No, really. Apple may have announced their “new iPod”:http://www.apple.com/ipod/ipod.html today, making it just as dificult to choose between the Nano and the iPod as it was to choose bettween the Mini and the iPod a year ago (and, yes, I want one). But, don’t miss the new front in Apple’s blitz to become an “entertainment company.” I’m talking about the iMac G5, which ordinarily is not something worth drooling over if you’re already satisfied with your existing computer.
“And then I saw this.”:http://www.apple.com/imac/tour/
Go ahead and take a minute to spin through the demo of Apple’s latest application called “Front Row.” On the face of it, it seems like a nice piece of software to navigate through the media on your computer, and you kind of think, “gee, that’s nice.” Then you watch a DVD on it. And you listen to a playlist from iTunes on it. Then you watch an on-demand television show on it. Then you catch up to your favorite news podcast on it. Then the first thought hits you: “Wow, it’s like a giant iPod.” Then the second thought: “What if I hung one of these on the wall?” Or, if you’re a home theater enthusiast, you might think, “What if I hooked it up to a projector?”
Now the third thought: “If I did that, why would I use a television anymore?”
My wife and I started out our marriage without television because we thought it would be a good way to make ourselves commit more fully to spending time with each other. At the end of a year, we took another look at our decision and found out that neither of us really missed TV. It’s been over three years since we’ve had television service into our apartment. Reading books, watching DVDs and browsing the web have all replaced time wasted in front of the “idiot box” where I spent way too much of my teenage life. When we first got rid of TV, I thought we were being countercultural. Now, I wonder if we were just ahead of the curve.
That you can replace two or three or more remotes with Apple’s rediculously simple two-button device is staggering, but, then, they did it with the iPod, right? Will Apple’s ease-of-use engineering beat out Microsoft’s floundering efforts to get a “Home Media Center”:http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/ into the cultural consciousness? Hard to say. But my first glimpse of Front Row tells me this: I’d use it in a heartbeat.
And, once you’ve got an Apple in your living room, a dozen other thoughts spring to mind like:
* How cool would it be to have a conference call with three of my friends on iChat AV on a 42-inch screen from my couch?
* Can I stream content such as movies, photos and music from my laptop (or friends’ laptop) to my Apple set-top box?
* Could this mean that Apple will start selling huge LCD screens “like Dell”:http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/tvs?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs? (Oh, wait, don’t they kind-of “already do this”:http://www.apple.com/displays/?)
* What do we make of ??Steve Jobs??’ statement that “TVs and computers won’t likely merge”:http://www.macworld.com/2004/02/features/themacturns20jobs/index.php? That you watch television to turn your brain off, and you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on
?
* Who cares about “TiVo”:http://www.tivo.com and similar PVR devices that “time-shift” the TV networks’ content when you can just order your TV a la carte?
* Could it be possible that the analysts are “missing the big picture here”:http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=1205949?
All very interesting questions, indeed. But the question that I really want answered is this: the “Mac Mini”:http://www.apple.com/macmini/specs.html already ships with built-in S-video, so when do they ship it with an infrared port and an Apple remote?
Well, first off, the quality of what apple is offering through its video store is horrible.
I didn’t download one of the TV shows (though, i plan too for the sake of observing quality. Only problem is i have no interest in the shows that they offer), but i did buy a music video. I really like music videos, at least well done ones, so i was excited about the music video service.
After downloading the 5 minute video, which took 20 minutes on broadband, i was less than impressed with the quality of the video. It looked PERFECT in the tiny screen that itunes provides (which is approximately the size of an iPod screen), but when i made it full screen there was an objectional number of artifacts over the whole image and throughout the whole video.
The quality was slightly worse than the quality of an iSight camera.
Maybe i’m just spoiled, since we do a lot of digital video archiving and streaming where I work at high quality. Maybe i shouldn’t expect crisp mpeg2, 4 or DivX when buying from the apple store. But, I was. And at 2$ a pop that makes the music videos not worth it to me.
Anyway, my point is that unless the quality of the TV shows is significantly better than that of the music video there is no reason to think this type of product will replace your TV any time soon.
They really need to put all this multimedia support into the Mac Mini … that would be much sexier to have in your living room than an iMac. If they put all that into a MacMini I would be very tempted to pick one up and start figuring out how to replace my tivo
.
Great post, Ken. I think I’m going to hire you as a personal tech consultant, just so I know what to buy and when. I think you were ahead of the curve. And listening to you and your enthusiasm for all things Apple, I’m tempted to buy an iPod!!
“Mike”:http://www.kennsarah.net/2005/10/12/kill-your-television/#comment-1182, I agree, the quality for now is lame, but think of it as more a proof-of-concept than a finished product. Are people clamoring to download TV shows to their iPods? Eh, maybe not. But, are the television executives looking for a way to keep up with this digital revolution, which five years ago threatened to collapse the music industry in a similar way? You bet. This is much more about Apple proving to the entertainment industry that Apple has an end-to-end solution to deliver high-quality content through a secure platform to paying customers.
And, I think, this is probably the key point of my post that I wasn’t able to convey the first time around. Apple has a solid foundation to bring the entertainment industry into the digital age:
* Hardware: the Mac Mini, iMac and Apple’s cinema displays
* Platform: the stable and secure iTunes music store, already in production, already serving millions of dollars worth of music and video
* Software: Front Row + the Apple Remote provides a simple 6-button user experience, leveraging lessons learned building the iPod
* Relationships: with the five major record labels, the MPAA (Jobs is the CEO of a major motion picture production), _and_ some major players in television (such as Disney-owned ABC)
* Hook: a new iPod which everyone will be clamoring to get this holiday season
This is the “halo effect” gone wild: the iPod drives sales of music and video on iTunes, which drives sales of Apple hardware such as the iMac, which drives more sales of content from iTunes. Nobody else has this completely holistic approach (again, another favorite philosophy of Apple’s) to delivering music and video content. It makes one wonder just how much of this Steve saw ahead of time and how much he happened into.
It also makes one wonder when Apple will be in the movie delivery business, too. Imagine Apple becoming a distribution hub of both corporate and indie film companies. Imagine delivering your own movies to customers as easily as it is to list a Podcast in iTunes. The long tail can provide a huge windfall of cash for Apple if they can pull this off.
Okay, I’m rambling, but the point is that this is just the beginning.
BTW, did you watch the Jobs presentation? First time I’ve ever seen him. Pretty impressive. (Though Bono’s voice didn’t match the sound during the video demo.)
“Scott”:http://www.kennsarah.net/2005/10/12/kill-your-television/#comment-1183, thanks. On my geek consulting business card I could read “Ken Walker: wasting your money on tech so you don’t have to.”
I did watch Jobs’ presentation yesterday. I had time to kill waiting for family to arrive at the airport, so I went to the Apple store to see if they had the new iPods. They didn’t, so I went to a big-screen PowerMac and just watched the presentation there. He’s a fantastic presenter, and that “impressive” quality you noticed is what many have called the “Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field.”
Wow, I hope Apple execs are reading this. It would be great if a company as together as Apple got serious about being a media company. And, broadband is advancing, which just increases the likelihood of this. 6-8gig/sec broadband is already available here in Austin, and the word is that ~25gig/sec broadband will be available within the next 2 years. At those speeds, a high quality movie would take seconds to download. And if they chose to stream it, it would consume just a fraction of the bandwidth. That would just make this more of a reality.
I gotta go update my Christmas list…