Apple's Near Future - When will it be?

There has been a lot of controversy about the next version of Mac OS X, 10.7. There has been a lot of rumors going on, and here's a bit of my personal ideas that I feel that might be put in the next version of Mac OS X.

The first thing we need to start off with is all those rumors of 10.7 running in the cloud. If you do not know, the "cloud" is what we internet fanatics call all of the space off our computer, the internet. There has been a lot of rumors out there saying that 10.7 will be cloud based. If it's cloud based, that means it'll be something like Google Chrome OS.

If that is true, that means that your computer will be completely reliant on the internet. There's some obvious reasons why Apple may or may not do this:

• If they put it in the cloud, all of the Mac Pros, iMacs, and Mac Minis will be doomed because desktop computers cannot run in the  cloud nicely.
• What we might see is almost things like the Dell's (or even Asus's for that matter) quick startup system. Computers today need to be fast, and with a limited operating system, which OS X is very tiny indeed, it would make the computer run a lot faster. If we were able to boot our Macs up in less than a second to get a internet browser to search the web, that would be amazing. That is one possibility I can see, but of course, Apple will somehow make that technology unique to them.
• Computers would have to be constantly connected to the internet. If Apple did do something like this, we might, just possibly, see 3G cards in the MacBooks. Apple really seems to be using the 3G technology in all of their mobile devices now, why not in the MacBook (Air/Pro)?

Those are some of my thoughts on the cloud based Mac OS X.

Now the next thing up would have to be changes:

• It would be nice if we have a true 64-bit operating system. Snow Leopard isn't 100% 64-bit yet. This would help increase speed.
• Mac OS X has not been changed in terms of looks in a number of years. From what I'm thinking, 10.7 might just be that change. Apple has released a lot of new features in Leopard and Snow Leopard to their dock, Finder, and along with a various number of other applications. We might just see a complete redesign of Mac OS X; if this is true, I cannot wait to see what will happen.
• Battery life is always a critical thing when it comes to mobile computing. As of right now, it is confirmed that Apple will be imbedding the Core i5 in their new MacBook Pros. Because of this, I can see battery life changing dramatically. As most of you know, the Core i5 offers a significant difference between the Core 2 Duo and the Core i5.
• We have now LED backlit displays in the MacBooks. What we might see is something like an AMOLED (Active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) in them. This would have to be researched, but it would for sure make the displays even thinner!

The MacBook Air hasn't really had a redesign for a long time now. It has had several hardware changes, but nothing to the body. It might just be safe to say that we might see a design like the MacBook Pros or maybe even the MacBooks. It might be a good thing if they made the MacBook Air out of plastic because it is quite light. But if you think about that, it's not near as strong as aluminum, like in their MacBook Pro line of laptop computers.

One of the last things we have to talk about would have to be about the Mac Mini. The Mac Mini hasn't been getting a lot of changes for sometime now. From all these new Core i3s and Core i5s hitting the market, it might just end up being in the Mac Mini. That is something that would give it quite a bit more performance than opposed to the Core 2 Duo, and would help with power usage also.

And of course, we cannot forget the Mac Pro and the iMac. For the Mac Pro, it hasn't been touched for a while now. With the Nehalem micro-architecture, it really blows it all away. But this four core beast will have to get an update sooner or later. I can really see that Apple somewhat forgotten about this wonderful computer. The iMac has newer technology in it compared to the Mac Pro. Because it hasn't been touched for so long, it's almost a guarantee that Apple will do something with the Mac Pro. I would love to see two Core i7s in that machine, but that could be pushing it. It's supposed to be a very powerful machine, and in some cases, the new 27 inch iMac beats it in some areas.

As a server guy myself, I'm really hoping that Apple will do something with their powerful Xserves. If you're not aware of these servers, these are Apples servers that they produce. A lot of people don't care for these, but I'm just hoping that they might make the Xserve just a bit cheaper for the smaller companies out there. Yes, we do have the Mac Mini Server, but it would always be best to just have a real server in front of you! Hopefully one day, we'll have one of these powering Tech Cores!

And finally, we have to talk about the iMac. Because of its recent change, I highly doubt we will see any change with the iMac. As long as Apple finally has all of those issues fixed with that huge 27 inch screen, I'm sure that it will stay this way for a while.

That sums up this blog post. What do you think Apple will do? If you agree or even disagree with my comments, let's discuss it as a whole in the comments below! Let's see if we can get it right on what Apple will do.

Until we finally know the day, all we can really do is just keep on guessing on what Apple will change. As for now, let's take educated guesses!