Apple has just posted the official financial results for its fiscal 2010 third quarter, and once again they broke records established just a few months earlier in the first quarter.
Skimming through the press release this caught my attention:
“It was a phenomenal quarter that exceeded our expectations all around, including the most successful product launch in Apple’s history with iPhone 4,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPad is off to a terrific start, more people are buying Macs than ever before, and we have amazing new products still to come this year.”
Of course they have new products coming this year. He’s stating the obvious, but let me make a few considerations about it. The iPod Touch is set to go under a major overhaul in September, perhaps with the addition of a camera and FaceTime capabilities. We can pretty much bet on it.
What intrigues me is thinking about new Apple TVs and new Macbooks for the holiday season. Apple TV has been marked as a hobby many times in the past, but judging from Apple’s press releases and conferences, they keep on mentioning the device as if they’re teasing us. And what about Macs, which had the most successful quarter ever? What about rumors of Mac OS X 10.7 approaching advanced development stages?
My best guess is, Apple will roll out new Apple TVs (perhaps with Magic Trackpads) later this year, together with new Macbooks by the holiday season and new iPod Touches in September.
The Mac isn’t dead. The iPad 2 won’t be released until next year. Steve, surprise us.
#1
That's what Karn Broad said 1 month ago:
I’m hoping for an interesting iPod Touch update alright. I have a 1st generation one and I love it. The latest generation aren’t worth trading it for given the cost, so I’m hoping for an excuse to do so!
My son would love the one I have too!
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#2
That's what Techslacker said 1 month ago:
I’m not convinced that the next ipad will wait to be released next year.
- Jobs announced earlier that they would ship tens of millions facetime devices this year…yeah, the iphone and ipod touch could meet this figure but a few more million in time for xmas with a camera for facetime would put it over the edge
- Apple is being aggressive on price right now(for them anyways) with the ipad but as Windows and Android tablets hit the market as xmas arrives, something fresh like facetime would leave Windows and Android tablets eating their dust
Of course such a feature change this early in the cycle might seem to not follow Apple’s normal course of doing things but consider that Apple has made fairly big changes in their Mac line leaving some models somewhat as orphans like the original unibody Macbook Pro’s that had the removeable battery that didn’t measure up to the built in battery in models afterward. A change with the ipad would be done earlier but having their whole line of IOS devices able to do facetime during the xmas season would be a heck of a marketing opportunity(aka touching tv commercials) as well as a punch in the gut to Apple’s competitors.
Apple could score bigtime with people broadcasting live to friends and relatives via facetime their kids opening presents. You could probably throw in a new version of AppleTV in there as well.
For what it’s worth with a bluetooth headset like what’s used for phones and a webcam with face tracking technology, Apple could do something with facetime for AppleTV in the living room as well. If MS can do something like Kinnect for games, surely Apple can do something with face tracking and have a camera that can zoom in on it.
Just my 2 cents.
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