The future of television: Akimbo, Apple and Quicktime

Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
Great article on Akimbo's new internet TV service on SiliconValley.com. Clearly, a new, long-anticipated market is being birthed here.



SV.com is right. Akimbo's a pioneer that will definitely get speared by the competition. And not just because they're using Windows Media, a sure sign of a company just asking to be rolled over by Redmond.



Question is, will Apple play in this new sandbox?



Quicktime is supposedly being overhauled. I've long been surprised that they don't already sell Xserves in TV station bundles - staking out turf that's still being fought for in the server market. Then again, maybe they've been biding their time knowing that services like Akimbo are on the horizon.



I think Internet TV simply converges with too many Apple product lines for Cupertino to ignore.



Talk about building the whole widget. iTV involves Large LCD screens, WiFi/Airport Extreme, Power Macs/iMacs with the FCP Production suite, Quicktime and Xserves.



I'm not talking about an iMovie store here (perhaps that can come later) but primarily a way for Apple to step ahead (once more) in the content creation game.



Question is, will they act on it? Will QT be up to the challenge?

Will media conglomerates finally get brought down to size by iTV?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 14
    I agrree that this tech is an interesting trend to watch, and one that fits in with Apple's QT plan. However, Apple needs to have an easy DRM solution for Quicktime. There are many sites now popping up with WMV secured.
  • Reply 2 of 14
    murkmurk Posts: 935member
    Check out this link for speculation along these lines. http://www.apple-x.net/modules.php?o...ticle&sid=1161
  • Reply 3 of 14
    wilcowilco Posts: 985member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by murk

    Check out this link for speculation along these lines. http://www.apple-x.net/modules.php?o...ticle&sid=1161



    Thanks for the link. Great article.
  • Reply 4 of 14
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    I had to reread that article twice to catch everything. Great reading!



    Imagine if apple does to TV what they've done to music...

    It boggles the mind.
  • Reply 5 of 14
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by murk

    Check out this link for speculation along these lines. http://www.apple-x.net/modules.php?o...ticle&sid=1161



    Holy crap. That article makes up for years worth of regurgitated dross on the "Mac Web."



    Thanks for the link!



    QuickTime is dead! Long live QuickTime!
  • Reply 6 of 14
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    Must be a good article, because it was all greek to me. I think I get the gist to some degree, but I'm a little unsure of who is actually providing the content/broadcasting. Seems like QT is a good medium for content creation, but does that really mean they would (potentially) be the distributer as well?
  • Reply 7 of 14
    murkmurk Posts: 935member
    Be sure to check out Neo's other articles on the site. All very interesting. At first I wondered if Kormac had found a new gig. Neo thinks along the same lines anyway. I'm beginning to believe that Quicktime might be more important to Apple's future than the Mac.



    Links to a few of the articles...



    leap to MAN



    iPod-Live





    aacPlus



    GarageBand-Live



    Apple's Connexion to Boeing

  • Reply 8 of 14
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by murk

    Be sure to check out Neo's other articles on the site. All very interesting. At first I wondered if Kormac had found a new gig. Neo thinks along the same lines anyway. I'm beginning to believe that Quicktime might be more important to Apple's future than the Mac.



    I've been saying that for *years*. Apple's finally seeing the fruits of many years of groundwork. MS figured out that it wasn't who controlled the hardware, but who controlled the OS and data formats that won the market. While they concentrated on computers, Apple looked up and saw huge entertainment industries to be tapped. Why bother with controlling the audio file format on your home PC, when you could control the very formats that the content *creators* use? They learned MS's lesson, and are taking it to the next level. This has been years in the making.
  • Reply 9 of 14
    murkmurk Posts: 935member
    I've been thinking the same for years, too, but it has taken so long I began to lose the faith. I can remember posting "200X (insert a 1, 2, 3, or 4 in the X), the year all the pieces come together" in several Kormac threads. So now I make the bold prediction: 2005, the year all the pieces come together. The thing the Neo articles reminded me of is just how many companies Apple is working with laying the groundwork for the revolution. Steve has cannily put it all together while the giant slumbers. The sound of all the iPods may have woken the ugly monster (which has a head that looks surprisingly like Steve Balmer), but it is too late. The iPod and ITMS isn't the next great thing, but just a piece of the puzzle.



    Sorry if I got carried away. Steve Earle's "The Revolution Starts Now" was playing in iTunes as I typed.
  • Reply 10 of 14
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    It reads a LOT like kormac, doesn't it? Just use better grammar and pull sources from left and right to hint at *something* coming down the pipe, letting readers project their own conclusion on it. I'm still not sure what exactly they think is coming down the pipe from all this, nothing too concrete, but it is a tantilizing set of circumstances. It's not that I don't think they're on to something, it's just that that last step isn't quite taken by the author, and we're left to speculate. For me, being a bit out of my league with all that technical mumbo jumbo, it's hard to make any more informed guesses.
  • Reply 11 of 14
    murkmurk Posts: 935member
    http://www.macminute.com/2004/11/29/...ainmentserver/



    Something else related to this. This Merrill Lynch analysis doesn't mention internet based television or iChat AV? both of which would fit in well with any such Apple device.
  • Reply 12 of 14
    Quote:

    Originally posted by murk

    http://www.macminute.com/2004/11/29/...ainmentserver/



    Something else related to this. This Merrill Lynch analysis doesn't mention internet based television or iChat AV? both of which would fit in well with any such Apple device.




    BINGO! I agree, this is the Kormac dream. But it does seem like everything is falling into place.



    <burns> Exceeeelllleeennt </burns>
  • Reply 13 of 14
    kormac77kormac77 Posts: 197member
  • Reply 14 of 14
    tednditedndi Posts: 1,921member
    ...

    and Al gore is doing Internet TV. Isn't Al Gore on the board of directors of Apple?
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