Next (next) iPod?

I started writing/thinking about this post before Apple released their lat­est iPod (I believe they refer to it as iPod with Click Wheel, other peo­ple call it the 4G iPod). Now that they are out, I have to admit, I am under­whelmed. But I see room for hope.

I was look­ing for­ward to an iPod with a wire­less con­nec­tion. An iPod with which I could stream music to an Air­port Express con­nected to the stereo in the liv­ing room. Or even cooler, an iPod that would con­nect to the iTunes Library on my Mac in the base­ment, and con­trol play­back from there, even if play­back was hap­pen­ing on the stereo in the liv­ing room. The stereo with the really nice Mirage Bipo­lar speakers.

But the iPods that were released had none of that. They have a Click Wheel and some neat-o soft­ware perks. Whoop dee.

But there’s hope.

Toshiba, in a now infa­mous inci­dent, said that Apple had ordered a huge batch of their new 60 GB mini hard dri­ves (the 20 Gb and 40 GB mod­els are being used in the new iPods) for deliv­ery this sum­mer. Apple offers no comment.

Another com­pany, that pro­vides the wire­less chipsets for Apple, announces a new, low-power ver­sion of their 802.11b wire­less chips. The power con­sump­tion is low enough to be fea­si­ble for an iPod.

The rumor mill ran ram­pant with spec­u­la­tion about a major iPod announce­ment in late August, only to fiz­zle with some lame notice about, “Oh, that’s going to be about the iPod mini,” when the new iPods were released last week.

The prices of the two new iPods are the same as the low­est two prices for the pre­vi­ous trio of iPods, leav­ing room at the top for a pricier model.

Maybe a pricier model with added fea­tures, like a larger hard drive, and wire­less capa­bil­i­ties? To be announced some time in late August, once pro­duc­tion ramps up with the brand new Toshiba drives?

You heard it spec­u­lated here first, boyo.