Normally I don’t pay too much attention to Apple’s press events; I’ve never been a Mac user (there goes my geek cred). I do have an older 40gb iPod, however, and I’ve been thinking about getting a Nano. I’ve also been thinking about digital media. With that in mind, I paid attention to the announcements today. First things first, I’ve ordered an 8gb Nano. I’m not thrilled with the iPod-mini looks of the new Nano, but that wasn’t enough to deter me from ordering. I also upgraded my copy of iTunes to the new version. What was interesting to me is that Apple insists on an iTunes account if you want to take advantage of the new album art feature. This is very smart. It’s a good way for Apple to increase iTunes accounts, which benefits Apple in several ways.
I was also interested in the iTv announcement. I recently cancelled my Netflix account because I never watched the DVDs. A set of DVDs I had added to my queue months before would sit around for a couple of months until I felt guilty and returned them (causing another set to be delivered, which would then sit unwatched, etc). People want instant gratification, and that’s a problem with Netflix. If the iTv device works as promised, I’ll be one of the first in line to buy one. With one caveat; Apple needs a rental option. One other thought I had was that if and when iTv (or something like it) becomes popular, expect to see video podcasts to expand and become much more mainstream. And that could be very interesting.
Today’s Apple Announcements
September 12, 2006 by MarkF
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3 Responses
I’ve been pre-sold on anything Apple wants to top my TV with for at least three years now. This long tease for the iTV has robbed me of all my critical faculties. You mean, I can *actually buy one* in knowable time? Where’s my credit card?
movielink.com already has a movie rental business where you can download the movie when you want to watch. (instant gratification that you talk about). The only problem is that the catalog of movies available for download is not large.
I am not a huge AAPL fan b’cos of their closed system approach. They tried it with MAC and it didn’t work. now they are trying with IPOD. that will also meet the same fate..
I have waited many years for the introduction of a demand driven movie system, which would be available over the Internet for some time.
The cable companies in the UK have been pushing thier “on-demand” service as thier unique selling point for a while now and are being relitively successful with this offering. The real shame for me is I do not want to pay a monthly subscription for a service that I would use on a very infrquent basis.
What we need a pay-per-view on-demand semi-streaming video system.
This would give you the ability to select the content you wanted, when you wanted, while retaining the pause (TiVo) type features. The streaming aspect should help take care of the quality issues and the instant gratification questions.
Any takers ???