Reading the "Showtime" tea leaves (iTV, etc.)
OK. [second sight]
So in my rare spare time over the past 24 hours, I've been pondering what this all means for Apple's CE push and I'm pretty optimistic. I was initially disappointed by the event, until we got the iTV announcement.
Now, I'm not sure I'm actually a fan of the iTV as of yet. "Slimmed-down mini" was the opposite of where I thought Apple needed to go. But what got me excited was a few things:
1) running a beta of what was obviously Front Row 2.
2) Delayed until Q1 2007.
Why do I like these things?
First, this means Front Row is going to be more important. As a FR-server, the iTV implies that Apple sees it more as a component, than a replacement of everything else. This means plug-ins for FR...controlling TV, PVRs, games, support for third party remotes, etc. Good stuff. This also implies we'll be able to customize a fair bit ourselves.
Second, the delay is silly from a technical point. I doubt it's merely because they're waiting for the 802.11n standard to be finalized. Instead, I think this delay is due mainly to the fact that this will ship when iLife 07 is ready. I no longer think Apple will create a seperate "iTunes for Videos" app. (A marketing dude must've outranked and overruled a software engineer at somepoint. But if they are careful with iTunes (whose name is rapidly becoming as silly as "The Hitchhiker's Trilogy"), then hopefully it will be ok for both videos and music.) But I am now convinced that iLife 07 will be a much more significant upgrade than 05 or 06 were ("Look! New iDVD themes!"
).
I'm hoping against hope that one of these enhancements is the ability to rip content from HDDVDs or BDs. Maybe iTunes 7.1? Maybe iMovie 7? Quicktime 7.5? As I said before, I think that that ability is next year's "killer app."
Another important addition for me would be the ability to burn your own disks. I'm hoping for a nice upgrade to (a newly rebranded?) iDVD.
As for other small things:
New styling in iTunes 7. Clearly this is a hint of the aesthetic changes coming with Leopard. Goodbye Aqua.
Jobs' comment about what was playing on the iTV being "the same file playing on your iPod" means, most likely, that iTV will support "upscaling" (like the current crop of HDMI DVD players). I think this is more likely than the iTunes store selling HD content in a few months.
Last thing is about the upgrade to video resolution in the iTunes store. In short, it's sweet. It means that Apple won't be tied to a low resolution just because that's what it's been doing. I'm hopeful that movies in iTunes will soon be actual DVD resolution (480p). This will happen when the widescreen Video iPod is ready for primetime (which it obviously wasn't). [/second sight]
So in my rare spare time over the past 24 hours, I've been pondering what this all means for Apple's CE push and I'm pretty optimistic. I was initially disappointed by the event, until we got the iTV announcement.
Now, I'm not sure I'm actually a fan of the iTV as of yet. "Slimmed-down mini" was the opposite of where I thought Apple needed to go. But what got me excited was a few things:
1) running a beta of what was obviously Front Row 2.
2) Delayed until Q1 2007.
Why do I like these things?
First, this means Front Row is going to be more important. As a FR-server, the iTV implies that Apple sees it more as a component, than a replacement of everything else. This means plug-ins for FR...controlling TV, PVRs, games, support for third party remotes, etc. Good stuff. This also implies we'll be able to customize a fair bit ourselves.
Second, the delay is silly from a technical point. I doubt it's merely because they're waiting for the 802.11n standard to be finalized. Instead, I think this delay is due mainly to the fact that this will ship when iLife 07 is ready. I no longer think Apple will create a seperate "iTunes for Videos" app. (A marketing dude must've outranked and overruled a software engineer at somepoint. But if they are careful with iTunes (whose name is rapidly becoming as silly as "The Hitchhiker's Trilogy"), then hopefully it will be ok for both videos and music.) But I am now convinced that iLife 07 will be a much more significant upgrade than 05 or 06 were ("Look! New iDVD themes!"
). I'm hoping against hope that one of these enhancements is the ability to rip content from HDDVDs or BDs. Maybe iTunes 7.1? Maybe iMovie 7? Quicktime 7.5? As I said before, I think that that ability is next year's "killer app."
Another important addition for me would be the ability to burn your own disks. I'm hoping for a nice upgrade to (a newly rebranded?) iDVD.
As for other small things:
New styling in iTunes 7. Clearly this is a hint of the aesthetic changes coming with Leopard. Goodbye Aqua.
Jobs' comment about what was playing on the iTV being "the same file playing on your iPod" means, most likely, that iTV will support "upscaling" (like the current crop of HDMI DVD players). I think this is more likely than the iTunes store selling HD content in a few months.
Last thing is about the upgrade to video resolution in the iTunes store. In short, it's sweet. It means that Apple won't be tied to a low resolution just because that's what it's been doing. I'm hopeful that movies in iTunes will soon be actual DVD resolution (480p). This will happen when the widescreen Video iPod is ready for primetime (which it obviously wasn't). [/second sight]