The Apple iPod is the most successful gadget in the history of the universe. More popular than the Sony Walkman and better selling than the Nokia 3210, the iPod has seen more discussions than DAB digital radio.

But what comes next? How can Apple move forward with new technologies and keep its iPod range a step ahead of the pack? What will next year's iPod range look like?

Future iPods

How about a super-slim 160GB iPod touch with a hard disk instead of flash memory? And would you bet against Apple releasing a resurrected super-sexy iPod mini sporting multi-touch screen and 16GB flash storage?

Surely the future will see an iPod touch, as thin as the current iPod nano but with similar capacity to that of the iPod Classic. That's the current Holy Grail as far as the iPod goes, but it's at least two generations down the line yet.

New features

What we do know is that as we've already seen with every new generation of iPod, Apple likes to bleed features from the top end models into the lower end ones. The new iPod nano, for instance, now has pretty much all the features of the iPod classic. So it makes sense to assume that this year's will be the last generation of iPods to sport the clickwheel instead of multi-touch.

Next year's nano will probably be a touchscreen device. That being said, a change that drastic to the model will probably require a new name. Might we even see the resurrection of the iPod mini tag?

It would probably be quite easy to make a multi-touch nano without making it thicker than the 6.5mm of the current model. After all, you wouldn't necessarily need to put Wi-Fi in it. The nano has always been a barebones MP3 player; it doesn't need the extra bits that would clearly increase size and weight. It would just need the core music playing touchscreen iPod features. No need for all those additional apps and functions.

Apple innovation

At the core of Apple's success with the iPod is its innovation. Apple has always managed to come up with something different when no-one was expecting it to. It went slightly wrong through the first three generations of iPods, but every year since then, new iPod ranges have set themselves apart from the competition.