We waited a long time for Apple to announce its first major products of the year. And then we got two: the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C, plus the official launch of iOS 7.
But Apple sells way more than iPhones, but didn’t have a lot to say about its other products. Here’s what Apple didn’t announce today that we might see later this year or early in 2014.
The iWatch
Apple hasn’t ever confirmed that it’s working on a smartwatch, long rumored to be called the iWatch. But many pundits believe it is, and thought Samsung hoped to get a jump on Apple in the smartwatch category by a week when it announced the Galaxy Gear last week at IFA in Berlin.
Coming into today’s iPhone 5S/5C announcement, no rumors abounded about the so-called iWatch. It is fairly rare these days for Apple to announce a product without a massive rumor mill grinding away. So it wasn’t a huge surprise that Apple didn’t officially enter the “arm race” today.
Best guess for the iWatch: The first or second quarter of 2014.
New iPads
Apple likes to keep most of its major device announcements independent of one other. Given that Apple hasn’t announced a major new product in some time—outside of some computer refreshes at its Worldwide Developer Conference in June—many people expected that today would be a multi-product announcement. One more thing?
No, there is no one more thing.
That’s fine, though, because it sets Apple up for a big fall with more products theoretically coming down the pipeline. The next most likely on the agenda are new versions of the iPad and iPad Mini. We will likely see the A7 chip come to the iPad while the Mini might get Retina Display.
Best guess for new iPads: The end of October this year.
New iPods
The iPod is technically an iOS device (the same operating system that runs the iPad and iPhone), so it was reasonable to think that Apple would throw in a new iPod Touch while announcing the new iPhones. Didn’t happen this year. The iPod is no longer a major product for Apple and no longer warrants its own event or really anything more than a quiet press release (if that) sometime in the middle of the year. Apple last announced new iPods in May this year and didn’t need to refresh the lineup this year for the holiday shopping season.
Best guess for new iPods: Sometime before Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference 2014, perhaps late May or early June.
Apple TV
Apple just went through an entire presentation and didn’t mention its Apple TV product once. The longer Apple plays possum with the Apple TV, the more people will start to think it doesn’t care all that much about the television realm.
Apple didn’t announce a refresh (hardware or software) to its Apple TV set top box today, nor did it even remotely hint that it may (or may not) eventually build its own actual television set. Apple TV wasn’t mentioned during the brief rundown of iOS 7 that preceded the announcement of the new iPhones at today’s announcement. The television is certainly a second class citizen for Apple at this point.
New MacBooks or iMacs or Mac OS X
Apple usually doesn’t mix announcements of its mobile and PC products outside of developer issues at WWDC. Today was no exception. The Mac Pro is still coming down the product pipeline and the MacBooks that were announced at WWDC in June are still in line. Apple also did not mention Mac OS X, the operating system that runs its computers. The new version of OS X, Mavericks, will be released later this fall.
