Apple has announced that Paul McCartney will be advertise his Modern album , Kisses on the Bottom , with a live TV streamon Thursday , February 9 , at 7 p.m. Pacific . The performance , at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles , will be available on iTunes on Mac and PC , as well as by take the iTunes resilient selection from the net carte du jour on the second - generation Apple goggle box .
As exciting as that is for sports fan of Paul McCartney , Apple ’s cyclosis of a resilient result is more substantial when viewed against the backdrop of the current , evolve state of television and film delivery . It could also be a precursor of things to come .
Apple has antecedently served up flow of its own immensely popular keynote annunciation , so this is n’t exactly the company ’s first raid into the realm of live video . But with content such as a popular music concert , the company is appealing to a more mainstream audience . And it ’s not alone : Plenty of larger medium organization are getting into the streaming video act . Earlier this week,2.1 million people watch the Super Bowl live online , includingon their Apple devices .
Being able-bodied to reliably assist a huge audience with mellow quality springy current continue one of the net frontiers in Internet broadcasting . Traditional broadcasting is easy by compare : A exclusive point of transmission can accomplish an outright number of TV audience within ambit of a TV contagion tower , with a clear view of a satellite , or via the omnipresent coax and cop lines that get in touch our menage to cable length and phone providers . By line , pour live issue require extremely complex burden - balancing across many server in multiple geographic localization , not to mention lots of bandwidth . Many program engineers insist that it ’s more hard and more expensive to stream unrecorded video than via traditional means .
These challenges , and the limitation they lay on determine live events , is felt all too keenly by “ cord - cutting ” consumer who have cancelled their cable or planet television subscriptions in favor of purchase boob tube display and movies à la menu in iTunes , using on - requirement service like Netflix and Hulu , or some combination of the two . For many , turn out the corduroy still necessitates the leverage of a traditional antenna so as to observe live broadcasts on major mesh and public television system . And that ’s usually in addition to some sort of set - top box , whether it be an Apple TV , Roku , Xbox 360 , or some other gimmick .
In this announcement , Apple also potentially drops a subtle but important clue regarding succeeding design for springy broadcasts , and for Apple TV in general : The company ’s directions say to select iTunes Live from the Internet carte on Apple TV , but that pick does n’t currently come along . meld with last week ’s coming into court of Genius features for movies and video show on the Apple TV ( sans software update ) , it seems clear that Apple has the ability to dynamically enable or disable functionality on the Apple TV without the need for user interposition . It ’s potential that Apple will tote up more “ channels ” to Apple TV in the future , as take , or , at the very least , that the company will host more live events in the future .
So , whether or not Paul McCartney is your loving cup of tea , streaming events like this performance — and , in picky , serving that stream to Apple boob tube possessor — are inching us ever nearer to the goal of enjoying all of our video content , whether it be enter or experience , using only an net connection .
