A very interesting article, on where the register thinks that Apple have gone wrong, and how it thinks apple could improve the situation. It puts forwards some good ideas aswell - a bluetooth ipod for one- how cool would that be eh?
"Another processor landmark from Intel has taken its Pentium4 line past 3GHz chip, with a 3.6Ghz part following hard on its heels. It makes more dismal reading for professional Apple users, who"ve seen the most competitive Apple hardware spanked out of sight by Chipzilla"s latest in tests by Digital Video Editing. This couldn"t come at a worse time: for a hardware company, the whole point of improving your system software is to sell more hardware. (Unless you license the software, which obviously doesn"t apply to Apple).
And it could be some time before the seventh cavalry arrives, in the form of the PowerPC 970 processor. So what can Apple do? Well, we suggest - and desperate times call for desperate measures - it"s time to cause a huge distraction. A hand wave. Create an explosion that generates vast clouds of smoke, under which the processor problem might be forgotten.
Seriously. Apple has one of the world"s best design teams, can generate acres of uncritical coverage in the Times, the WSJ and Business Week (far more than its miniscule market share merits), and has improved its retail presence, so the world can see the results. The following ideas play to Apple"s strengths in consumer design and packaging and as far as possible leverage work that"s already been done: this was a constraint in the the following exercise - the incremental R&D is minimal. So no flying cars here, then: instead here are four product suggestions that could guide the company through its darkest year. "