“I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it.”
So wrote Steve Jobs in his resignation letter of August, 2011. Now, in the wake of his passing, we’re starting to understand what he meant.
Citing sources within Apple, the DailyMail has reported that Steve Jobs planned four years of new product releases, undoubtedly knowing he would not be there to see it. They specifically cited new iPod, iPad, iPhone, and MacBooks on the horizon. And while these items are highly anticipated, they aren’t terribly surprising.
So what should we really expect from Apple in the years to come? We can get an idea by looking at a recent piece by TechCrunch, citing an unnamed but “veteran” Silicon Valley CEO who says that Apple has 5% of its non-retail workforce devoted to chip design and architecture alone:
“Steve Jobs told me he has 1,000 engineers working on chips,” he said. “Getting low power and smaller is the key to everything.”
Why so many engineers on chip design? And how might low power and smaller chips translate into new products?
“Form factor no longer becomes an issue,” explained the Silicon Valley CEO.
Going further, TechCrunch quotes their own MG Siegler from a few months back, who was told by sources that future Apple products will “blow your mind”:
It’s the longer road-map that should really be the grand finale in the Jobs’ fireworks show.
Talking to sources in recent months, there has been one common refrain: that the things Apple is working on right now are the best things the company has ever done. These are things that will “blow your mind”, I’ve been told.
All of this adds up to quite a teaser, and so the future of Apple very well may be Job’s final “One More Thing…”.
