“The buzz over Apple Computer’s next iPod music player has reached a fevered pitch after one web site posted details and a mock up drawing of the new device, which stores music on flash memory chips rather than mini hard disk drives. The MacMind.com, one of several websites devoted to all things Apple, this week reported that the iPod Flash, as it would supposedly be called, would start at $99 and wouldn’t be much bigger than a Milano cookie,” Scott Morrison reports for The Financial Times.
“As if to prove their report, the website’s authors posted a 3D illustration of the device, even though the artist had never laid eyes on the new iPod,” Morrison reports.
MacDailyNews Note: See RUMOR: Apple’s ‘iPod flash’ revealed (with image) for images and more info.
“While this kind of enthusiasm might appear to some to border on dangerous obsession, it is hardly uncommon in the Apple universe, where fervent Macheads salivate about upcoming products and then invariably swoon as they are made public,” Morrison reports. “Wall Street analysts have anticipated that Apple would soon release its own flash based music player to compete at the low end of the market. In a recent research report, Richard Gardner, analyst at Smith Barney, said he expected Apple to sell as many as 22m flashed-based iPods over the next two fiscal years.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Predicting units sales of a product that is unannounced, only rumored to exist, with no retail pricing information, specs, features, or anything else is quite a trick.
