Depends on Cook. On the plus side, maybe we'll get some actual innovation again instead of the same designs for the past few years. Yeah Jobs was great and did wonderful things when he came back. Original iMacs were iconic and marked a great shift, but he took a great company and turned it into a monopolistic monstrosity. Stifled creativity, and went borderline paranoid.
I'm hoping on the following improvements:
-Return of the Minitower. This has been a cry for years. Apple made it, they were awesome and successful. Then x86 switch happens, and out goes minitower, in comes overpriced brushed metal repackaged G5 that has...not been changed since then. There is a need for non Xeon computers with some expansion ability. There is nothing wrong with an i7 Mac tower, or even i5.
-Return of midrange/high midrange GPUs in Pro laptops. Haven't had this since the last G4 Powerbook.
-Full changeover of low end Macs to AMD CPUs/APUs. They had Intel IGPs at the start, everyone complained so they went NV. Now they are back with SB Macs. Its just time to get rid of it. Keep Intel in the high end but get their crap out of the low end. Lower prices and get more users. This likely wouldn't happen quickly if it did.
-MBAir and Mini, return them to the low end netbook or internet Mac segment. There isn't any reason for them to have left. If people wanted power, buy a Pro. The product lines are too alike.
-Easy upgrade options. We still have some "For Mac" labels out there. Theres still GPUs needing to be flashed to Mac. This shouldn't be. There is no reason Apple can't make it so you don't have to buy overpriced crap from them or go with flashed ebay products.
-Monitors...give us some overpriced average monitors again. They made good stuff back in the day when they made an assortment. You had the high end monitors and the low ends. Not everyone needs a 27+in display.
-Complete overhaul of Mac OSX's OpenGL. Come on, its embarrassing now. Very dated and far behind the performance of Windows. What happened to the initial push and promises of OpenGL catching up with DirectX on OSX? Forgotten because Steve didn't want to do it. Sigh...we should have fought GL like I wanted to and pushed for Rave or Glide.
-Support for technologies PCs have had for years but Macs don't. SLI, Crossfire, Blu-ray, etc.
-Embrace the professional market again. Really what happened to this? Apple used to cater to, and care a lot about Macs in the professional markets. But they've since botched up a lot of their pro user software and refuse to deliver performance that is competitive with Windows. Gadget users didn't keep them in business during the dark times, it was the professionals.
-Finally, new product designs. Stop reusing the same old look over and over. There is no excitement with Apple products anymore. You don't wonder "oo I wonder what they'll think of next!" Every release is just the same boring stuff. Used to get excited for the MW expos to see what the new Mac design would look like, but since x86 switch, gotten to the point I don't even bother to check till a day or two later.
Its a shame how Steve had to leave due to medical reasons. No one should have to go through those types of treatments. But he's been Apple's greatest and worst champion over the years. Really he should have stepped down years ago.
Back then, Apple was broke. I'm not a fan of Apple, but credit is due where its due! The company is raking in more money than their creditors now!
I thought it was pretty much common knowledge that the man was dying of recurring pancreatic cancer.