Technology predictions 2015

[scottish]

Following on from Habiba (aka Chippiewill;s) thread last year: http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=793271

A bit earlier but I can't see any major updates coming out in the last few weeks of 2014 to be worth holding this off for.

I'll give some remarks from what I've noticed over the year with regards to predictions last year, if you have any remarks or more information that I may have missed or got wrong feel free to let me know.


My predictions:
- SSD prices drop again, I suspect to around 20-30p per GB, no performance increases until SATA 4 though.
- Intel skip the year for their tick-tock cycle and just refresh haswell (We pretty much already know though)
- Apple stop using the number convention for the iPhone so people don't confuse them with the Nexus 6
- Windows 8.2 and maybe some early reports about Windows 9
- Android 5.0: Lime Key Pie

- Correct, close depending really. Based on 250/256GB drives: Samsung 840 Evo 35p/GB; Crucial 31p/GB; Kingston 30p/GB;
- Broadwell was released, but wasn't like previous tick-tock iteration, next tock (Skylake) is due to launch in 2015.
- iPhone 6 came out
- A bit more accelerated as there's millions of testers for Windows 10 already and scheduled for released mid 2015. Windows 8.2 didn't happen though.
- Android 5 Lollipop was released, close with the name though :P


Predictions:
- Only because there's been some positive light, that BlackBerry may make a semi-decent return of some sort but it will be short lived.
- Tesla will have difficulties with the launch of the Model S in the UK, with the car not taking to UK roads and UK consumers being put off by the price of electricity, the car itself and advances in petrol engine efficiency making them look away at buying fully electric cars. Possibly a few accidents if battery fires are anything to go by in the US - consider the pot holes and what they will do to it :P (not sure if Tech related, but seems to be included in Tech articles)
- Samsung remodel their business strategy by not having a phone for every occasion (same as what HTC have done in 2013).
- Windows Phone gets a revamp - maybe a better "official" notification tile to attempt to compete with Android and iOS - it seems to be a quiet phone OS lately so it must be due for something

- Not as far as I've seen, just died :P
- Not really kept up with Tesla but as far as I'm aware there was no major issues with it?
- Again, I don't really pay much attention to the phone market so not too sure on the last two, but Samsung seem to have just ofllowed same practices they did before with low end phones (galaxy ace, y, etc) then top end phones (s5, etc).


Yet another new console with no genuine upgrades but lots of marketing to make people think that loading up 5 seconds faster is worth £500

- Correct with the new console, incorrect wbout upgrades through and if anything the load speeds at least on the Xbox one is somewhat slower than the 360 from what I've experienced with some games (such as GTA) :P Price dropped a lot to about £280-300 for console alone though (assuming PS4 is similar price to xb1)


Forgot to mention, 4K TV prices reduced to a fifth. Probably a ton to be announced at CES along with some more 1440P 27" monitors.

- Don't think 4K has dropped that much, you're still looking at stupid amounts for 4K, quite a few 1440P 27" Monitors though, Acer, ASUS, Dell, etc and quite a few less known brands (Crossover, QNIX, Achieva, etc) have 1440P 27" monitors out.


- More of a push in 4K television content but not a lot. Netflix have already planned on showing House of Cards season two in 4K on select devices that can.

- Wild guess but Apple to start using 4K in MacBooks maybe shown as "Retina 2.0" considering the price of Retina MacBooks have gone down to a standard MacBook now.

- Apple to launch two new products the first being a smart watch, the second being a bigger iPad with a 12.9 inch screen.

- Correct, there was a small push with few stuff shown in 4K I think Netflix and Amazon both stream in 4K now, or limited items in 4K not too sure.

- Not as far as I'm aware

- Almost, they're releasing the Apple Watch in 2015 at some point and the latest iPad (Air 2) released was 9.7" display, not quite 12.9"... yet..


4k replacing 3d in everything
4k recording in all major phones
smart watches
cloud things
larger SSDs at cheaper prices
breakthrough in wireless power
ddr4 memory


- Nope, 3D still seems to be a lot more popular than 4K atm
- Again not that I've seen but not paid much attention to phones
- Yep
- Yep
- Yep
- Nope
- Yup, DDR4 was released but it isn't really 'mainstream' yet as the prices are still quite high.


Steam OS & machines will flop.
WiiU sales will pick up.
4K won't be as pushed as everyone else in this thread appears to believe.
Yearly pumping of new phones by the companies you would expect.

- Pretty much, it stole the highlights at CES last year but wasn't really a massive hype over it since then.
- Yup, Super Smash Bros seemed ot lead to skyrocket in Wii U sales
- Yup
- As always




My predictions for 2015:
- SSD prices will continue to drop and you'll be able to get 250GB for under £50 by the end of the year
- Windows 10 will obviously launch, Apple will launch iOS 9, Android launches 5.1
- DDR4 memory will drop in price and reach the home PC market
- Consumer release of Google Glass
- Cloud will continue to grow
- Someone will buy Blackberry or it'll cease production
- Xbox one will regain popularity, possibly even having more sales than PS4 by the end of the year (as of September it was 13.5m vs 7.35m, not sure about lately as Xbox one out sold PS4 on black friday and afterwards)

[FlyingJesus]

Linking imps

Also Blackberry had a new phone out like yesterday

[scottish]

Linking imps

Also Blackberry had a new phone out like yesterday

Yeah we'll see how well that'll do..

They just recently reported a 148m loss for the quarter. They went from 50% share in market approx 0.5% :P

[FlyingJesus]

Oh yeah they're still going down rapidly, but think they'll last the year at least just by forcing it since they seem to have been denying their failures for years now :P personally I like the new phone (it's got a physical keyboard and navigation buttons rather than forcing everything into touchscreen) but think I'll be in the minority there

Literally can't think of anything that I'm desperate to see happen tech-wise except for medical/prosthetic advances, but that's obv not quite what you meant with the thread

[AgnesIO]

Ooh love this thread every year :)


Cheaper SSD prices for sure; Current upper range 256gb SSDs to fall to around £80 (for example, next years version of Samsung 8XX Pro)
Windows 10 to launch and be very successful, in part due to Xbox One integration
Windows Phone to continue to struggle against the empires (Google and Apple)
Smartphone cameras to finally shoot very good low light shots (likely to be a bigger priority)
Sapphire display iPhone 6S Plus, but likely to wait until the following year
Apple watch to sell millions despite limited practical uses
On that note, wearables to continue to grow
PC sales decline, but percentage decline falls as tablet sales slow

[Chippiewill]

I'm gonna be ballsy:

- 10p/GB SSDs
- 2 different Nexus phones, high end and low end.
- Apple continues to iterate rather than innovate
- Halo Master Chief Collection for PC as part of massive Windows and Xbox integration doodad.
- Half-Life 3 Confirmed
- 4k prices halve. more 8k at CES.

[xxMATTGxx]

Retina Macbook Air
Blackberry continue to struggle (I'm surprised they are still going)
Windows Phone will still have a lack of apps - Maybe that will change when Windows 10 is out.

[Richie]

Xbox one will ditch their crap music marketplace and strike a deal with spotify.
Netflix will change ownership.
A new, stronger and more secure torrent website will become the new pirate bay under a brand new name.
Bebo will explode and overtake the likes of whats app, user wise.
A lawsuit will be taken against twitch for copyright by a large gaming company.

[MKR&*42]

Okay here's my crap suggestions:



Blackberry try and reinvent themselves (again), either with a different app thing like BBM or an amazing new smartphone that comes out of nowhere and storms the world.
The guys who made https://oneplus.net/uk/one will release plans for two plus two or something like that.
Windows 10 will overtake market share of Windows 8(.1) during first year of release, optimistic ik - don't think it'll overtake 7.


That's all I gottttt lmao

[scottish]

Okay here's my crap suggestions:



Blackberry try and reinvent themselves (again), either with a different app thing like BBM or an amazing new smartphone that comes out of nowhere and storms the world.
The guys who made https://oneplus.net/uk/one will release plans for two plus two or something like that.
Windows 10 will overtake market share of Windows 8(.1) during first year of release, optimistic ik - don't think it'll overtake 7.


That's all I gottttt lmao

It'll be easy to overtake Windows 8, it only has 18.65% market share compared to Windows 7 56.41%

[MKR&*42]

It'll be easy to overtake Windows 8, it only has 18.65% market share compared to Windows 7 56.41%

Oh I thought it was at the 30pcnt mark where did I get that from oops.

Either way I still stand by it.

[AgnesIO]

Okay here's my crap suggestions:



Blackberry try and reinvent themselves (again), either with a different app thing like BBM or an amazing new smartphone that comes out of nowhere and storms the world.
The guys who made https://oneplus.net/uk/one will release plans for two plus two or something like that.
Windows 10 will overtake market share of Windows 8(.1) during first year of release, optimistic ik - don't think it'll overtake 7.


That's all I gottttt lmao

They will release it, not just plans.

[RyRy]

The ability to play Xbox games on PCs, if you pay a subscription per month or something to Microsoft.
NFC will become much more prominent than it has been, once Apple Pay and such is sorted.
Google will start rolling out Google Fiber into the UK (PLS?)
Netflix & Google will decide to join together on Google Fiber due to Net Neutrality failing
12-core CPUs will start coming out at a pretty high price
PCI-E SSDs will start to become more prominent (m-ssd i think its called right now)
Steam will buy GOG.com (they really should)
Flexible phones will start coming out more frequently thanks to smartwatches becoming a thing
New Nintendo console to cater for the real gamers who loved the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube

[scottish]

The ability to play Xbox games on PCs, if you pay a subscription per month or something to Microsoft.

Don't think that'll ever happen honestly


12-core CPUs will start coming out at a pretty high price

Already has been out since 2013, I assume you mean will come into the home computing market?


Steam will buy GOG.com (they really should)

Honestly never heard of it :P

[mrwoooooooo]

Most major phones 5.5inches (HTC One, Sony Z4, S6) etc
Oculus Rift officially released in time for Christmas 2015
Another Samsung phone experiment (such as the edge)
Government laws on drone usage
Google wallet and apple pay released in the UK
IoT starts to take off
Taylor Swift comes back to Spotify
2TB SSDs

[Chippiewill]

12-core CPUs will start coming out at a pretty high price


It's not gonna reach consumers. They'll be used in video rendering rigs - that's it. What dictates whether it'll reach more widespread consumers are whether games can benefit from the extra cores. Games recently still aren't optimised for multiple cores properly. What we might see is more 8-core CPUs now that the consoles have 8 cores each. I think we still have another year to go before we get there though.

[iBlueBox]

- 4K TV's drop down in price. All manufactures have baseline models only around £1000 these days.

- iOS 9 more visual update, then iOS 8 was just a few features.

- Apple Watch to become the biggest in share of Smart Watches

- New 12inch iPad and Retina Macbook Air.

- Apple Pay to become more frequently used and to become popular in the UK.

[The Don]

Retina Macbook Air
Blackberry continue to struggle (I'm surprised they are still going)
Windows Phone will still have a lack of apps - Maybe that will change when Windows 10 is out.


I think we could see the removal of the macbook air all together. The benefits of the air have been increasingly shrinking as the pro has been getting smaller/lighter whilst being more powerful.

[xxMATTGxx]

I think we could see the removal of the macbook air all together. The benefits of the air have been increasingly shrinking as the pro has been getting smaller/lighter whilst being more powerful.

If they can design a Retina Macbook Air to have the same sort of battery life as the current Air then you won't see it being removed. There is still a weight difference between the Air and Pro which makes it ideal for people who travel a lot.

[GommeInc]

My prediction for last year wasn't that far off for Samsung. They seem to have slimmed down their line-up to the Alpha, Samsung Galaxy S5 and a few odd ones which I can't remember :P The Model S sort of exists but it's too early for it.

Next year will be difficult. What could have been predicted seems to have been loosely confirmed e.g. iPhone 5C or whatever those colourful iPhones are called. Smartcars have sort of been confirmed for the UK, at least testing wise.

I can't think of anything other than the usual - things usually get cheaper unless an Act of God happens e.g. SSDs, Smartwatches, 4K TVs. Smartphones seem to be stagnating as far as innovations go - it just looks like stream lining of services and features that already exist.

[peteyt]

Windows 10 will be the next Windows 7 and bring a lot of the windows 8 haters on board
With the release of the iWatch, the smartwatch market will become massive - apple will gain a large percentage of the market, possibly the biggest
4k TVs will become far more available with OLED and 8k TVs starting to appear, but too expensive for most
Improvements will be made with driverless cars
4g and fibre will become more widespread - most people will have a decent net speed - this will also bring in more online demand services
Batteries possibly to be slightly improved?

[dbgtz]

VR will be pushed as the next big thing (like 3D and motion controls were) but will end up not being as successful as most would hope, probably due to price.
Sony will blow up due to all the hacking (will cut mobile and television divisions).
Windows 10 will not be popular. It will get the same, if not more, flak than Windows 8.
Nintendo will announce a new handheld for release in 2016 for Japan, 2017 for others.
PS4 will outsell Xbox One and WiiU combined.
Microsoft do nothing with the PC market.
The price of hard drives will increase.
Some large (probably social media site, like Facebook) will have some large user data leak/hack causing people to go hysterical and a new law to come into place that will do nothing positive.

All I can think of off the top of my head.