Apple's NY Media event: it'll last longer than a New York minute!

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 03 January 2012 23:23

Opinion and Analysis

Barely two days into 2012 and the first report of an upcoming Apple event had arrived, mysteriously heralding not an iPad 3 nor possibly any iPhone 5, but instead a 'media related' announcement.

Information about upcoming Apple events is always a fun game.

Until Apple sends out official invitations or makes an announcement, Apple manages to keep the suspense and anticipation running hot - or at least much of the online speculation helps create such an atmosphere.

Any why not? It's all good fun, and Apple announcements are always great launch events that the vast majority of companies seen unable to properly emulate.

It will also be the first major announcement without Steve Jobs at the helm, as he still was during the iPhone 4S launch, and for all these reasons and more, it will undoubtedly generate vast amounts of publicity - and even more so if what Apple announces lives up to the high expectations Apple has trained its users and the world to have and expect from the company.

Looking at Kara Swisher's original article in All Things D, we can see that no-one should expect any new iDevices to appear as yet, but that the event is 'media-related', with Apple's senior veep of 'Internet Software and Services', Eddy Cue, said to be running the show at a New York location, rather than in San Francisco or at Apple's HQ in Cupertino.

It sounds like more digital media and content for iTunes, iBooks and the Newsstand, along with improvements to Apple's iAd service - and hopefully some big surprises.

It might also mean more TV shows and movies available faster to iTunes users not in the US as well, alongside a new version of iTunes with tabbed browsing, speed and other improvements - but I guess we can only live in hope on some of those fronts. 

The event, which would clearly last far, far longer than any mere New York minute, will be matched by the usual frenzy of tech news overdrive. New York is where the world of publishing exists, after all, so it all seems to make sense.

No official invitations have been sent to anyone as yet, but if All Things D's report pans out, we'll undoubtedly see it reported on soon, and might see more hints leak out to the press.

That still leaves an iPad 3 announcement for February or March, and iPhone 5 announcement either mid year or a year from the iPhone 4S launch, and new models of all of Apple's devices over the course of the year, along probably not my hoped-for MacPad Air hybrid - hopefully this year too, but if not, maybe 2013. 

Until then, Apple's dominance over sales, rentals and subscriptions of digital content looks like it's about to be revved up another notch, with all of Apple's competitors to soon be presented with yet another challenge, as they all wonder how Apple does it and how they can learn from them and do better'¦ or at least, I hope so!