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Wednesday
Aug262009

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?