Piper Jaffray Analyst Moonlighting at CrazyAppleRumors.com
by John Paczkowski
Posted on August 7, 2008 at 5:30 AM PT
As back-to-school days draw closer, it’s becoming more and more difficult to separate fan-site buzz from the speculation of analysts. Feeding grist into the Apple rumor mill today is, you guessed it, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who believes Apple will hold a special event next month to debut some new hardware. Observing that Apple (AAPL) held just such an event every September for the past three years, Munster speculates that the company will hold one this year as well. And he predicts it will see the debut of new iPod and MacBook models. Specifically, he’s looking for capacity changes to iPod shuffles and iPod nanos and a redesign of the iPod Touch at a new $199 price point. As for Apple’s MacBook, Munster believes we’ll see an overhaul of the entire line. “We note that the MacBook has had the same design since its launch over two years ago, and the MacBook Pro has had essentially the same design since its launch over two-and-a-half years ago, which was very similar in design to the PowerBook G4 released over five-and-a-half years ago,” he told clients. “To compare, the long-running iMac G5 design lasted three years.”
A fair point, and one that’s been made here and elsewhere a number of times already. Worth noting here as well, is Munster’s claim that a MacBook Touch, iTablet, iPad, or whatever you want to call it, is unlikely this year. While the analyst believes such a device exists, he thinks it’s more likely to debut in 2010. “… Ultimately, we expect Apple to develop a full touchscreen MacBook, although not until the technology has fully matured over the next two-to-three years,” he said. “We believe multi-touch is a core differentiator of Apple products, and Apple has adequately protected its innovations in order to maintain a leading edge.”
