by , 1:30 PM EDT, October 17th, 2001
C|Net is reporting that Apple has sent out invitations to the mainstream press for an event for next Tuesday. That event will be the "unveiling of a breakthrough digital device," according to the article:
As Microsoft prepares for the Oct. 25 liftoff ceremonies for its new operating system, Apple will be gathering journalists and industry analysts for "the unveiling of a breakthrough digital device," according to invitations received Wednesday.
Apple will unveil the new device--"hint: it's not a Mac," according to the invitation received by CNET News.com--on Tuesday during an event at Apple's Cupertino, Calif., headquarters.
The article goes on to say that sources are suggesting that the device will be a musical device of some sort. There is a little more information in the full article that we did not quote.
To take another angle, we received an e-mail this morning from Lukas Hauser, the MacCommunist of Mired.com (a very entertaining column), who pointed us to a column he penned in April about something he called the FirePlayer. The FirePlayer of Mr. Hauser's imagination is a portable music device. From that April. 2001 column:
MacCommunist is proud to introduce to the world our new hypothetical Mac device for 2001: the FirePlayer.
Okay, the name is kind of lame. We'll work on that. (It's really just a first salvo – offering "Fire" as potential replacement for the prefix "i," which we're to understand is being phased out. Otherwise, I guess "iPlayer" would be an okay name.)
The idea has as its ancestor the long-rumored "Mac Walkman" of the early 90s, wherein a laptop would be excised of the LCD screen and its components squeezed into the smallest possible shape. But what got me thinking about such a device again is my torrid love affair with the Nomad Jukebox.
What is the FirePlayer? It is, quite obviously, a FireWire-based MP3 player. You see, once you give an MP3 player a whopping 6 gigabyte hard drive like the Nomad has (or, in the case of the new Archos model, 20 gigabytes), transferring hundreds of MP3 files to it via USB is an awfully slow process. It's only natural that we Mac users would want a FireWire-based solution, now that Mother Apple has blessed every class of Mac with a FireWire port.
The Nomad Jukebox uses a stripped-down UNIX operating system which can only play MP3 files. But the FirePlayer shouldn't stop with just MP3 files. It will also play any QuickTime-compatible file! After all, what is an MP3 these days if not merely another QuickTime codec? The FirePlayer will be fully QT5 certified – and what better way to do this than to make sure it runs as its hidden operating system some lite variant of Mac OS X.
There is a mockup of the "FirePlayer" in that article as well, and the piece is recommended reading. He offers lots of details on what he thinks such a device should include.
Other speculation is suggesting that Apple is going to release a set top box of some sort. We published an editorial from John Kheit in September that said Apple needed a TiVO-like device in its arsenal, and others have also said that Apple needs a set top box of some sort.
On the humorous side, long time industry watcher David Bonfiglio jokingly suggested to us this morning that the device might be a "FireWire Anthrax detector." Apple wouldn't be able to make enough to fill demand! If only someone could actually make such a device...
In any event, we expect to be wowed. Apple is not likely to enter a new market lightly, especially within the current economic market. The company's "failures," like the Cube, are the exception, and not the norm, and we bet the company's new effort will be successful whatever it may be. What do you think the new device is? We have a discussion on this subject in the TMO forums.