“Microsoft has made no secret it also is focusing on TV, though its efforts have sputtered off and on. In 1997, it acquired WebTV and later invested $1 billion in Comcast and $5 billion in AT&T,” Marguerite Reardon writes for CNET News. “The software giant has acknowledged that its early efforts in the TV market came too early and were too ambitious. Since then, Microsoft’s vision has morphed from an ambitious attempt to bring PC-like functions to the TV to simply improving video delivery. These days, it’s focused on developing software that goes into set-top boxes to enable DVR functionality and improve program menus. But Microsoft hasn’t stopped with set-top boxes. It also sells its Media Center operating system to allow users to display pictures, play music, watch videos or record television shows on their PCs.”
“And then there is Apple, which has been rumored to be working on a new home entertainment product focused on delivering video from the computer onto the TV. In typical Apple fashion, the company has been tight-lipped about its plans, but analysts like Lin believe Apple is pulling the pieces together to introduce a product as early the first quarter of 2006,” Reardon writes. “Some speculate that an early sign of Apple’s intentions was the Mac Mini, introduced earlier this year. The low-cost computer came complete with special media playing software. ‘The Mac Mini doesn’t really have the power to be a true video product,’ said Lin. ‘But you can see this where Apple would like to go.’ Another clue for Apple tea leaf readers is the release of its new video iPod and updates to its iTunes store, which will now sell TV episodes for $1.99. Apple also has a long history of developing software for movie editing.”
Full article here.
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Connect iPod to your television set with the iPod AV Cable. Just $19.00.
802.11n Apple Video Express? Apple DVR with “instant-on” capability? Something else?
Related articles:
RUMOR: Apple to employ Intel’s ‘Robson’ NAND flash tech to create ‘instant-on’ Macs – November 22, 2005
Thurrott: ‘I’m super impressed with Apple’s iPod video, looks great blasted out to large TV set’ – October 28, 2005
PC Magazine review gives Apple’s new video-capable iPod 5 out of 5 stars – October 21, 2005
Apple’s video-capable iPod and iTunes are first vital link in new distribution paradigm – October 21, 2005
The Motley Fool: ‘Apple’s new video-enabled iPod is about to save the televised content industry’ – October 20, 2005
Forrester Research: Apple transformed music distribution, now it is doing the same for video – October 14, 2005
Cringely on Apple video experiment, future 802.11n Apple Video Express, Sony TVs in Apple stores – October 14, 2005
As I write this the stock is at 67.69. Apple is about changing the world.
Pay attention. They are just about to kick some major collective ass.
Lin’s prediction of a first-quarter 2006 introduction seems to have been out-of-butt pulled. But of course, we’ll see. Only God and Steve know for sure.
Who Am I to disagree…. LMAO
I’ll take 2.
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that ambitious article seemed a little too infatuated with the ambitious word ‘ambitious’, but perhaps this post is not ambitious enough to appreciate just how ambitious Microsoft’s ambitious plans really were.
Ambitious, ambitious, ambitious.
What “special media playing software” does the mac mini come with? The iMac has Front Row, but wasn’t introduced “earlier this year”, I mean technically it was earlier in the year than now but people tend to mean “early in the year” eg the first half of the year when they say something like that.
I just bought a new Dual G5 2.3, I purposely skipped getting the Airport/Bluetooth combo in anticipation of Apple releasing an AirPort Express/n at MacWorld. C’mon guys make my expectations come true.
Hmm, let me take a SWAG (scientific wild-ass guess) at it:
new Mac Mini with Intel inside and Frontrow software plus a dock for the Video iPod.
Doesn’t sound too far fetched to me.
I think the iMac and Front Row are big a hint.
It’s probably too late for my own ideas to go into an iMedia product, but here’s what I’d like to see:
A 1U form factor “pizza box”, styled like a Mac Mini on growth hormones, and an internal power supply. Front panel would include only a slot-loading Super Drive, plus hidden USB 2 and Firewire 800 connections
Dual-core Intel processor, 1 GB RAM standard
Internal 3-1/2″ form factor SATA drive and 2-3 RAM slots
Optional slot for digital (HD) TV tuner, with DVI and optical outputs on the back, and of course DVR recording capability and networked audio/video streaming
Built-in wireless and Bluetooth
Have I missed anything? Price it right and just try to keep up with demand!
.mac will offer TV programming information. Say bye bye to TiVo!
MacWorld 2006
Mac mini with Intel processor and instant-on cpapbility, wireless funcionality built in, Mac OS 10.4.4 released, Front Row included, TV tuner and DVR funcionality.
Not far fetched at all. The rumors are already talking about the first MacTel in January. 10.4.4 has already been seeded to developers. Mac mini is good to go, Front Row is already out with iMac users doing the Beta testing and you know Apple already has the wirless stuff ready and waiting. Now with the ability to buy video through iTunes, the only thing Apple is waiting on in Intel and the processors.
Perfect specs there Raymond. Would be a cool machine, but Apple would have to have compatability with cable and satelite systems. That’s the biggie, if you can’t access the digital feeds because of encoding then a Mac PVR isn’t going to be much use. Jobs mentioned that problem about sixmonths ago. Of course Apple may have worked out a deal with the major providers to allow this to happen. My comcast DVR digital tuner has a firewire port which can be used to control the unit remotely and capture video too. However the files are huge, so some real time compression into H264 would be needed. Price is another issue – I pay $60 a year to rent the DVR capability. Why pay $500 for an Apple solution in addition?
Don’t get me wrong I love the idea of an Apple PVR, but there are a lot of challenges involved in making this work.
When it comes to hard drive capacity, I contradict myself.
Airport Video Express with digital audio and video ports, using 802.11n or UWB for back-end network connection and IR for Apple Remote, running Front Row (minus DVDs) on its processor with 4 to 8 GB NAND flash memory for instant-on and instant-play via local audio and video caching, and an iPod dock connector.
Did I mention every technology that’s been highly-touted in the last 60 days?
There is nothing new in this story, just a rehash of old rumors.
Move on.
Raymond from DC
You missed the HDMI connector, and component connectors. DVI and HDMI give about the same “quality” picture capability, but HDMI has better distance as DVI is recommended for about 5 meters (about 15 feet) and HDMI is good to 15 meters (about 45 feet). You can always extend that distance of either using fiber optic cabling, or relays, but that gets very expensive. If you are using DVI and need 30 foot cable length to connect to your HD projector you will end up spending way more.
All that being said, I use component connectors from my DVD player, HD satellite receiver, and xBox with HD pack all going into my Kenwood home theater receiver, then on to my HD projector… 97″ widescreen HDTV rocks.
The Dude abides
All the ideas listed here are interresting but I still fail to see a market for all this. It may make great wiz-bang devices but just how would desktop type computers function to support TV type viewing? Yes you can watch movies on your computer but the experience watching TV vs on your Computer are different. Can you imagine navigating through folders to change the channel? You could probably get all the TiVo type controls in there but after that, what’s the point? Watch TV in any room, control from your garage, change channels while on the toilet? If it is just another TV controller I will be very disapointed, but I don’t see anything in current technology that is going to drastically change TV and Computer usage.
is completely in buyers’ own heads.
It’s a cool idea, but it was NO part of Apple’s plans for the Mini. What about the Mini says HT? Nothing but the small size. And the small size has plenty of other reasons.
The iPod dock? That only reveals that Apple has iPods in their thinking. No surprise there.
Apple may have home entertainment plans, but the Mini is not a clue to them.
iTunes 5 could be. AirPort Express could be…
This will be big, VERY big, bet another $5 on that share price with this one.
Clean, simple, stylish delivery of your home entertainment. Yessss. Go Apple!
You are correct, M.X.N.T.4.1.
The article is incorrect when it states:
“Some speculate that an early sign of Apple’s intentions was the Mac Mini, introduced earlier this year. The low-cost computer came complete with special media playing software. ‘The Mac Mini doesn’t really have the power to be a true video product,’ said Lin. ‘But you can see this where Apple would like to go.’ “
It was the iMac that came with this special software, and the iMac has the power to be a true video product, since it now comes with an iSight camera and remote control built into the box.
While the iMac is a great video product, it is not the media center to compete with Microsoft. A smaller version of the 1U XServe would be best, possibly called the xServe Mini. See my take here:
http://66.134.41.67/~ron/apple/index4.html
Some software features could include:
Single G5 – Dual G5 dual core range machines
1GB – 8 GB RAM range
ATI/nVidia video card
180GB – 500GB space
firewire/USB/bluetooth/DVI/HDMI
iPod dock
(keyboard and mouse sold separately)
Some software features could include:
Front Row and Photo Booth
iMediaStore (formerly iTunesMediaStore)
iChatAV
iMailAV (yes, believe it – Apple should buy the iMail moniker from ipswitch at whatever cost)
iLife
iWork
Nice take, Rasterbater. an xServe mini would revisit the historic product grid iBook/PowerBook, iMac/PowerMac, miniServ/xServe…
But you left out:
Gigabit-ethernet hub
802.11g WiFi Bast Station.
Sales of Macs are unlikely to go up at an astronomical rate in the near future. iPods are selling at a phenomenal rate, but even so, the various deals that Apple have struck for flash memory would appear to be substantially more than is needed for even the most optimistic projections of iPod and Macs sales in the near future.
So I feel that Apple must be stocking up for a new product. Something that needs low power consumption and instant access to loads of data. It will be compact and the market will be known to exist, otherwise that sort of quantity wouldn’t be needed. You could only shift that much product if the price were low, or if the product were given away free or at subsidised prices to some users. To my mind, the thing that best fits all of those points would be an iTunes phone to be launched in January.
I can’t remember if I read it on this site or on one of my news sites, but Kansai Electric of Japan (Their second largest power and electric/electronics conglomeration in Japan) recently announced they’d created a fiber-optic line capable of delivering 1 TBps. Note this is TBps instead of Tbps. (For those unfamiliar with the computer abbreviations they are talking terabyte per second instead of terabit, which is 1/8 the speed. Basically you can fill 4 of those nice 250 GB G5 drives in one second. Imagine Apple partnering with Sony to sell movies online and using this kinda transmission. Can someone say OMG? Not that that will work. Sony probably wouldn’t go for that and America is ever so slow to adopt new technology sometimes. Too much money involved with transitions. Too bad. Many corporations could cough up some money to switch to Apple hardware and they’d save loads on IT staffing. C’est la vie.
mmmm somebody said gigabit…