rant from a financial analyst who wanted to get some press. Well, he succeeded, but he won’t get a link here. He doesn’t deserve one for voicing this hair-brained scheme.

The TV industry has certainly had problems generating huge profits, although sales have continued at a decent clip. Similar to the PC industry, TV makers have rushed to the bottom as prices crumble even on relatively full-featured sets with smart apps and 3D.

When the first 3D sets appeared, the feature was restricted to premium models. Most supported active technology, which required glasses with built-in decoding technology. The end result was having to pay upwards of $150 a pair, assuming they didn’t come standard. But if you had a large family, you either had to have your clan watch 3D content in tiny groups of two or three, or spend a bundle to accommodate everyone’s needs.

Passive 3D uses the same glasses you get at your local movie theater. They are cheap, and some sets will include half a dozen or more; some VIZIO M-series 3D sets include eight pairs, and replacements are relatively cheap. But, despite moving downscale, 3D has not taken the world by storm. It’s just not suitable for casual watching.

Continue Reading…

If you want to spend as much as $10,000 and more for a personal computing workstation, Apple has a solution for you. Orders for the new Mac Pro were first accepted on December 19, and, within hours, you had to wait until February to get one. And that even applied to the standard configurations. Either Apple misjudged the response, or simply hasn’t had time to ramp up to full production at the Austin factory that’s churning them out.

Now, in a comment from one of our regular readers, it was mentioned how the Mac Pro might be a better value for many of you than an iMac, even if performance wasn’t altogether different. The main reason is that, if you want to upgrade your iMac, you have to get the whole widget, including the display, despite the fact that the display you have works perfectly fine. It’s an all or nothing proposition.

With the Mac Pro, once you’ve acquired the display, you can keep it through multiple generations of Mac Pros.

The theory sounds fine, as theories go, except for the fact that a Mac Pro can become quite an expensive beast. The entry-level model and the higher-end configuration both offer a paltry 256GB of solid state storage, and more RAM would be welcomed. But all these parts, plus more powerful graphics, are costly options. At the end of the day, you could buy three or four top-of-the-line iMacs for the price of one fully outfitted Mac Pro. Do you really get four times the value?

Now an all-in-one gadget is Apple’s thing, and it has been since the very first Mac arrived in 1984. Even though Apple has produced a variety of expandable Macs, they kept returning to all-in-one. With the late 2009 upgrade, the iMac morphed from a speedy consumer level box to something that even professional users might choose even over a Mac Pro. That is precisely what I did, and I haven’t felt the urge to buy Apple’s new workstation, assuming I had the credit lines to handle the price.

The advantage of going modular, with a separate computer and a separate display, is obvious. If your iMac’s logic board dies, it’s a brick until replaced. The display is useless. But what if Apple considered a different option, which is to allow you to easily replace the guts of an iMac whenever new models came out?

Clearly, Apple would have to design a rear case that was easily opened, with the seams virtually invisible when shut. The computer module would be a pull-out or slide-out affair built on a chassis. It wouldn’t matter what components were on that board, so long as it easily mated with the existing chassis and display. The cost of building such a docking system would probably be negligible; there may be enough profit to absorb most of the added expense. Or perhaps Apple could sell the upgradeable model for an extra $100 or so.

The advantage to the customer is obvious. You wouldn’t have to sacrifice the everything to get more computing power, so maybe you’ll be tempted to upgrade more often. Even if Apple changed the case design for a future iMac, the upgrade layout would be the same. That way, you’d have the opportunity to buy the computer module rather than the entire computer to remain current with the technology.

Of course, being able to remove the computer module from the display might even present the possibility of easily replacing drives, something that’s a chore-and-a-half to do right now with the current iMac form factor.

The upgrade procedure can be made as foolproof as adding RAM. It might also extend the lifecycle of the iMac as demand for personal computers continues to wane, and it would answer the major shortcoming of an integrated system.

This isn’t to say that such a scheme is on Apple’s plate, though I expect lots of different Mac form factors have been tested in prototype form. I wouldn’t presume to consider the engineering implications, since Apple clearly wants to miniaturize internal workings as much as possible. I could also see the possibility of constraint in future redesigns, because of the need to continue to make modules for older iMacs. I suppose Apple could guarantee a four-year compatibility cycle, for example. That way, the customer would realize that upgrades won’t be produced forever, and that older technology would have to be abandoned.

The real question, however, is how many iMac owners would upgrade more often if they only had to pay for the computer rather than the display and the case. What sort of discount would they get? $500 perhaps? $750? Just saying.

I would not even presume to think that many of my readers or listeners would care about such a thing and would buy a modular iMac, although keeping the price about the same or only slightly higher would be a plus. But I have full confidence that Apple could provide a seamless design that would not, to external eyes, betray the ability to pop open the rear of the case and replace the guts.

Will it ever come to be? I doubt it, but I can dream, right?