Wednesday, March 23, 2005

It has become a parlor game in some quarters to try to divine where Apple is going and how it intends to get there -- and not just at the dozens of blogs that traffic in Apple rumors ... Apple doesn't make the game easy; Jobs is famously secretive and detests leaks -- just ask the kid from Harvard whom Apple recently sued after he posted details of the Mac Mini before the stripped-down computer was unveiled at Macworld.

Jobs wouldn't talk to Business 2.0, but in various public forums, he has stressed how the $499 Mac Mini, the low-cost iPod Shuffle, and an advanced operating system called Tiger, due out this spring, are meant to build on the digital-music momentum. In truth, they are but the tip of a very long spear. Discussions with past and present company officials, Apple partners, and longtime acquaintances of Jobs, as well as clues in patent applications and other evidence, point to a gargantuan effort to leverage the iPod's success by creating an entire line of breakout consumer electronics devices. Dozens of gadgets -- from an iPod phone to wireless iPods that talk to one another to the ultimate all-in-one home-cum-car media hub -- appear to be on the drawing board or, in some cases, already in prototype.