Apple is not going to produce an HD boombox, folks

Misinformation nation.

From Radio Ink:

Apple To Produce HD Boombox? SEATTLE — January 2, 2008: Apple Computer rumor site iLounge is reporting that Apple is ready to introduce iTunes-tagging-capable HD Radio boomboxes at the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco later this month.

This is absolutely false and not what iLounge says at all.

Here’s what iLounge actually says:

iLounge has learned that Apple plans a push for iTunes Tagging-ready, HD Radio-equipped boomboxes with iPod docks during the mid-January Macworld Expo event in San Francisco, California.

Now I’ve already commented on the fairly trivial importance of this announcement previously.

But nowhere in that sentence does iLounge say Apple will be manufacturing such boomboxes. In fact, Apple has barely ever gotten into the boombox game historically and its presence in that market provides the company with no competitive advantages whatsoever.

Apple’s game is to foster an ecosystem which orbits around the center of gravity called the iPod and its partner, iTunes.

Further, Apple believes that the radio industry is full of suckers who will promote the iPod and iTunes for free because we don’t realize that such promotion sells more iPods than it does HD tuners.

We should stop looking at clouds and mistaking them for magical fairies.