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The Apple-focused blogosphere has been filled with lots of action this week, but few items of note drew on Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) new launches this fall -- like new iPods and MacBooks.
Indeed, the news this week has been about a multitude of smaller items, like Apple's Tony Fadell, the "grandfather of the iPod," stepping down. Meanwhile, news over Apple and IBM's (NYSE: IBM) tug-o-war with Mark Papermaster, a top IBM chip designer, continues (Apple wants him, IBM doesn't want to let him go, and there's a pesky "non-compete" clause somewhere in the middle).
In any event, which nuggets of blog traffic have the potential to affect Apple product users? There's a hardware add-on keyboard for the iPhone, a ray of hope for the Mac mini, a fix for quirky MacBook trackpads, and a falling price for flash.
Bypassing the iPhone's Software Keyboard
A Japanese blog is showing off a hardware keyboard hack to a jailbroken iPhone via a custom cable. It lets the iPhone use an external hardware keyboard instead of the built-in touchscreen keyboard. Sure, it's a bit clunky -- and it's nowhere near as big as a standard keyboard you'd find on a MacBook -- but it appears to work.
The point is lost on some, while others love the idea.
"Geez, it's not that hard to type on the iPhone keyboard; I'm typing on it right now and it only took a couple seconds," asserted Robert on the Engadget post on the subject.
"I'm no fanboy, trust me, but this is lame," added Level 5.
"I agree, but you have to remember that this is a proof of concept. The hacker here did it for the heck of doing it. I doubt he thinks that it's a practical everyday solution, or that anyone else should do it for any reason other than simply being able to," noted Juaquin.
And then this point, made by ILoveApple: "The fact of the matter is that a physical keyboard will ALWAYS be better than a virtual one."
Still, does this provide any semblance of hope for future hardware keyboard products for the iPhone?
"Anyone who wants to make a keyboard accessory for iPhone would need to work with Apple. Hardware accessories, especially those with software tie-ins, are an entirely different matter than publishing software on the App Store," Raven Zachary, an independent iPhone advisor and contributing analyst for The 451 Group, told MacNewsWorld.
"The jailbreaking community will never be substantial enough for any company to look to it as a market," he added.
Hope for the Mac Mini
While physical keyboards may or may not ever come to the iPhone, it seems as if the Mac mini will get a breath of fresh air -- just not any time soon, apparently. An Apple representative told MacWorld that the company's product lineup was set for the year and wouldn't change until after the holidays.
So where does the Mac mini come in?
According to AppleInsider, here's what happened: a reader read a Gizmodo blog post that speculated that the Mac mini might be discontinued. In distress, the reader sent an e-mail 
to Apple's hardware engineering chief Bob Mansfield, who apparently had an Apple employee phone the reader to assert that Apple knows that the Mac mini is a popular machine and users should be patient.
Reportedly, no confirmation or details were revealed in that call, but the news seems to indicate that a new and improved Mac mini could come sometime in 2009.
Commenter Eriamjh summed up the key points rather quickly in the AppleInsider post: "The mini is a nice machine, but I don't understand why Apple doesn't make it better. It should have the same HW as a MBP (MacBook Pro). Losing the optical disk might be a good way to boost storage without increasing size. I still think that the mini and the AppleTV should be one kick-ass device."
Others agreed, though some still would like to see a Blu-ray drive. Either way, no one will know for sure until Apple unveils it. The bigger question is, when?
"We thought all along that the Mac mini wouldn't be ready until Macworld. It was first introduced there, and the first big revision just makes sense there," Brian Stucki, owner of Macminicolo.net, told MacNewsWorld. Macminicolo.net is a service provider that hosts more than 400 Mac minis for customers around the world.
Macworld is set for Jan. 5 through 9, 2009.
Testy Trackpads
Some MacBook and MacBook Pro users have been reporting quirky behavior from their new all-glass clickable trackpads -- basically, they don't always register physical clicks. The big news here is that a MacBook Pro owner fired off an e-mail to Steve Jobs, who reportedly replied "Software Fix coming soon."
Great news for those affected, but still ... as AW.kennedy commented in the MacRumors.com post, "release date would be good ..."
Falling Flash
This week, Forbes reported that Apple might benefit from rapidly falling prices of NAND flash memory, which may drop 62 percent this year and and another 50 percent next year.
The falling prices could benefit iPods and iPhones, as well as flash-based solid state drives found in the MacBook Air and are now available in the MacBook Pro -- and any new tablet or netbook-like device Apple might produce.
However, will falling prices lead to lower prices? Or simply more capacity?
"We do expect capacity in general to start increasing. Just last year, people were talking about 32 GB of capacity [for SSDs], and now it's 64 and 128 GB, and people are used to having bigger drives," Jeff Janukowicz, research manager of solid state drives for IDC, told MacNewsWorld.
So if capacity increases, what about price? What will most manufacturers do?
"I think they are more likely to lower prices -- price right now has been one of the inhibitors in the broader sense. When you start talking about a $500 premium just for an SSD options, that's a significant percentage of the bill of materials. So lowering that premium is the effect that you're going to end up seeing," Janukowicz said.
As for Apple products, however, it seems more likely that the company in Cupertino will buck the general trend and, in this order, 1) reap the benefits of higher profitability, 2) increase storage capacity and maintain the price points, and 3) lower the price ... just a tiny smidgen. Maybe.
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