“Analysts for Needham & Co this week said they believe Apple will hold a special media event sometime in April to unveil Intel-based iBooks and a more functional video iPod,” Kasper Jade reports for AppleInsider. “‘At the end of his Macworld keynote address in January, Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, noted that the company will celebrate its 30th birthday on April 1, 2006,’ analyst Charles Wolf wrote in a research note released to clients on Thursday. ‘While it’s possible that Jobs’ was simply pointing out the longevity of Apple, we interpret it as a signal that Apple will hold a major birthday party in the form of new product event around that date, most likely in early April.’”

Jade reports, “‘The one sure-fire product Apple has to introduce is an iBook running on the Intel single core Yonah processor,’ wrote Wolf. The analyst notes that the K-12 school-buying season begins in May; and the iBook represents an increasing fraction of Apple sales in this market. ‘Failure to have an Intel iBook ready for the school-buying season could significantly jeopardize Apple’s education sales,’ the analyst added. Wolf also believes that Apple will use the event introduce the ‘real’ video iPod. ‘Apple was careful to call the iPod capable of displaying video that it introduced in October just that—an iPod that played music but also featured a video viewing capability,’ he wrote. ‘According to our sources, the screen on the Video iPod will occupy the entire front of the current iPod with a touch-activated scroll wheel.’ Assuming the iPod retains the fifth-generation form factor, this move will increase the size of the screen three-fold, the analyst said.”

Full article with more here.

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Related article:
RUMOR: True Apple video iPod with 3.5-inch display, touch-screen click wheel coming soon – February 09, 2006