There’s nothing like a good Apple rumour to get the mind racing, and the company’s plans for a special event next week, and Steve Jobs’ hint-dropping antics, we’re expecting some pretty exciting stuff from Apple in the next few days. But what, exactly?
We’ve donned our black turtlenecks and teleported ourselves into the mind of His Steveness to dream up some future Apple gizmos to drop at our very own Apple keynote. Come with us on a flight of fruit-flavoured fancy.
MacTablet
The rumour most likely to have Apple’s Steve Jobs’ ears burning might just be the one most likely to come true, if our secret sources aren’t telling porkies. Talk of touchscreen Mac Tablet has gone into overdrive in recent months. It’s said to resemble a larger version of the iPhone, featuring a slot loading CD drive and running full Mac OS X with GPS and an Intel Core Duo processor.
iPhone pico
The iPhone might be able to serve up the web, movies and music on the move, but imagine enjoying all that content on a much bigger surface, wherever you are. Squeeze a pico projector into the iPhone and it becomes a portable cinema! The ability to blow the picture up to around the size of a small telly would make movies on the iPhone so much more worthwhile. The technology’s available now, why not do something special with it?
iPlay
Apple has shown its mettle when it comes to getting third parties involved in iPhone gaming, but can it go one step further? What about a console capable of being completely wireless?
Charge it once for a week’s worth of gameplay, it’d grab games without wires using the iTunes store, but pack much more advanced graphics than the iPhone and iPod touch, as well as boasting a bigger screen.
Naturally, there’d be multi-touch and accellerometers built in, just like the iPhone, but integration with Apple TV would put pictures on the big screen through Wi-Fi, turning the handheld into a wireless joypad. The more we think about it the more we want it.
MacBook nano
If there’s one thing Apple is good at, its taking products to saturated markets and showing others how it’s done. The iPod changed the MP3 landscape just like the iPhone is currently doing for mobile phones. Why not enter the mini laptop market? Sure, the likes of the Asus Eee PC might have it covered, but the sector’s still lacking a true hero product.
Imagine a palm-sized MacBook with a multi-touch trackpad and full Mac OS X. You’d get all the functions of a full-size computer without the weight, or size. Even the MacBook air is a bit large for some. We’re imagining a 10-inch laptop with all the heart of a Mac, but none of the bulk.
Apple TV inside
Yes, Apple TV already exists in set-top box form, but wouldn’t it be great to buy a telly with it all inside? Imagine, a TV that doesn’t need any set-top boxes at all! Wi-Fi connectivity would serve up movie and TV libraries, as well as music, while a built in TV tuner would let us record shows directly to a hard drive inside.
Add to that the ability to rent HD flicks at the touch of a button, and we’re sold. Apple could be the first company to make an all-in-one media centre truly attractive. Come on Steve, it’s just what we need for the back bedroom!
