September launch of new iPods and MacBooks?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Saturday, 09 August 2008 19:46

Opinion and Analysis

Rumours of new iPods and MacBooks have swirled thanks to analyst Gene Munster suggesting September’s the month for new models to emerge. The question is: evolution, or revolution?

Appleinsider has published news that Gene Munster, analyst with investment bank Piper Jaffray, thinks new iPods and MacBooks are on the way.

September has seen new iPods arrive over the past three years, so it’s not as though Munster has needed to delve too deeply into his crystal analyst ball to come up with this prediction.

Munster’s predictive powers are strong: he sees a newly redesigned iPod Touch at only US $199, which sounds awfully cheap given that Apple makes a lot more than the upfront sales price for iPhones over those 24 month contracts.

Still, anything is possible, and the reality is that the walk-out-the-door price of the iPod Touch is a lot more expensive today than it is for the iPhone, so Apple presumably has room to move on pricing competitiveness with its own products and mp3 players from competitors.

That said, the iPod Touch is no mere mp3 player but a fully fledged handheld computer, but if Apple does indeed lower the price (while keeping higher price points for larger memory sizes) it will only make a redesigned iPod Touch that much more attractive to consumers over cheaper mp3/video player devices.

We’re also likely to see an “overhaul” of the MacBook and MacBook Pro design, something that’s been called for by consumers and tech pundits for years, especially given the fact that the essential design of the MacBook has barely changed.

Of course, Apple would likely say that is because the MacBook was designed right in the first place, and hasn’t needed much of a cosmetic update, but if an update is in the offing, perhaps along the lines of the MacBook Air, it will likely still be the coolest looking range of notebooks on the market.

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