As usual, there is a lot of anticipation around Apple's media event
planned for this upcoming week and I thought that I would weigh in with
my own predictions for the week ahead.
My guess is that Apple is going to release the first Intel based
Powerbook. Why? Because they have been doing "updates" to the Powerbook
line on average every six months but the current one was updated in
January 2005, more than 8 months ago. And they have had to do minor
updates because they couldn't squeeze any more speed out of the G4
chips so the updates have really been quite minor for the past couple
of revisions.
That is why my guess is that "one more thing" is going to be that Apple
has already built an Intel laptop in a new laptop shell (or even the
same laptop shell) and that this is what they will be presenting this
week.
Additionally, with flash RAM continuing to come down in price, Apple
wanting to buy as much of it as possible so as to exclude other
companies from doing the large flash RAM approach that they are using
in the Nano, and my guess that they actually make more gross margin on
those than they do on the hard-drive based models (I have no proof of
this), I am guessing that Apple will release an updated Mini with a
smaller form factor that holds 6 or 10GB of data.
I really doubt all this nonsense about video iPods. I just can't see it. Video is not that useful to people.
Let's see how my guesses do in a few more days!
UPDATE: I suck. Boris wins (sort of).As somebody said below, I'm not going to quit my day-job to become a futurist or psychic for the computer business.
I love the new iMac including the iSight, the remote, and the attempt to steal some thunder from Windows Media Center.
In a "let's walk before we crawl" way, Apple selling videos makes a lot
of sense. It will give them the experience in building out video on
demand services. By the time they really get that back-end solid,
bandwidth will have continued to increase to the point that it will be
feasible to start downloading movies in MPEG 4 if not HD.
One major glaring obvious hole in their Media Center rip-off ploy - why no DVR???
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Prediction for Apple's October 12 media event: Intel-based Powerbooks and iPod Minis that have no hard drives (UPDATED Oct.12/05)
Comments
Re: Prediction for Apple's October 12 media event: Intel-based Powerbooks and iPod Minis that have no hard drives
by
Anonymous
on Sun 09 Oct 2005 03:11 PM PDT | Permanent Link
What's the phrase..."Don't quit your day job"?
First, the reason Apple is switching to Intel has to do with the "performance per watt" equation. This is not yet on Intel's side--it will be with their next generation of processors. So why would Apple use the present generation of Pentium chips in a PowerBook? Heck, Apple's timeline says 2006. I look at my calendar and I don't see 2006, although you could dance and say FY2006. Heck, Freescale also has the MPC7448 which Apple is not currently using and is plug-compatible with the MPC7447. Also, with higher-resolution displays becoming available, a PowerBook upgrade with a higher-resolution screen and an MPC7448 is far more likely. There's also the MPC8641 and MPC8641D which would be great, but would require a complete rework of the motherboard which would be kind of silly with Intel machines approaching in 8 months. Don't forget Mac OS X, as well. Yes, Apple has an Intel version of Mac OS X for developers. That doesn't mean it's ready for prime time. Next, I'm not convinced that Apple will be pursuing the "mini" form-factor. If you consider pricing, Apple's "mini" would be bumping up against the iPod. Figure the 2GB iPod nano is $199, the 4GB iPod nano is $249, and the 20GB iPod is $299. There's not a whole lot of room to fit in a 6GB or 10GB iPod mini. But let's say that Apple decides that price-overlap is not a problem. You now have a 6GB iPod mini selling for $299--which is $50 more than the old 6GB iPod mini used to sell for. And it's advantage? "It uses Flash memory"? Well, okay, that makes it lighter than the old iPod mini, I guess. That'd be about the only difference. So, nope, I think both guesses are off-base. A flash-based iPod mini?
by
Anonymous
on Sun 09 Oct 2005 08:03 PM PDT | Permanent Link
Um, they just came out with an iPod Minis that has no hard drive. It's called the Nano. Pay attention. If they want to put 6 or 10 gigs of flash memory into a tiny iPod, they can do that with the Nano.
Re: Prediction for Apple's October 12 media event: Intel-based Powerbooks and iPod Minis that have no hard drives
by
Anonymous
on Mon 10 Oct 2005 07:20 AM PDT | Permanent Link
Actually, I can see them maintaining the Mini form factor and differentiating it through drive size: Nano less tha 10GB, Mini from 10GB to 40GB, and iPod 40GB or up. Lots of people really liked the Mini form factor, and the fragility of the Nano screen is not exactly generating great press. Wouldn't bet on it, but it's feasible.
Re: Prediction for Apple's October 12 media event: Intel-based Powerbooks and iPod Minis that have no hard drives
by
Roland Tanglao
on Mon 10 Oct 2005 10:29 PM PDT | Profile | Permanent Link
heh i think we are all wrong
it will be airport express for video and something completely unanticipated |
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