Apple really gets it

The Apple announcements today were more or less what people expected, but there were some really nice twists.

New iPods, yeah, that was an obvious move. Selling movies was expected, but I don't think anyone really knew they'd move up to 640x480 resolution for those and the TV shows, which is essentially standard definition resolution. They just hooked me, because that's about as good as a DVD, only without the piece of plastic. It's the quantum shift that music made a few years ago.

Even more impressive is the "iTV" box that they previewed, and will ship early next year. People have been wondering for awhile if they'd introduce a DVR kind of device, and they've totally looked beyond that. A DVR is a broadcast-centric device, that has to do with the old distribution of content, on a schedule, via broadcast and cable. That's old news, and the a la carte pricing of content seems to be working. Let's face it, the best TV shows are like commercials for me to buy the DVD's. And if that new box really does support HD the way the demo did, the whole BlueRay vs. HD-DVD argument is even more pointless than it already is.

There certainly is some danger for Apple. I mean, they have to accept some outside influence now and then. They were smart to work podcasts into the store. They support video of the same as well. As long as they don't close that out, the entire platform is looking positive.

4 Comments

  • Heh, your blogpost was right above Pascal L's blogpost who said "Apple innovation is losing grounds very fast" :)

    Apparently it's a matter of taste ;)

  • Jeff just to say I am an Apple fan ;-)
    But I don't see anything new in the iTV, just another streaming box. Also a lot of people echoed that the box as it is now (and of course they can change their mind which I doubt if they want a release early 2007) will accept only iTunes store content, so clearly no other codecs. On my Xbox 360 today I can stream avi! But anyway that was not exactly what I was trying to say in my post, it was more about the lack of real innovation from a company I used to admire for their 'unconventional' way of thinking. But of course it's your right to think different ;-)

  • But it's NOT just another box. What you're describing as a flaw is exactly the reason it works... it's idiot proof and works with iTunes. It also works with thousands of different video podcasts, your iTunes music, your photos (and iPhoto), etc. You can't forget that they already dominate 75% of the MP3 player market, and people like the system.

  • Good read that is exactly opposite of this blog post

    http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2015836,00.asp

    He's right in a lot of ways, most of that stuff is "catch up" or "old news"....

    Not that i personally think that's all that bad a thing, "first" doesn't always, in fact rarely ever, mean "better"..... and i cannot wait for my new 80g iPod to get here on Tuesday :-)

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