What Does Apple Have Up Its Sleeve?
Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 by rosenz So we’re fairly sure there are going to be some Apple announcements soon. Some say on September 9th. But what? Rumors hint toward a shake-up of a product line. But which line and how big of a shake-up?
We’ve got the MacBook line, rumored to be ditching the white and black plastic for aluminum. Not much would differentiate the MacBook and the MacBook Pro then, just some larger numbers for the pro. They would essentially become one line, not two.
It does get confusing now with the MacBook Air in the mix. There are a lot of people not sure which one to get. One is cheap, the other is light, and the third is powerful. But if you want cheap and light, or light and powerful, or cheap and powerful, then you are out of luck. A line of smaller, cheap MacBooks and a line of heavier, powerful and more expensive ones would make sense, but I don’t see that happening so soon after the launch of the Air.
The iMac line is in a similar spot. I don’t see that it is time for a redesign, and there aren’t that many people asking for a more powerful iMac at the moment.
We just got the new iPhone, and and iPod Touch redesign to look like the new iPhone isn’t very exciting.
That leaves the iPod. I think this is where it is at, and it seems the rumors are strong here. A new Nano with a larger screen is the most popular rumor right now.
I see something a little more — something that would make more sense anyway. I think Apple will drop the name “Nano” and just call it the iPod. Think about it: there is no “iPod” right now. There are: iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, iPod Touch and iPod Classic. For the holidays, it would probably be best for Apple if people could just wish for an “iPod” and shoppers could just buy an “iPod.”
So my thinking is that the new Nano will be called the “iPod.” The shuffle will remain, as will the Touch and the Classic. The only purpose of the Classic at this point is the large hard drive, so it will probably stay at the current configuration for a while and then go away after flash-based iPods reach 64/96GB in storage.
Then, of course, there is the Apple TV. Be interesting if they threw a curve ball and surprised everyone with a new Apple TV. But I don’t think that will happen.
So that leaves the idea of a new product, but something that will be close enough to an existing product like to “shake it up.” So everyone is back to the idea of a touch-screen Mac of some sort. iMac Touch? MacBook Touch? Or a new tablet device that is half-way between an iPod Touch and a MacBook?
What do YOU think? Leave a comment!
