Where’s the next iPod?

Tuesday, June 19th, 2007 @ 4:59pm

The iPod has been a popular MP3 player since its introduction in 2001. Since then, over 100 million units have been sold. Yet looking at the release of various models, one thing has struck me as curious, where’s the 6th generation iPod?

6th Generation iPod?Since 2001 there have been 5 major generations of iPods with on average a new generation developed about once a year. However, this has seemed to have stopped with the 5th generation released back in Sept. of 2005. Since then, there has been a lot of speculation and mock ups of what the 6th generation iPod could be. To the left is one such possible mock up of the next generation.

Of course, I guess my question is, where is it? Does Apple plan for the iPhone to replace the iPod? If that’s the case, this is a very risky move by Apple since I seriously doubt most people are willing to shell out $500 or $600 for only 4-8GB of storage space. Rather, I suspect that Apple is waiting in NAND memory to continue to drop in price before the next iPod upgrade. The current 5th generation iPod is not enough to convince me to upgrade from my 4th geneartion, but release an iPod with iPhone like capabilities and increased storage space (preferably flashed based) with a price comparable to the current iterations of the iPod and you have me hooked.