After the Tablet, What's Next For Apple?

In the world of trying to predict what's next for Apple, you can never be too far ahead. So we say, let's leapfrog over this whole tablet thing, and go straight to the next paradigm-shifting device: The _______. After the tablet, what's left? Apple has conquered the world of digital music. The iPhone is well on the way to dominating smartphone and/or all phone sales. The tablet could re-invent a sleepy product category, but then what? 

Maybe we see an Apple-branded TV, but that would feel like a small evolution: most likely taking a monitor from one of the big manufacturers, and throwing an Apple TV in it. 

While we would never count Apple out when it comes to re-defining a product category, or creating a brand new one, perhaps we're nearing the end of the golden age of hardware advances. Apple could conceivably put a gaming console on the market, but the Pippin didn't do too well. Sure, these are different times, but it's also a market with three strong console manufacturers, and becoming the fourth wouldn't guarantee success. (bear in mind no one is making iPhone money in console hardware sales, with most breaking even.)

One possible future frontier for Apple would be services. Who wouldn't want to see cable television re-envisioned? Or maybe Apple would become a phone carrier. As far-fetched as these ideas sound, the company will have to go further and further afield to find new product categories/services. iPhones will get cheaper, iPods will get smaller, Macs will get faster, and tablets will get whatever it is tablets get. But the question is, will that be enough for Apple, or will they branch even further from their computer roots?

Video Shows the Possible Future of iPhone Gaming

Kudos to Macrumors for sharing this Youtube video  It shows the fascinating melding of real-life with gaming elements, and rather than being a scene from a sci-fi movie, it shows what could become possible as soon as June.

Assuming the new iPhone has video capability, and more importantly, a higher-resolution camera, we could soon be playing games incorporating our surroundings, or using applications to learn about the things we see right in front of us. It's official: we're living in the future.

A trip to the antiques store, circa 2048

This past weekend, I made my way into an area antique store. No, I don't normally trek there, but from time to time it's fun, especially to re-connect with things from my childhood. "Hey, I didn't think anyone else had that Donkey Kong tabletop arcade game! Look, there's that Pete's Dragon read-along record!"

It struck me though that the antique store of the future will be quite different. Where now people buy up phonographs and tube-type radios, either for their visual appeal, or sound characteristics, will the same be true of iPods? "Hey, there's a 2nd gen 10gb iPod!" While the nerds among us will connect in the same way, there will most likely be far less interest in setting an iPod in the corner of a room than say, a player piano, or Edison phonograph.

And what about media? A record player today that still functions can be paired with albums of the same vintage. Obviously there won't be many mp3's lying around in the shop. And today there are walls and walls of VHS tapes. As more media goes digital, what will fill the void? Will the market of used tech, films, and music dry up completely?

After all, it's highly unlikely a 40 year-old iPod will power on (the battery will have given up long ago) and it won't play nice with the latest and greatest audio codecs either.

Does all of this technology simply become disposable? One iPod replaced by another, replaced by another? Or thinking about toys, what about the curious case of the Webkinz. For the uninitiated, one of the most recent toy crazes is Webkinz. Webkinz are stuffed animals, who come along with a code to use online to build an entire virtual world for your pet. Once those Webkinz servers are shut off, in say ten years, does part of your childhood disappear too? While you'll be able to buy the same stuffed animal at a yard sale or flea market, you'll never get back the virtual world you created.

In some ways, this could be good news. The overall theme here is a reduction in the amount of "stuff" for sale. That doesn't necessarily mean a reduction in the amount of stuff produced.

What will the antique store of the future look like?