Apple's future is about more than just Macs, iPods, and iPhone, according to one analyst. Benjamin A. Reitzes of UBS said Apple is poised to become an "open-ended" growth story once again with a logical chronology of new products and advances, such as the multi-touch technology shown at Jobs' iPhone keynote in San Francisco. Reiterating a 'buy' on the stock but calling the estimates "conservative," the research firm held its $124 12-month price target and said that the "mega-platform" could add $1.00 to Apple's bottom-line in future years. "We believe the multi-touch platform initially shown in the upcoming iPhone can be integrated into several products including Macs & iPods, facilitated by Apple's software & retail ecosystem," Reitzes wrote in his research note to clients.

The analyst believes that Apple will extend use of its multi-touch technology to its entire product portfolio and roll-out new touchscreen-enabled Macs -- possibly by the 2007 holiday season, although he says that 2008 is more likely. Reitzes also echoed circulating rumors of ultra-portables and televisions, although no further details were provided.

"We expect multi-touch to be prevalent in Apple's major hardware products within 3-5 years - making its way into touchscreen Macs next year," the research analyst continued. "We also expect new touchscreen video iPods, ultra-portables, more phones & possibly even TVs in the future."

Calling Apple's product portoflio the "mega-platform", the analyst said that many of the logical, but still rumored products were not yet factored into the company's models, including ultra-portable devices, additional movie partners, gaming opportunities and additional phone models. The analyst did, however, point to the launch of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and Adobe Creative Suite 3 as key significant events.

"We believe new products should help stimulate existing opportunities for revenue acceleration into fiscal year 2008. In the June quarter alone, we expect Apple to ship the new Mac OS X Leopard, the iPhone, new Macs, new displays and receive some help from the launch of Adobe's CS3."