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Tuesday, March 27, 2007
When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone at this years Macworld Expo, the first thing that came to mind after digesting the incredible device was how this would filter to the iPod line. Known for creating various models in the iPod line, this would fit just perfect for Apple to introduce a new top of the line player. With the Internet showing a full-screen iPod model for nearly a year now, the postings and maybe even pictures of this fabled model may indeed simply be a working model of the next-generation iPod video with many software aspects of the iPhone built into it. Apple would easily be able to bring a full-screen iPod to market with all the features of the iPhone minus the communication aspects. We know Apple loves spreading the love with its software (remember when Jobs dropped the Intel bomb and told the stunned crowd at WWDC that Apple had been running OS X on Intel boxes since 10.0) and it just isn’t a stretch to think that that iPhone and the 6G iPod would be designed in unison.
If Apple has an iPod full-screen version in the labs running iPhone software with the fancy touch screen and all, it’s surely scheduled for a fall release. Not desiring to stifle sales of the already outrageously priced iPhone, Apple will hold off on the 6G iPod release until the phones fully saturated the markets conscious state. With a scheduled June release (tag a month or two on for reality), three to four months of a window would be expected before the next iPod were to grace Apple Store and others shelves…just in time for Christmas, of course.
The name is surely to see a change for this incredible and most advanced iPod ever. It wouldn’t be with any surprise to see the current 5.5G sticking around while the high-priced 6G makes a foot hold in the market. With the shuffle at the bottom, the nano as the mid-line, the “regular” iPod in the upper-line, it would only make sense to name the next top of the line iPod more in line with other top of the line Apple products. For the laptop line, you have the MacBook Pro and for the desktop line, the Mac Pro. So, doesn’t it just make pure marketing sense to name the full-screen iPod the iPod Pro? Would seem to me. Before you start with the counter argument that the Pro insignia for the two computer models signifies performance for professionals and sticking Pro onto an iPod wouldn’t really jive, remember what the iPhone runs on: OS X. What stops Apple from allowing the iPod Pro from running some robust applications along side its Address Book and Calendar that already grace the iPod? Further, with a 120 GB drive to be included and possibly Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, it just seems to be the perfect professional iPod!