[読んだ] As Apple Predicted, iPod Sales Sliding

Hesseldahl posits that Apple will shift its focus on to the iPod touch line, as future iterations of the iPod family will derive from that device’s advanced features. He suggests Apple will soon drop the iPod Classic’s reliance on hard disc drive-based storage, moving instead to Flash storage. Certainly that makes sense, given the functional advantages NAND storage has over spinning magnetic discs — not to mention Apple’s frankly gargantuan orders for flash memory chips (orders that seem to get ever higher year over year.)

Much of the rest of Hesseldahl’s article is a mix between idle conjecture about, and a wish list for, future generations of the touch.

They’re decent suggestions, to be sure; a 5- or 6-megapixel camera; built-in microphone for Skype and other VoIP services; Mini-SD expansion port; and a GPS chipset for full, always-available personal navigation. (He makes the point that some products from Garmin and TomTom sell today for $100 below the price of an entry-level iPod touch.)

Will Apple’s product roadmap for the iPod see an end to classic click-wheel designs? Probably. Apple’s experience and skills acquired from the iPhone, iPod touch, and very likely, upcoming Tablet device make it one of the world’s leading developers of touch-based consumer multimedia technology. It’s not hard to imagine an iPod Nano with an entirely virtual click-wheel (or better) interface that gets out of the way when it’s not needed. Apple can do that now. Perhaps it’ll just wait to see if the sales continue to slide before it releases such a device.

次期iPod touchへの希望として
・5-6メガピクセルのカメラ
・マイク内蔵
・mini-SD対応ポート
・GPS
が挙げられてますが、これらは是非入れられるものなら入れて欲しいですね、たしかに。

[読んだ] Apple Tablet, Little More Than A Big iPod? - Business Center - PC World

Weight and balance will matter, but trying to imagine using just the screen of my Acer netbook as the whole computer way concerns me. It's hard to hold and type on the screen at the same time. Makes me wonder how useful the new Apple device will be for typing-intensive applications.

If it's hard to type on, the device will be limited to primary use as a media player and games device, which may be enough for market success but would be a letdown in terms of functionality for both personal and business applications.

記事を書いたひとも憶測が憶測を呼んで混乱しちゃってますね。
片手で持ちながら片手でタイピングとか、バッテリーの問題とか、値段とか、たしかに色々考えちゃいますね。

[読んだ] iTunes Store to add enhanced liner notes, extra media to album purchases

Digital music purchases have been dominating the market for some time now as physical CD purchases continue to fall. For Apple, a significant lead over the rest of the music proprietor world is not enough: according to the Financial Times, the company is now working together with the four largest record labels in the business to add new features to accompany digital music purchases through its iTunes Store in hopes of stimulating full album purchases.

Apple has formed an alliance with EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music to bundle whole albums with perks like interactive booklets, digital sleeve notes, and video clips. By doing so, Apple hopes to increase sales of the albums over single track purchases, a sales model that has been immensely popular in the advent of digital music.

そういえばアルバム単位で買う必要が無くなったことがiTunes Music Storeの当初の売りだったような気もします。
でもアルバムで買ってもらった方がAppleに支払われるマージンが大きいんですね。
ならばアルバム単位で買ってもらうよう、テコ入れに乗り出すのは自然な流れかも。

[読んだ] The Apple tablet is a non-starter in Ed without content | Education IT | ZDNet.com

No matter how cool this new tablet ends up being, without smart educational content, it’s the last thing I want to see in a classroom. I can view those PDFs (if they exist) on a $200 netbook. I want Apple to announce that it has major textbook publishers on board posting fully interactive versions of their textbooks to the iTunes store, not that media companies are making bigger and better liner notes that will look pretty on a 10″ screen. When Houghton-Mifflin and Harcourt and Pearson start developing for multitouch, then we can talk. Until then, the new tablet about which the Financial Times (and everyone else’s brother) is talking can stay in a bedroom with a lava lamp and said bean bag chair.

Apple tabletがウワサ通り"jumbo iPod touch"として出てくるのであれば、一番需要があるのは教育現場かも知れませんね。

[読んだ] Financial Times Confirms Apple Tablet for September | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

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The Apple tablet rumors are coming so thick and fast now that the big surprise would be for Apple not to announce one. The austere and reliable Financial Times has just thrown into the game with an article which confirms a September release for the new oversized iPod Touch, a timing which ties in nicely to Apple’s yearly September iPod announcements.

The device will “probably” have a ten-inch screen and come without a cell connection. Somewhat bizarrely, the FT describes it as being pitched at rejuvenating sales of the multi-song music album. “It’s all about re-creating the heyday of the album when you would sit around with your friends looking at the artwork, while you listened to the music,” a source told the FT. How will this happen? Liner notes and artwork on the big 10-inch screen.

Financial Timesの記事にさらっと書いてあった「9月に発表予定のTablet」って誤記かとおもって触れませんでしたが、むむむ……。
9月はiPodシリーズの新ラインナップに加え、iTunes Music Storeでの新しいアルバム販売サービス、さらにタブレット発表ですか!?
熱い夏になりそうですね。

[読んだ] Multi-Touch Apple Tablet To Finally Launch In Early 2010? - HotHardware

In fact, that's exactly what AppleInsider is suggesting in a new piece on the matter. The site states that the Apple Tablet has been in the works for at least four years, and after an absurd amount of setbacks, the company is finally pushing forward to an "early 2010" launch. As early as two days ago, Apple's top brass reiterated that it had no interest in competing at the bottom end of the notebook market, suggesting that an Apple netbook was about as far from reality as possible. However, the executives left open the possibility that Apple was dabbling in some other facet of computing, and while we don't envision an Apple Tablet being cheap if it's ever produced, there's still a good shot that such a product could grab a foothold in the fledgling market.



If the latest round of rumors prove true, the forthcoming device will boast a 10" display, 3G data built-in and other features that will make it look somewhat like a "jumbo iPod touch." As the story goes, the Tablet project has been reset over six times in the past two years as Steve Jobs continued to start things over in an attempt to really perfect it. An early 2010 launch makes a lot of sense. Apple won't be showcasing at Macworld 2010, but next year will mark Apple's first major showing at CES. There's hardly a better way to say hello to Vegas than to launch a new product at the show, don't you think? So, do you think the time is finally right for an OS X Tablet to surface? Would you be interested in one? If multi-touch is involved, and the built-in data isn't too expensive, we suspect this could be a huge hit.

特に目新しいことは書いてありませんね。

 

[読んだ] Report: Apple tablet on track for early 2010 | Apple - CNET News

There are now multiple rumors/reports/speculation that an Apple tablet would be essentially an oversize iPod Touch, and will cost somewhere between a $299 iPhone/iPod Touch and the $999 MacBook.

タブレットって噂になってるApple版ネットブックのことですかね。
MacBook Proの新ラインナップで印象の薄くなったMacBookの位置に投入してくる感じなんでしょうかね、値段的にも。