UPDATE: Yep, it's a big ass iPod Touch

Apple had a mega-hit, and they may not be able to take their eyes off it and point them back in the place artists know as the well. The place that all human endeavor arises from. What does it all mean? If it's just a bigger iPhone: the days of the innovative Apple may be gone.

This is a good soundtrack for the next paragraph: Open a Panel

It's 4:19am and I'm hoping to get a few hours of sleep in before the day breaks and Apple begins to announce it's much anticipated "new creation". I love Apple. I really love the practice of competing with the ideal. One common focus of inspiring intellectuals, athletes and artists has been to compete only with themselves and by proxy, their ideal vision. Apple appears to have gone astray in that and held not on to their own ideal, but upon the ideal implied by their sales. They may recover today, they may fix their trajectory. If they don't, not much else but a fall from grace could restore that tiny bit of dissatisfaction needed to be truly alive. That hungry, foolish voice within that has nothing to loose and is willing to take big risks to reach an ideal only it can see. The "spark". Without it, Apple is in dangerous territory, and they can't see money.

Here's what we need to see to believe in Apple Corp's future (and none of these are bigger iPhone)

1. An Affordable Media Subscription Model

We need to see a strategy to sustain Apple's media business. That means we need a subscription model for music, television, movies and apps. Not a rental or ownership model: an all you can eat model. Right now Hulu on a $200 netbook with an HDMI port makes my Apple TV look like an expensive and arrogant eunuch. It's not the sign of a winner to cripple their own devices and underperform.

2. A version of OSX for all Intel Core(i3 i5 i7) computers

We must see a real business strategy for reach. iTunes on Windows is not enough. There has been enough movement in the Hackintosh and unlicensed clone market to show traction for an OSX "lite" version for non-Apple hardware. The Apple base must grow to survive and the current strategy of pricing a Quad-Core iMac with a 27" screen below $2k is not enough endurance for the market ahead.

3. An iPod app for Android and iTunes for Linux

Apple must extend it's reach and allow people who have bought media from iTunes to play it on all operating systems and devices. When we purchased our libraries, title by title, many of us saw iTunes for Windows as a stake in the ground from Apple. Saying "You don't have to use a Mac to watch the movie you just bought, or to enjoy the iTunes experience". Now like a buffoon, iTunes is actually propping up Windows. With many users I know spending 90% of their time on Windows on iTunes and Firefox (the other 10% on securing Windows)

So it's a tall list, but strategically sound. If Apple left these three things on the table while they pursued a larger, more (self)gratifying iPhone, then I assert that they can not see the consumer any longer. They have chosen not to put their content on all the slates. They do not support a user experience where consumers are free to listen to the music they paid for in any way they want. Apple will have proven it has lost sight of the basic state of hunger synonymous with life, and can not be trusted to continue to perform.

We need to see the ominous and polarizing wind of war that has come into silicon valley meet a blast of warmth from the heart of innovation and I hope it is Apple, but sell your stock if all you see tomorrow is a whoop-de-do bigger iphone. It may be time.