Two years have passed since Apple 's " It's Showtime " presentation at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, when Apple showed the public for the first time a wide range of decidedly surprising products and services : from Apple News + to Apple Arcade, passing through Apple TV or the famous Apple praise card in collaboration with Goldman Sachs and Mastercard, Apple has greatly expanded its offer.
Offering many services in addition to the iconic iPhones,
Macs and iPads is now a must for the US company, in an attempt to build its own
network of traditional products, but with a twist of innovation. This strategy
in the last period is bearing fruit,tricks up his sleeve to play over the next
few years for a winning all-in . So what are the products with the bitten apple
logo that we could see in the future?
Apple Car
Apple Car is perhaps the most rumored Apple project in
recent months , despite having already become known in 2019 due to a series of
patents. Among this we find that of the "synchronized windows" with
liquid crystal darkening coating, to illuminate the interior of the car without
showing the passengers. Or, in other documents, completely digital and
non-physical mirrors had appeared in order to take up less lateral space, or
alternatively closed mirrors with a built-in gaze tracking system.
At the end of 2020, Apple hired John Giannandrea as head of
artificial intelligence works in the Apple Car project, not to mention the long
series of rumors about negotiations with brands such as Hyundaifor the
production of the electric car and the supplied batteries, but Kia (also part
of Hyundai Motor Group) was also proposed on the plate, while other analysts
also spoke of preliminary contacts with General Motors, Stellantis and VW
Group.
The future of Apple Car , however, is now more uncertain
than ever: the dialogue with the various big names in the automotive world
would not have brought the fruits hoped for by Cupertino and sector analysts
are certain that it will be necessary to wait another five, seven or more even
ten years before seeing the Apple vehicle reach dealerships.
If nothing else, it remains one of the most fascinating
products allegedly in Tim Cook's company plans, a sign of his interest in truly
building a large network of the highest quality products with increasingly
innovative features.
Apple Glass, Between Virtual Reality And Mixed Reality
Other products not to be underestimated are the headsets for
virtual reality, mixed reality and augmented reality , which according to the
well-known analyst of the world Apple Ming-Chi Kuo could arrive on the market
between 2022 and 2025 . In particular, the insiders would be in the middle of
the design phase of the AR / VR viewer with a helmet design and the current
weight of about 200-300 grams (although it needs a lowering to about 100-200
grams), also equipped of Sony micro-OLED display and functioning completely
independently. There is also talk of the presence of hybrid lenses for an
advanced eye tracking system and all this, according to Kuo, would reach the
shops for about 1,000 dollars.
InIn the mixed reality field, the rumors are even more interesting,
although it is a less known sector to Internet users: we are talking about a
system developed in collaboration with Largan Precision , equipped with
numerous sensors and features, such as latest generation microphones, 15
cameras including 8 exclusively for augmented reality, a dual 8K resolution
display and innovative eye tracking technology.
Or again, in Cupertino they would be working on Apple Glass
augmented reality glasses , potentially the most accessible product among them
due to the form factor and progress in their development: among the main
features we talk about different sensors connected to microphones incorporated
into the frame. , so fromperceive sound sources and determine the direction of
origin in a completely automatic way; or again, some patents describe a
self-cleaning system to remove dust and impurities from the lenses with a
simple vibration of the glasses.
For both projects, some sources speak of
"bombshell" prices of around $ 3,000, but analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is
convinced that Apple decides to make all these products much more accessible to
the public, in order to guarantee a slice of the market. much more important
since their release.
Chip Research And Development: Between M1, 5g And 6g
For long-term triumph, however, it is necessary to work on
the entire production chain. For this reason, Apple opened in March 2021 a new
development center in Europe , specifically in Munich, a city that for the
company is already the center of the Old Continent for the design of tech products
given that it is find another facility dedicated to processor research.
The recently announced investments will be fully dedicated
to a new facility and the hiring of additional employees for the development of
mobile and wireless chips and modems, especially in the 5G field., with the
ultimate goal of phasing out Qualcomm and its modems and building all the
primary components needed for the final product in-house. In short, a device at
least 95% signed by Apple in every corner. This will be possible, however, only
after the last months of 2022, by which Apple expects to complete the
construction of this building and to launch the further phase of expansion
thanks to an engine consisting of over one billion euros.
Furthermore, Cupertino is already thinking about 6G too :
the sixth generation mobile network expected to launch in 2030 is currently
just a long series of concepts and theories, considering that 5G is still being
rolled out around the world. Despite this, the company would already beseeking wireless
systems research engineers for " the development of next generation (6G)
wireless communication systems for radio access networks "; this is
therefore another piece of the great puzzle designed by Apple, on which it will
be necessary to work hard, long and well in advance to gain an important
advantage over the competition.
But we don't stop there, because in Cupertino we also think
about the future of the proprietary Apple Silicon chip : the M1 SoC based on
8-core CPU, 8-core GPU and 5-nanometer production process was presented in
November 2020 and then appeared on the new Macbooks, revealing what it is
capable of doing, outclassing the competition of already consolidated products
signed by AMD and Intel, as demonstrated by thelatest tests on PassMark .
As a result, all judgements are now on the heiress M1X, a
chip allegedly with a 12-core CPU and 16-core GPU " up to four times
faster than M1 " which could confirm Apple among the big brands in the
production of processors, with the launch currently expected in the last months
of 2022.
Will there be a change of strategy among a thousand ideas?
Apple's strategy can therefore be summarized as follows:
• Unlink the brand name from the iPhone and Mac , even if
not completely, avoiding relying on their sales to prioritize a wide range of
projects over a long period of time ;
• Expand and strengthen the ecosystem of products through
vertical integration, ie obtaining high-level software, hardware and services
developers and researchers to stand out from the competition with innovative
features and ad hoc components developed internally;
• Focus on product design and user experience, making them
iconic thanks to the experimentation of new potentially competitive concepts
(see the graphical user interface on the first Macintoshes or the idea of
smartphones with the first iPhones);
• Improve the customer experience , both on the
functionality of the product and on the purchase costs and customer support,
thus building the loyalty of consumers who come into possession of one of the
Apple devices.
In the upcoming we can only expect a major evolution of this
same strategy, without major changes beyond (perhaps) an attempt to make Apple
products more accessible to the user from an economic point of view.. The
numerous problems of the entire tech market, from the lack of chips to the
cryptocurrency boom, are however bringing the big names in the sector to their
knees, who are increasingly forced to increase the prices of the goods and
services they offer.
However, it remains clear that Apple's product range is
expanding almost dramatically, attracting the interest of technology
enthusiasts and not only towards what seems to be an increasingly broad and
promising ecosystem. If now the Cupertino giant is dominating the market , in
the next ten years only a great, further expansion is expected.