The IDevice Family

Apple has transformed itself into a well diversified company in the last few years,no longer limiting its operations to computers.

I believe they have established an entirely new platform in addition to the Mac.

IPod
Apple´s popular media player hardly needs an intro.The market development warrants some examination,however.


While it´s a little early to say the market is saturated volume wise,Apple´s holiday quarter results seem to point at that.
So what is Apple to do to avoid impending doom? :)

Fortunately they have already taken steps to weather the storm,the first of which is called IPod touch.

Much more than a music player,it really brings convergence to the mobile world.

For years industry pundits and other egregious persons have been driveling on about converging media and devices,toasters that will present your family photos while ordering a latte for you.

The touch truly combines (some) communication facilities with a rich media experience and an excellent UI.

The next steps for Apple will probably be to beef up the Nano with some parts of the Touch goodies,maybe even combining those with phone functionality.


IPhone
I fully expect Apple to release a revised IPhone within 2-3 months .(no surprises there,see this baby for example)

Broadening the lineup with a more affordable version might be in the cards too.

ICompanion
So Apple already offers a couple of exceedingly small devices.How about that fabled Mac tablet?

I am fairly confident the company will introduce a device along these lines:

8 inches display,full touch interface,Intel Silverthorn chip,beefed up "mobile OS X"

Is there a market for any such thing?

I firmly believe so: Students on campus,medical personnel on site,engineers on site.....just a few target markets I can think of.

Here´s the hitch though,the thing needs to be competitively priced ,particularly vis-a-vis the IPhone.


The Missing Link
Apple makes most of its money selling hardware,yet it leverages software for their competitive edge.

This is nowhere more apparent than with the IPhone.

Yet,software enhances a computer´s capabilities and broadens its appeal and the IPhone essentially is a mobile computer.

Enter the IPhone SDK,a way to enhance the phone´s capabilities and (at least for Apple) to generate another revenue stream.

As I have outlined,there will probably soon be an entire product line you can program for,bring it on Apple!

Doing some simple math (and speculating healthily) we can assume that the "OS X mobile platform" could soon overtake the traditional OS X platform in volume:

4 million Iphones(2007 sales),10 million more(2008 target),a total of 8 million touch enabled IPods and 3 million "Icompanions"; total: 25 million IDevces,versus an installed base of currently about 30 million OS X users.


The old fashioned Mac?
Where does that leave desktop and laptop computers?

I intend to take a closer look at that in the next few days.