iGuide: Apple's Ultimate Media Store

Could the iTunes store be getting a rebrand in 2010?

The Apple Tablet rumour mill has been churning for the last week and a quiet Apple business and trademark have been uncovered by Mac Rumors.

iGuide Media, LLC is a company set up by Apple employees purely to register their trademark. This is reportedly a common practice to retain privacy on upcoming products and technologies. Most interesting (and inevitable) is the description of a media browser with many types of downloadable content:

Computer hardware and computer software for accessing, browsing, searching, recording, organizing, storing, transmitting, receiving, manipulating, streaming, reproducing, playing, and reviewing audio, video, games, music, television, movies, photographs, and other multimedia content

Downloadable electronic publications in the nature of books, magazines, newsletters, journals, and blogs in the fields of entertainment, sports, science, history, culture, celebrities, news, current events, politics, technology, and education

It covers everything, confirming the obvious that Apple (and every other big tech company) want to be in the market for every available digital good in the future.

It seems more likely that iGuide could be software than hardware. It would be good to see an improved twitter style content sharing system since so much will be available, and will require the crowd to sort through.

Personally, I'm quite keen to clear my shelves, store all my media on the cloud, and use the next generation of portable equipment with morphing screens. Where will it end!