It looks official. European documentation discovered this morning confirms that Apple has gained registered status for a new armband design. By itself it’s no big deal. However, the armband design appears to be sporting an all new iPod form factor that could very well be that of a next generation iPod Classic. The iPod in question contains a much larger display, appears to be extremely thin and sports a unique indented Click Wheel. The ultrathin design is further supported by another recent Apple Patent. This current design, if it’s to be taken at face value, would all but confirm that Apple’s next generation iPod Classic will debut with a Solid State Drive (SSD). A trio of relevant design angles found in Apple’s filing are noted below. For the record, Apple’s Senior Design VP Jonathan Ives is a contributor to this design win – which adds a measure of credibility to the iPod designs we’re seeing as being the real deal.

Is Apple trying to throw observers off course with these iPod concepts or are we seeing the real thing? Yes, that’s the question of the day.

Apple credits the following engineers for the new iPod armband design: Bartley K. Andre, Daniel J. Coster, Daniele De Iuliis, Richard P. Howarth, Jonathan P. Ive, Duncan Robert Kerr, Shin Nishibori, Matthew Dean Rohrbach, Peter Russell-Clarke, Douglas B. Satzger, Christopher J. Stringer, Eugene Antony Whang a and Rico Zorkendorfer. Apple filed their designs in the US and Germany. The US priority filing document number is noted as being 29/324,134.

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Jack Purcher, MacNN Senior Patent Editor