Remember when the iPod's popularity was just taking off and we Apple obsessives were all abuzz with the whispers from the rumor mill about what other "digital lifestyle" hardware Steve might one day spring on us? Yeah, we don't hear nearly so much of that these days. And who can blame anyone for losing interest? The iPod's been out for over three years and the only thing close to another Digital Spoke to plug into the Digital Hub was the iSight-- and nice though it may be, pardon our utter lack of surprise at its failure to set the world on fire the way the iPod did and continues to do all these years later. Indeed, the iPod is still so hot, why bother thinking about the Next Big Thing? Nothing's likelier to be bigger than the iPod (metaphorically speaking, of course-- brick, anyone?) for ages, yet.

But apparently it's time to start thinking about new digital lifestyle devices again, because three days ago we started hearing talk that Apple was planning the release of several new hardware products at Macworld Expo in January-- and reportedly not all of them will be Macs. So what'll Steve be showing us in seven weeks' time? The Apple set-top box we've been hearing about since 1998, updated for the TiVo Age? The resurrection of the QuickTake digital camera line? The rebirth of the Newton as the world's smartest mobile phone? What?

The answer's almost certainly "none of the above," of course, but sadly, we lack the imagination necessary to come up with a so-called digital lifestyle device that has even the faintest shot at making a splash as big as the iPod's. But then again, maybe Apple lacks it too; faithful viewer mrmgraphics tipped us off to a new report at AppleInsider which describes an Apple product in late development that's code-named "Asteroid." This is apparently a FireWire-based musician's breakout box intended for use with an upcoming version of GarageBand, and it reportedly boasts dual XLR/TRS audio inputs for microphones and guitars, dual RCA outputs, a single headphone jack, and a phantom power switch. (Strangely, vanilla MIDI inputs and outputs aren't listed in the reported specs, which we'd assume to be a natural inclusion, but hey, whatever.)

Don't know what half that stuff is? Then odds are, you don't need it. Asteroid is a bridge between a musician's instruments and a Mac running GarageBand, presumably a really nice one with really low latency and superb sound. Most likely it's targeted at musical dilettantes such as ourselves, people fed up with their existing consumer-grade audio inputs but not serious enough to have blown the cash on a more professional gadget that makes GarageBand sound a little less like it's recording in an actual garage. This guess stems from the way we're personally drooling at the prospect of ditching our subpar iMic and plugging our guitar and microphone into a sleek Apple-engineered audio interface with full FireWire bandwidth. At "$129 - $149," we could actually see buying one-- as opposed to, say, M-Audio's FireWire 410, which does a lot more, but for a lot more cash.

As a product targeted at Mac-owning, maybe-slightly-more-serious-than-just-dabbling musicians, Asteroid won't make nearly as many waves as the iPod, and obviously Apple knows that; indeed, it's projecting just $3 million in bottom-line revenue per quarter from Asteroid sales, whereas the iPod's slated to bring in over a thousand times that much moolah this quarter. Just like the iSight, this is a specialized piece of hardware targeted at the company's existing Mac customers with a particular and semi-esoteric need, and there's nothing wrong with that-- but we can't help wondering whether Apple can ever come up with a gadget that can eclipse even the iPod in the "I'm a regular Joe Shmoe and I will gladly sell my grandmother into slavery for one of those" department. Dare to dream.