Where has the iPod gone in all these news stories?

With so many rumors floating around about the new iPhones, and now even another Mac operating system, Snow Leopard, it leaves me with one question; where has the iPod gone? Despite the many news stories I’ve read lately, almost none of them have been about Apple’s iPod (minus the iPod Touch). Is this simply because the iPhone is newer and therefore gets a lot more hype, or is there more to it? Although Apple’s iPod has dominated the mobile music player market for quite some time now, it still seems as if Apple is moving in another direction. They are preparing for the road ahead.

Whether you consider this good or bad, I think Apple has realized their iPod isn’t going to dominate the market forever. Because of this, the company is preparing for the future by spending more time on expanding some of their other, not so widely used products. Now that they have secured a spot for the iPod, they can back away from that and spend more time promoting their other platforms, multi touch and Mac OS X. Apple is using their strength in one area to help become stronger in other areas, which sounds like a great plan to me.

Although the iPod hasn’t been talked about much recently, I don’t think its just because they aren’t due for an update and aren’t as hyped as much as some other announcements. What do you think?