After years of consecutive record-breaking quarters, it seems a bit like pointing at the moon to say that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is going to have a successful 2012. Consumer excitement for the company’s products remains high. Wall Street remains rapt by the company as well. Despite a few months of wiggling, it’s not unrealistic to think AAPL shares could very well hit $500.
Is the company’s momentum guaranteed to continue into 2012? After all, 2011 has been a year of refinement rather exciting new goods. The company’s most successful products — like the iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air laptops — saw new releases throughout the year, but all were only incremental upgrades over previous products. Even Apple’s major software release for the year, the new laptop and desktop operating system Lion, is an iterative product that brings traditional computers closer in line with the company’s portables in terms of use.
2012 will not be another year of merely refinement. Much as 2010 was marked by the release of bold new releases — particularly the original iPad — next year will see Apple release a number of new devices sure to capture the attention of excited consumers. Here are five big Apple releases to expect in 2012:
Apple HDTV
Just weeks after former Apple CEO Steve Jobs passed away, the iconic technologist still was making headlines for a new Apple product. Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs quoted the CEO as saying, “I finally cracked it.” The “it” in this case being an Apple high-definition television set connected to the Internet as well as Apple’s iTunes, App Store and other digital storefronts. The HDTV will be the centerpiece of Apple’s 2012 product lineup. Investors take note: Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster believes this TV business could raise Apple’s market cap by $100 billion.
Motion Control
A number of Apple patents for motion-control technology — you can control what’s on the screen by waving your hands in mid-air, as with Microsoft‘s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Kinect device — have been made public over the past two years, the most recent of which came out Dec. 8. This release will affect all of Apple’s products, from Mac computers to the iPhone. Like the company’s voice-control product, Siri, Apple’s motion control interface has the potential to take something that already exists in other products and make it immensely popular through Apple branding. Expect motion control to be a key part of the Apple HDTV as well.
Touchscreen Mac, MacBook Air
Strange that now, as people are buying fewer PCs and more handheld computing devices, Apple’s PC business is booming. JPMorgan analyst Mark Moskowitz expects Apple to sell 1.6 million MacBook Air laptops alone every quarter after 2011. Bringing Macs closer to working like the iPad and iPhone is a clear goal at Apple considering the latest operating system, and the next step will be to introduce touchscreen PCs in 2012. Apple patents for technology like “Multiple Position Stand” have indicated that Apple has been preparing touchscreen-equipped PCs for some time.
iPhone 5
Of course there’s going to be a new iPhone next year. Unlike the iPhone 4S, however, the iPhone 5 is likely to be a dramatic re-imagining of Apple’s current smartphone. First, the device itself is going to look and feel quite different. Apple’s suppliers currently are stocking up on a bendable glass made by Corning (NYSE:GLW) called Gorilla Glass, lending credence to rumors that the next iPhone will have a curved form rather than the hard-edged rectangular shape of current models. On the inside, though, Apple will change up the device by finally releasing a phone compatible with burgeoning 4G networks. The 4G iPhone 5 will be compatible with LTE phone networks — the kind used by Verizon (NYSE:VZ), AT&T (NYSE:T) and perhaps most significantly, China Mobile (NYSE:CHL).
iPads
Of all the devices on this list, the iPad 3 is perhaps the least interesting. While these other products are significant new releases, signs at this point suggest that the next iPad will be an incremental upgrade. When iPad 3 releases in the spring, its major improvement will be a high-resolution screen similar to the one in the current iPhone. More revolutionary for the iPad could be a change in pricing. Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White is suggesting Apple will release a significantly cheaper “mini” model of iPad in 2012 to combat Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN). That new iPad would be priced in the “mid-to-high $200” range.
As of this writing, Anthony John Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here. Follow him on Twitter at @ajohnagnello and become a fan of InvestorPlace on Facebook.
