During the Apple’s earnings call yesterday, the company it expects substantially higher transportation costs in the current (Christmas) quarter. This is very intriguing in that Apple doesn’t manufacture its products in the US, but in China and so virtually everything they sell has a meaningful transportation component already. Here is what Tim Cook said:

The air freight is not related to the iPhone so these are unrelated topics. But, generally speaking the air freight is planned to get enough units in to the channel in time for the holidays and is necessary for that reason.

What product, when added to the overall Apple mix, would increase shipping costs in a significant way? It would have to be large and/or heavy and would have to have higher shipping cost per dollar of revenue in order to be meaningful from a relative share of cost perspective.  Given this, my guess is that Apple will, before Christmas, launch an Apple-branded TV. Further, I believe that the TV will have integrated software from Apple’s current “Apple TV” product, which is not a TV at all, but rather a digital media player and partial Internet access device that is connected to digital television sets. In addition, I believe that it will run the apps that run now on the iPhone, and will come with a multi-touch remote control device running iPhone software. It will have Wii-like motion sensors in the controller and will be a major assault on home gaming.

I will go even further and predict that the functionality of this TV will allow users to stream media they have purchased from Apple servers. This will allow them to avoid onerous backup issues and the challenge of installing enough local data storage to handle the hundreds of gigabytes that digital media libraries can involve.  Apple could manage all your media for you, and stream it directly to computers, iPhones, and Apple televisions. This is the future and it plays directly to Apple’s strength in software that is intuitive and just works.

Of course, it could be simply a new iPod Touch with a camera. What do I know?

Disclosure: I own Apple stock.

Update: A day after I posted the above an article appears in the Wall Street Journal describing a new technology that Disney is touting that would allow purchasers of media to have permanent access to it, while viewing it on multiple devices.

The technology would allow consumers to pay a single price for permanent access to a movie or TV show across multiple digital platforms and devices—from the Web, to mobile gadgets like iPhones and cable services that allow on-demand viewing. It could also facilitate other services such as online movie subscriptions.

Very close to what I described above in regards to Apple. Interesting bit of trivia:  Steve Jobs is Disney’s largest shareholder.