"If I were Steve Jobs..."

I hate the "mac rumor" community on the web, even though I consume it religiously. It's a guilty, US magazine-like indulgence. Like the Slashdot crowd, everybody thinks they know something, and base their predictions on their self-presumed vast knowledge. In reality, most people (by definition, the majority) are dopes with no real experience, but are still the most knowledgeable person they know. The only fish in their little pond is still the biggest, I guess.

Anyway, in spite of the previous paragraph (or maybe in response to it's direct object), here's what I think Apple will do, or should do, with their rumored "Flash iPod", a.k.a. their small, non-hard-drive-based MP3 player they're suspected to be close to releasing:

Many Macs coming out these days have BlueTooth networking built-in, or easily added for a few bucks. Apple is pushing this for wireless syncing of data to BlueTooth phones.

A tiny, lightweight music player, with an SD-card slot for memory (I just got a 1-Gig SD card for my Treo for about $65) that also has bluetooth built in would work as:

1) a swanky wireless headset to go along with your BlueTooth wireless phone, which mates perfectly with your BlueTooth mac.

2) a great wireless headset (with the proper drivers) to compensate for the microphone and speaker on your Mac and it’s iSight camera, making video calls possible in the real world, without being the SHOUTING GUY in the next cube who makes all calls on speakerphone, even though they're the only one physically here who's on the call.

3) once people have adopted wearing the headset, the Vonage softphone solution for osX makes non-video calls more convenient than their 'plain-old' counterparts... plus, a button in the client that's "push to voice-note this" makes keeping notes of phone calls simple, and auto-synced to your built-in portable player.

4) having new music trickle in over the (relatively, compared to firewire) slow bluetooth connection is far less of an issue, because it'd happen while you're sitting near the computer anyway, using it as a phone, or charging it overnight. Immediate play requrements can happen directly from the computer (for which you're using this device as wireless headphones, anyway), or as it's charging, in it's basestation.

All this can happen with basically a clone of existing bluetooth headsets, with an additional wired earpiece to the other ear for stereo, a memory slot for storage, and some software.

Anyway, that's my prediction, or wish-list.