In this very space a week ago , I pen the chase :
So now we have Apple ’s response : How ’s about a set - top box that ’s also an AirPort Express - like streaming twist ?
basically , that ’s what Apple ’s iTV paradigm is — a sliver of a Mac mini that plugs into your television set set and uses 802.11 wireless networking to pull motion-picture show , music , pic slideshows , and other multimedia from your Mac . For $ 299 , you have what ’s boast as a quick - and - well-to-do way to get all thosefull - length motion picture downloads you ’re sure to purchase from the iTunes Storeonto your flat - screen TV set .
Or , to be more accurate , you ’ll have that quick - and - sluttish wayone twenty-four hours , once the iTV really begins ship — which it ’s slated to do sometime in the first three months of 2007 .
For that rationality , it ’s hard to say with much certitude how well the product presently know as iTV will deliver what it foretell . If you watchSteve Jobs demonstrating the product , it certainly seems like it ’s a snatch to set up and use . It ’s produce the requisite video connectors — HDMI , for connecting to those fresh - fangled high - definition TVs , as well as constituent video for aged sets — and analogue and ocular audio ports that incorporate iTV into your base theatre / stereo constellation . “ Whatever kind of set - up you ’ve got , iTV works , ” Jobs said during last week ’s press effect .
Well , hopefully . No one can really say for sure until they ’ve laid paw on the twist . For instance , I ’ve got a TV that ’s well into its 2d decade of close service , so I ’ll be very concerned to see how well iTV handles a objet d’art of equipment that dates back to the early age of the Clinton disposal . Also nag my brain : What will performance be like as a film streams from my Mac to the iTV to the TV Seth ? Will it be whole uninterrupted , or will it bumble and pause ? And what if I decide to skip on my Web web internet browser and lead over toIMDBto confirm that , yes , that really is a youngish Billy Bob Thornton as the hot - head faro player inTombstone — is the add mesh traffic move to make my movie to grind to a noticeable stay ? These are the questions that will ask to be answer four to six month from now , once iTV — ship with an entirely new name — make water its introduction .
So why announce it now ? This is an unusual move for Apple , a company that buy the farm to great length to check that that the first sentence you hear about a newfangled product is in that fraction of a 2d just after the newsworthiness entrust Steve Jobs ’ rim and just before the boxful arrives on retail shelf . What ’s important about iTV that requires Apple to tell us about several months in advance ?
There are two reason , near as I can figure , one practical and the other philosophical . The virtual reason is that when you ’re putting together a product that involve wirelessly streaming media , you ’re going to need to get regulatory approval from theappropriate government bodies . That process is fair public , meaning that anyone with enough time on his or her hands could prod up the relevant filings and scoop Apple on its own merchandise announcement . Thus , Apple choose to scoop itself .
As for the philosophic reason , I think Steve Jobs anticipated that lend picture downloads to the iTunes Store would bring up more questions than it suffice , with the most common enquiry being , “ So I can watch these on my estimator and my iPod and that ’s it ? ” Pre - announcing iTV allows Apple to respond to that question — not completely , but enough for us to see that the troupe has some grander imaginativeness in mind . I can the idea of an iTunes pic renting service back when that rumor was float around for reasons far too varied to get into here , but one of my chief complaints was that I would rather own , not split , my multimedia . And I ’m far more inclined to own a digital version of a full - distance movie if I know there ’s some way to get it on my telecasting set in the works .
Apple clearly has more than movie downloads and iTV in psyche — Jobs say at least double during last calendar week ’s press event that he hoped the product announcements would give people “ an theme of where we ’re going . ” And , as noted above , there are still mass of question to answer about the things that Applehasannounced . Still , if last hebdomad ’s product unveiling were intended to give us an idea of where Apple plans to take us , you have to like the initial direction the company has set .
