Plenty of room for growth, innovation in Apple’s current product lines
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Oct 6, 2008 at 5:00am
In a recent BusinessWeek, tech reporter Arik Hesseldahl said perhaps it’s time for Apple to concentrate on its current product lines and not worry about any new product lines. I agree—besides, there’s plenty of room for significant innovation and new products in the Mac, iPhone, iPod and Apple TV lines.
Consider the Mac line: with Intel consistently introducing new chips and graphics processing units getting continually more powerful, there’s plenty of room for new products. Macs can and will get more powerful. We’ll doubtless see new designs from design guru Jonathan Ive. And there’s room for new Mac models to fill particular niches (though whether or not Apple chooses to make them is another question). A media center iMac. An Ultra Mobile Device. An expandable Mac tower that fits between the Mac Pro and iMac lines. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
When it comes to iPhones, the line will almost certainly expand and grow. The “regular” communications device will continue to add storage space. And there’s no reason to think that Apple won’t add a smaller version of the iPhone (an “iPhone nano,” if you will.).
As for the iPod, I think we’ll see a bigger incarnation (and perhaps it will be the Ultra Mobile Device mentioned above) that will be even better for watching video—and reading eBooks.
Obviously, Apple’s “hobby,” the Apple TV, is rife with under-utilized potential. Potential features include (as Hesseldahl mentioned in his article) TiVo-like DVR features, a DVD player slot perhaps even Blu-ray (though I’m dubious of the latter, as I’ve said before).
So what do you think? Should Apple concentrate on beefing up its three product lines and its “hobby”? Or should the company already be eyeing new product lines?
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GregA Says:
I’m starting to think that, for now, Apple has a limit to how many things it can drive forward at a single time. This results in a very coherent product line and high compatibility.... but it means that they can spread themselves too thinly if they’re not careful.
If that wasn’t true I’d be happy to see Apple expand… but there is so much they can do in the existing product lines that it’d be a shame to miss that.
Posted on October 07, 2008
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
Hans Mittendorf Says:
I always consedered Apple to be the most innovative company, but on their established product lines, I must admit I am starting to think that are getting lost with telephones and iPods and other gadgets and loose out to come up with serious Pro Computer stuff. Is my feeling right or do I want to much?
Posted on October 06, 2008