Apple's Digital Life
By Neil Dodds
13 October, 2005
Apple's latest batch of new products appears designed to bring the converged home media experience closer to reality.
At a press launch in California yesterday, Apple's boss Steve Jobs unveiled upgraded iMac home computers, iPods with video playing capability and an upgraded version of iTunes designed to sell short films, television shows and music videos online.
The three new products are linked by a new application called Front Row, which converts the iMac to into a home entertainment centre, capable of playing movies, music, photographs and downloaded television shows. An iPod-styled remote control with only six buttons, is included with the iMac, allows users to toggle between computing and Front Row functions.
Jobs described the triple launch as "the start of something really big", though he admitted that "the first step is the most difficult" in projects like this. Previously, he admitted being sceptical about potential public interest in watching television and film on small-screen devices and in 2002 he claimed that he didn't think the convergence between television and computing would happen.
Well, has it? The iMac G5 is a great computer and the latest additions to the product make it an even better choice for the home.
Apple has slimmed the screen down, added an iSight video camera for conferencing and upgraded both processing speed and graphics. Front Row brings the iMac's home multimedia player capabilities together with style and ease. In other words, if you want to watch home video, DVD, video podcasts, music videos and downloaded TV; play podcasts and iTunes music; and view slideshows of digital photographs all from the comfort of your armchair, the new iMac is for you. Apple now calls it "the centre of your digital life."
However, despite the fact that you can download episodes of "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" the day after they are broadcast, the iMac is not a television. Most people already own a television. In the immortal words of Joey from "Friends", "what do you point your furniture at?"
The iMac may be a slim and compact machine, but it is not light: Lugging it into place in front of the sofa, then putting it back on the office desk when the show is over (especially after a few beers) could be a fraught business. The alternative? Shifting the sofa around to face the mac, though it, presumably, would be on a higher office desk than would be useful for viewing.
Perhaps Apple is considering a Tivo-style box that will sit on top of the TV and allow content beamed from the iMac to be played on the TV. The next upgrade of its starter-edition Mac Mini could include such a facility.
More in tune with its minimalist approach could be an upgrade of the Airport Extreme wireless networking product, which could service video from desktop to television. This could be a next step. Indeed, Apple's deadly rival Microsoft already has TV capability available as part of its Media Center home entertainment strategy. It seems odd that Apple hasn't.
Another grumble could be that the videos sold over iTunes are slow to download and of a lower resolution than illegal copies available over pirate filesharing networks. Little, for now, can be done about download time: An hour long episode takes a good ten minutes to download, which is certainly quicker than a trip to the local DVD library (and quicker still than ordering DVDs for rental in the post, via Netflix for example). Faster downloads will be with us before too long.
As for resolution, the pixels per inch level are not far off those for a regular TV or DVD. High Definition TV is a different matter, and one we expect Apple will address as download speed improves. In any case, Apple sees iPods as being the main target for music clips and video.
The new iPod launches as the market for handheld video players heats up: Sony's Portable Playstation (PSP) has just hit the shelves, and it priced at around the same level as the new iPod. In addition to its large library of games, the PSP can play music files (though far fewer than the iPod), store photos, play movies from minidisc and even surf the Internet in wireless zones. Its screen is larger than the iPod's, and it's also one of the few products to approach Apple for looks.
The PSP doesn't pretend to be the core of a home media set-up, though as one of Sony's flagship products it is likely that it will be pushed as a key part of any interactive home. One shouldn't forget that Sony is a content company, too, though it has been unable to fully exploit this potential edge to date.
Apple's first video content deals were with Pixar, the animation studio that Steve Jobs is heavily involved with, and Disney, which owns ABC, the broadcaster behind Lost and Desperate Housewives. Doubtless more will follow.
So, it looks that we're at the early stages of those converged, digital homes we were promised last century. Microsoft is a little ahead of Apple on this front, but as Steve Jobs was eager to point out during yesterday's presentation, Apple has bragging rights on ease-of-use. The remote control handsets produced for Windows Media Center have 45+ buttons. Apple's has six.
In the summer we reported that bringing the digital revolution to your home might require the services of a "Digital Plumber" able to sort out which wire and plug goes where. Apple's aim is to make the technology easy.
|
 Printer friendly version
 Email this article to a friend
Related articles:
|
