The drumbeat of expectations for Apple’s Sept. 9 announcements continues. Fueled by Apple’s cryptic “Let’s Rock” and “playing soon” e-mails to reporters, the blogosphere has lit up with opinions on what will be announced. One blog is even holding a contest for readers — whoever gets the most announcements right, wins.
Joshua Martin, an analyst at the Yankee Group, said, “ITunes upgrades and iPod innovations are inevitable. Apple has done a great job distancing themselves from the competition, so they don’t necessarily need to have major new introductions, but don’t put it past [CEO Steve] Jobs to do something big nonetheless.”
With a “Let’s Rock” theme, the announcements would indeed appear to focus on the iPod and iTunes. Wired’s blog claims to have blueprints of a new 4GB iPod touch and iPod nano. The touch looks slimmer and appears to have external, mechanical volume controls, something users have requested.
A price drop also should be a no-brainer as the current iPod touch costs $100 more than the latest iPhone 3G. A 2GB iPod nano with a bigger screen and better video is also an odds-on favorite. And there could be more behind the nano screens than music files.
“Look for Wi-Fi to be added to more iPod devices and possibly some social-networking features. I know that was tried by another company a while back on their portable Wi-Fi MP3 players, but they didn’t have a big enough market,” Martin said in an obvious reference to Microsoft’s Zune and its failed Zune-to-Zune Wi-Fi music sharing.
There’s also some speculation that a new nano model might run some applications from Apple’s App Store.
The iTunes Store is reportedly getting a refresh with music CD-like liner notes, still photographs, and music video content for participating artists. Snow Patrol, the Scottish pop-rock phenom, is expected to be the first…