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New Mac Stuff

September 13th, 2006

Several Sites are streaming the new Mac announcements live. Best is Engadget, who give the most information and have good-quality photos up very quickly. So far:

New iPods, not the full-screen video we’ve been waiting for, but upgraded regular video iPods. They come in 30GB and 80GB sizes (priced $250 & $350 respectively); they have brighter, better screens, a search function, and downloadable games like Pac-Man for $5 each.

iPod Nanos, in brushed aluminum colors (Blue, Pink, Green, Silver, and Black), in 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB sizes.

iPod Shuffle, in new, tiny aluminum case (matchbook sized!) which itself is a clip-on, a small clock & controls, 1GB memory, $80.

iTunes: going to version 7; videos increase in size from 320×240 to 640×480 (near NTSC-size resolution; should play back on TV rather well). New organization for layout. The “iTunes Music Store” (iTMS) is now just the “iTunes Store” (iTS).

Movie Downloads (as expected): $10 for most movies, $13 for new movies until the end of the first week of sales, $15 for new titles after that. Also at 640×480 resolution, “near DVD-quality.” 75 titles to begin with, from Disney-owned studios (Walt Disney, Pixar, Touchstone, Miramax). Dolby surround audio. Takes about 30 minutes to download a movie, but you can start watching immediately. Initial sales from U.S. store only; international sales start in 2007 (hopefully).

Media Box: codenamed “iTV” (not the final name), a set-top media box connecting wirelessly between a Mac or a PC (via iTunes, apparently) and the TV set/media system. To be released in early 2007. Also has ethernet, USB, RCA, optical audio, HDMI ports. Allows you to play downloaded TV/movies, other Internet video media. Priced at $300. Cobbled-together photos from Engadget feed below:

0906Itv

My reaction: well, OK. We expected the movie downloads. The new hi-res download standard is good, but they kind of had to do that to make people pay $15 for a downloaded movie. Sounds like the DRM will be reasonable, and maybe with the TV playback, the inability to burn it to a DVD won’t be such a problem.

The media box looks nice, but I’m going to have to see what it really does before I get excited about it. I mean, you can hook up your Mac desktop or laptop to your TV right now and watch video played back from the computer. How does “iTV” change that? Why pay $300 when a $20 cable could do the same thing? OK, iTV looks like it has a very nice interface. Wireless is nice too. But what else? If it just pipes video, I really don’t see the point.

OK, the Apple web site is back up, along with the Apple Store. The iTunes Store is still down, at least for me.

Gotta get to bed. This time zone thing kills me on these events…

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  1. September 13th, 2006 at 07:07 | #1

    How can you do it from a standard laptop? I have no S-Video out and I’m trying to figure it out.

    (p.s. – I stole your combined iTV image, but gave credit. Mine would have looked just the same, so was no point in my recreating the wheel:-p)

  2. rock_headed_inlaw
    September 13th, 2006 at 08:35 | #2

    I think the movie download box is a really big
    deal, if they pull it off. Reason:
    The holy grail of movie-tv-digital-broad band
    is movies-tv, on demand, WITHOUT having to
    monkey around with cables, computers ect.
    Its a pain to have to lug around your laptop
    to host these things, with TV if its not SUPER
    convenient it wont fly. (at least for us fat,
    lazy americans )

    True, there are versions of this now, with replaytv/tivo
    and the comcast dvr boxes, but they have the shortcomings
    of a small selection of movies, from a limited studio.

    Apples thing, if it has the success that the ipod had
    is that they will get all the content providers to
    sign up with them, which is the same as what made
    the ipod so successful with music.

    The consequences of this
    -HUGE demand on broadband services- a 2 hour movie
    will take 30 min to download over a 5mbs line.
    Time to buy stock in cisco? comcast?
    DSL lines are not gonna cut it.
    and shared network topologies wont like it either.

    -Death to netflix, blockbuster
    -Tivo, replaytv might have a hard time
    -More big demand on the hard drive manufactuerers?

  3. Luis
    September 13th, 2006 at 10:24 | #3

    Sean: Note that I said “Mac” laptop, not “standard.” Though most PC laptops also have either S-Video or RCA videeo out ports. If you don’t, then a VGA-to-RCA converter (a bit more expensive, maybe $50?) is required.

    rock_headed_inlaw: I’d love to believe that, but not at the price point of $2 per TV episode and $10-15 per movie; you can TiVo for free and Netflix is lots cheaper (though not to own). Maybe I still don’t understand how the box works–will it allow the Mac to record stuff from TV/satellite and keep it on a Mac hard drive? There must be more to this box that I’m just not getting yet.

  4. September 13th, 2006 at 10:34 | #4

    Luis,

    I finally figured out I have an s-video out on my laptop. Due to where it was, all this time I thought it was a serial port *cough*. No one ever said I was quick. ANYWHO, yes, seeing AVIs on the TV now. Not sure what purpose “iTV” will serve to warrant that price.

  5. rock_headed_inlaw
    September 13th, 2006 at 13:31 | #5

    Yah, I was speculating with some co-workers
    about the price points that were picked, we
    would think that a ‘rental’ price ought to
    get involved: something like > than the block buster
    price for first run movies, but less than the purchase
    price, and you get to watch it 4 times or so.

    I agree I think the tivo/replays have got the tv
    market sown up, this thing is about movies.

    15$ for a first run movie? Might still be competitive,
    With that you get
    -on demand, no waiting for netflix, which has
    LONG waits sometimes
    -no driving to block buster, saves me half a
    gallon of gas, and 30 minutes of driving, and
    20 minutes of wandering around block bustter,
    and DANG they dont have the movie anyways
    and then I have to take the movie BACK too.
    -no late fees, which i always used to pay
    -no with me at BB trying to get me to buy them
    junk food, and rent the Sponge Bob movie AGAIN.

    suddenly 15$ doesn’t look so bad, if i add up the
    real cost.

    But I watch movies less than 1 per week, and only
    watch DailyColbertio on a regular basis.

    -r

  6. Paul
    September 14th, 2006 at 11:15 | #6

    I’m not really understanding the entire strategy here either. Netflix and Blockbuster’s online/snail mail rental market lets you get movies for way less per movie than any announced download solution, plus you can watch the thing as many times as you want before you send it back- and if you want to watch it again later, you just pop it into your queue and they send it to you again.

    The iTV box itself does seem to incorporate pretty much everything that you want in the “hub” to sit next to your TV, but other companies have similar such boxes already out there and for as much or less. For example, when I put allt the wiring for my plasma into my wall, I included an ethernet cable; during my next remodeling, when I put in some A/C, I’ll pull that cable down to my computer and then have the link I need for mp3’s, videos, etc to play in the living room. (Steel studs in the walls make wireless impractical in my place.)

    Anyway, this doesn’t seem to be quite the blockbuster move that Apple might have been hoping for. Although, knowing them, the box should work fairly well right out of the box (so to speak) and be well-designed; that alone, plus the cool factor, might let them sell quite a few of the things.

    But the whole “download movies” bit just doesn’t excite me that much for whatever reason. Maybe if there were a videoPod equivalent of the iPod it’d be different.

    Paul
    Beijing, China (for a few more days)

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