Let the rampant Apple speculation begin

Now that he’s not dead, Steve Jobs has roused himself to gather the world’s press in various cities around big screens to announce something next Tuesday. (The main event is at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco at 10 am Pacific Time next Tuesday.)

The question is, what? All the expectation is that it will be new iPod nanos – perhaps something a bit longer and thinner, more like the original than the current squab-shaped one. (Yes, squab.)

It was, after all, at a September event three years ago that the first iPod nano was unveiled – rather neatly, from Jobs’s change pocket in his jeans; the invitation had had a picture of a change pocket.

So, using that deconstruction, and noting that there’s generally something vaguely like a connection between the theme of the invite and what gets shown off, we can infer that this is something to do with iPods (note generic silhouette ad) and iTunes (note Coverflow-style pic).

That means, to me, that we might – might – also be seeing the introduction of the long-rumoured subscription model for iPods. Nokia has stolen a march, with its unlimited access for (certain) Nokia buyers:

Anyone willing buy a Nokia Comes With Music pre-pay phone will be able to download up to 2.1m music tracks – about a quarter of the number available from Apple’s iTunes – onto their computer for no extra charge for 12 months. [read full story]