By SteveJack
I’ve been testing Apple’s Front Row software for over a week now. It’s a deceptively simple application. It works in its own environment, just like Mac OS X Tiger’s Dashboard. When launched, Front Row very nicely zooms your Mac away, while fading it out, and fades in Front Row’s main screen which consists of four choices: Photos, DVD, Videos, and Music in a “3-D” ring you through which you can cycle. Leaving Front Row slowly spins theses choices and your Mac fades up from the foreground. Very nice.
The brilliance of Front Row is its simplicity. Front Row is basically an application launcher and interface control replacement for existing Macintosh media applications. Choose “DVD” in Front Row and your Mac uses DVD Player in the background. “Photos” uses iPhoto. “Music” uses iTunes. “Videos” uses iTunes and QuickTime. Front Row is basically a large display control center for your Mac’s media, so you can use a remote from across the room to control your Mac and still be able to see the controls. You step through screens to access and control media very much like you do with Apple’s iPod.
Right now, Front Row’s Music section lets you control iTunes music and playlists, Photos lets you view slideshows from your iPhoto library, complete with transitions and music, Videos lets you watch and control home movies, music videos, movie trailers, and more, and DVD lets you watch and control whatever DVD you pop into your Mac’s DVD drive.
Because Front Row is so simple and relies on existing applications to do the heavy lifting, it’s not hard to imagine how quickly its capacities can grow. If Apple decided to offer a TV Tuner application and/or a personal video recorder (PVR) TiVo-like application, for example, it could easily be integrated into Front Row’s controls. All of those extra buttons that are on Microsoft Media Center remote controls would be software based and controlled on-screen with Apple’s simple 6-button Apple Remote.
Front Row holds a world of promise. It works very well already. I predict Front Row will soon boast even more features and spread to all Mac products. We already know it works on other Mac models. A key to Front Row’s growth will be a wireless Airport Express that’s capable of transmitting video and audio from the media on your Mac to screens throughout your house. Apple’s probably planning to offer such a device that also allows display of the Front Row interface on whichever screen you’re watching and maybe also a small receiver for the remote that you can place near each screen; better yet, they’d be combined into one unit. That way, you’d just have an Apple Remote in each room with a screen, press the Menu button, bring up your Mac’s Front Row interface on the screen and choose your media.
The next generation of Wi-Fi, 802.11n, will help usher in the pieces Apple need to make your Mac a true digital hub. Apple has much more work to do to make this all possible. Many, many questions remain, such as: will this setup be able to play multiple video streams simultaneously to different rooms? If your Mac can record media, can it do it while playing multiple streams to multiple screens? Will Apple allow you to record TV or do they want you to buy it from iTunes? Would Apple consider a flat monthly subscription rate for TV shows, like cable / satellite TV, so you can watch whatever programs whenever you want without having to buy them? If so, wouldn’t they be recordable and therefore subject to piracy? What role could iPod play in all this? I’m sure you can think of many more!
What I’m thinking of right now is a Mac with a large hard drive (and external drives) in one room that contains all of your media. Airport Video Express units would be near every screen upon which you control and play your Mac’s media. Front Row would display on each screen and an Apple Remote would be in each room with a screen. This seems to be the most efficient way to arrive at a true Mac digital hub. It beats an idea such as a more expensive Mac Front Row Tablet that you’d carry around to each room and use as the combo Apple Remote+Front Row display. It certainly beats buying an iMac G5 for each room with a screen in your house. What if Apple could do something like a Newton form factor that would be cheap enough to buy for each room? What if Apple simply made an iPod accessory that allowed you to use the iPod as the Front Row remote? See, there are some more questions already!
Front Row is an important piece in Apple’s future digital hub plans, but it raises many questions. What do you think Apple will or should do to complete the true digital hub?
SteveJack is a long-time Macintosh user, web designer, multimedia producer and a regular contributor to the MacDailyNews and iPodDailyNews Opinion sections.
Advertisement: The New iMac G5 – Built-in iSight camera and remote control with Front Row media experience. From $1299. Free shipping.
Related articles:
Apple’s Front Row hits torrent sites, video showing application running on Mac mini – October 25, 2005
Analyst: ‘media companies will call Apple to strike deals, Front Row is Media Center done right’ – October 12, 2005
NY Times’ Pogue: Apple’s iMac G5 with sleek, virus-free, spyware-free OS earns place in living room – October 20, 2005
Apple’s new iMac G5, iTunes 6, iPod video designed to bait Hollywood – October 13, 2005
Apple’s Front Row with Apple Remote and iMac G5: media center done right – October 12, 2005
Apple introduces new thinner iMac G5 with built-in iSight video camera, ‘Front Row’ media experience – October 12, 2005
Apple’s Front Row with Apple Remote and iMac G5: media center done right – October 12, 2005
Apple pushes for next-gen 600Mbps Wi-Fi standard as member of Enhanced Wireless Consortium – October 10, 2005
and it works on other hardware too!!
I’m very impressed by the new front row features but I just bought a new imac about 6 months ago, so I’m not about to splash out on a new imac so soon. It would be great if Apple could somehow make this available to existing macs. OK, so we won’t have the remote control, but surely the software side of it could be incorporated into the next system update.
I sure it would even be possible to make a remote receiver that plugs into a USB port similar to the way the PS2 works – I think it would sell.
I think Front Row and Photobooth will be part of iLife `06. I have them on my TIBook 867mhz, and they work good. There are many other people use them on their Macs and it is proof that iLife `06 will be a great add on to our already great Apple arsenal.
I feel that Apple should have the scroll wheel on the remote control rather than the buttons. As an engineer, I understand that is difficult to mimic the behavior of scroll wheel when used as a remote, but that definitely would be a plus.
You can simply eliminiate the need to punch in the channel number, but can simply scroll to the channel that you want. Leave it there for a second, and it switches to the channel. That would remove the cluttering on the remote greatly.
The could simply remove the display from the current line of iPod nano and use it as a remote control. It has 5 buttons and will work simply great!
What Apple is doing is brilliant. It’s obvious to see what it has down the road. A true Mac-based media server in the home would just about kill any existing and future Windows Media Center. Front Row coupled with the 802.11n and the latest and greatest Mac hardware is a true killer app poised to revolutionize home entertainment.
There’s been a lot of discussion about making Front Row available for purchase for use on other Macs. I’m guessing Apple’s not in a hurry to do this because at the moment, it’s an important point of difference between the new and older versions of the iMac. Why buy a new iMac if you can buy Front Row (and Photo Booth)?
Apple needs to make iPhoto and iTunes more network centric, then I could see a Mac mini in every room of the house running Front Row. Apple NEEDS to make it easy to store photos and music in a central location, not on each computer. Sharing your tunes and photos is not the same as storing them in one location.
What Apple needs now is an Xserve RAID like device for the home.
“There’s been a lot of discussion about making Front Row available for purchase for use on other Macs. I’m guessing Apple’s not in a hurry to do this because at the moment, it’s an important point of difference between the new and older versions of the iMac. Why buy a new iMac if you can buy Front Row (and Photo Booth)?”
Good point Gog – but perhaps as a Cem suggests, it’ll be part of iLife 06.
I’d buy it!
I am not sure I like the name “Front Row” reminds me too much of “Front Page.”
Despite all the hype, I really don’t see this going anyway fast.
Unless you have a 30″ screen, a black box that pretends it’s a HDCP TV and outputs to a EyeTV 500 from a cable box; a easy high res output (not this 600 x400 garbage) for a projector, this is all a complete utter WASTE OF TIME.
Sure the new MacTels will have the HDCP encrypted chip, and possibly a cable in connection, with a special DRM going to Apple’s monitors, (in essence a Mac will be a HDCP compliant HDTV) but right now nothing, and the little 17-20 inch screen is not worth watching across the room.
Reminds me of…
“Front Seat”
or “Front Space”
or “Front Tooth”
or “Front Room”
or “Front before Back”
or “Front Line”
In true Apple fasion, this brilliant product is just one small (albeit important) step toward another, larger goal. Just like the progression of the iLife product introductions over time, and their subsequent incremental improvements, this application startles new users with its brilliant simplicity and ease of use. Once users become accustomed to said simplicity and sleekness, they are left wondering what more could be done so wonderfully. Just when we run out of ideas of how things could be better, Steve-O pops in with one more thing…
And the M$ world is left in the “Back Row,” drooling and saying, “We could do that.” In fact, they could, but they over-analyze and overload their products with too many “features,” trying to be all things to all people. They fail to appreciate simplicity and elegance. That is why Apple will continue to grow to multi-media and digital-hub stardom, and the goons in Redmond will work toward eventual obsolescence. They just don’t get it.
Front Row is obviously a technology that will achieve its full potential once the following happen:
There is a connection to the TV (i.e. Airport Express with video or a set top box)
More content to buy or perhaps rent
Faster broadband speeds (like WiMax)
2006 should be very interesting
Some of you guys kill me with your….
“If it doesn’t have (insert super geeky thing that almost no uses) then it’s useless!”
Apple will probably slap this app onto a MacMini with an instant-on Intel chip, make the RAM non-upgradeable, replace the recordable drives with a DVD play-only drive, add some composite outs to the DVI port and market this as the ultimate media device come January.
I agree that streaming will come at the same time. And, I’m betting they’ll stick an iPod dock in it as well.
The won’t market it as a “real” Mac (and maybe they will cripple it in some way so that it really isn’t), but instead as an Apple media solution.
The price will come in at the same or lower than the current Mac Mini and they throw in IR and an Apple Remote.
They *will not* include a PVR because that is how they will make the deals with content providers: “We’re not going to fuck you like MS did with media centers. Sign up with us and you can have folks buy your content through iHome.” Or whatever they call it.
And it will sell…like…crack.
As both Gog suggests and Kinghorn affirms I too think Front Row & Photo Booth will be part of iLife 06.
With that I also think that version 2 or 3 of Front Row and Photo Booth will be a part of Leopard (OS 10.5) as standard.
This would mean that iLife 06 is to introduce users and switchers to the concept of what these apps provide for a Mac based media hub. Or in other words set the market for this type of service as (I think) Phil Schiller said that Apple has to create this market for watching videos* via a computer and the video iPod is just the beginning – obviously!
As for allowing functions like a PVR or TiVO, that is all well and good in the USA, however over here in the UK all the more popular channels are on satellite as part of Sky TV which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. He also ownes Fox TV over there.
Sky TV is proprietry and encrypted even goes as far as making life very difficult for Elgato’s products. I was at an Expo for Mac users recently and I spoke with the rep from Elgato, only the 200 model comes close to what a Mac based PVR should be, but the picture quality is poor being the signal is composite instead of component. The choice of channels is limited to the few that are ‘free to air’**. The 200 does have S-VHS – but this too is poor quality, even the Elgato rep admitted that much.
I am still not yet convinced that like with Elgato, Apple will figure out how to defeat that brick wall for allowing Mac users the ability to view the output from the Sky set top box on another separate device – a Mac in another room in the home/office.
Maybe this is the same for services like DirecTV over there, any responses to that fact please?
Honestly I would love to be able to watch a major sporting event or movie on my Mac even to record on my Mac and watch later or burn to a DVD – which raises all sorts of questions Steve Jack raises in the above article.
At least then I can ditch a separate TV and DVD player for a computer to do all of that – what bliss! Still output to a home cinema surround sound system since this is another issue.
*By videos I include DVD’s, TV Shows and bought for downloads of movies & shows. ** The free to air services here are the BBC channels, none of the Discovery or MTV (not missing much there), National Geographic and all the movie channels to include pay per view, kids stuff and all sports channels.
MDN Word: ‘law’ as in this case the law concerning what is piracy and how it can be distinguished from legally bought sources will have to be addressed and changes maybe needed before we all can enjoy any kind of media on one device of our choice, be it Apple or any other.
“What do you think Apple will or should do to complete the true digital hub?”
Here’s a crazy idea: Open it up to third-parties.
Why not have El Gato do a plug-in for TV? They can create the hardware to work with CableCard, etc. Perhaps Delicious Monster could do an interesting plug in with Delicious Library? Maybe a web browser plug-in (Yes, I know, I don’t want to surf the web on my TV, either).
Yeah, I know. Crazy idea. Apple must remain in control.
Quote>
“I feel that Apple should have the scroll wheel on the remote control rather than the buttons. As an engineer, I understand that is difficult to mimic the behavior of scroll wheel when used as a remote, but that definitely would be a plus.
You can simply eliminiate the need to punch in the channel number, but can simply scroll to the channel that you want. Leave it there for a second, and it switches to the channel. That would remove the cluttering on the remote greatly.
The could simply remove the display from the current line of iPod nano and use it as a remote control. It has 5 buttons and will work simply great!”
</quote
That’s what they do…. check the site before you write.
Apple likely won’t include Front Row on the Mac mini anytime soon because it’s a G4, and Front Row likely requires a G5 to properly display its movement, fades, etc. Plus, you need a G5 for proper h.264 video playback.
apple should put front row on keynote and on the G5´s
Hello Apple/Steve Jobs, you have my undivided attention.
I have been using my TiVo Series 1 unit for 5 years now and I’m worried that it will die of old age soon. I was thinking about purchasing a TiVo Series 2 unit, but I see that its hardware is underpowered, causing the Networking/TiVoToGo features to function at less than what I call optimal speeds. For years TiVo Corp has been focused on staying afloat rather than additionally delivering customer requested enhancements in a timely and quality fashion. As such, I have no further interest until TiVo Series 3 units are available – and they better deliver the goods. Stay tuned for their new smoke and mirror vaporware announcement at the CES 2006 show in January. Last year it was Tahiti and NetFlix!
I’ve built a Microsoft Media Center 2005 PC and I’m actually surprised that it can’t do some of the things my 5 year old TiVo can do. I was hoping that Microsoft would fix some of these issues in MCE 2005 with their recently released “Update Rollup 2”, but no dice. They added junk I could care less about. Oh, but it integrates with XBOX 360 Actually, I do like some things about MCE 2005. I’ve started to do most of my recording with MCE 2005 instead of my TiVo Series 1 simply because I can automatically convert shows from DVR-MS to iPod video format, add them to my iTunes library, and even copy them to my iPod right from the MCE interface using an inexpensive 3rd party add-on. With a TiVo Series 2, I would have to endure a glacial and underpowered TiVo to PC transfer, and then manually transcode the file to iPod video format.
Apple, I’m already paying for cable and I have 2 DVRs, so I won’t be purchasing an episode of Lost or Desperate Housewives from the ITMS. If you’re thinking about selling shows just so I can get them on my iPod, forget about it. I already have the shows on my DVR. What you can sell me is a better DVR than TiVo Series 2 and MCE 2005 with full iPod integration. You’re also going to need CableCard support. I ventured into the Apple Store to see Front Row. Without the missing DVR functionality, I’m not interested. For now, I’m making do until a better and integrated home-networked digital media solution comes around. Will it be TiVo Series 3, Windows Vista MCE, or Apple FrontRow version 2?
Apple, you have my undivided attention. I know you’ve got something up your sleeve. I’m waiting……
Cheers,
ITG
I’ve had a Mac Mini connected to my 53″ Sony (rear projection) TV since the mini came out. I use the DVI to S video adaptor (an Apple accessory). My mini is connected to a 400GB firewire drive to hold my DVD library. The Apple wireless keyboard and mouse is sitting across the room on the coffee table and surfing the web for short periods on the TV is great (much better than commercials).
I’ve been ripping my DVD collection in the basement on a G5 and passing the files to the mini (up in the family room) via ethernet. Everyone who has seen the system in action is amazed. The picture quality is quite good, easily the equal of my Panasonic DVD player (after you visit the System Preferences Monitor Control Panel and select “NTSC TV” for the correct gamma and brightness). Unfortunately the system does not remember this TV setting and requires a reset whenever the Mac Mini is powered up (that’s the biggest aggravation about the system).
The Mini on the upstairs Sony big screen TV has no problem playing the videos from the hard disk on the G5 (in the basement) across a wired ethernet connection – no glitches at all. The drawback to playing video across the network is that the G5 in the basement must be ON and sharing across the network to make the DVD content available to the Mac Mini in the family room. The 400GB firewire hard disk gave the Mac Mini plenty of capacity.
My wireless network is only 802.11b (11mbps) which is not fast enough to play DVD content without wires although it does work in 6 second bursts.
I think the whole Front Row thing by Apple is a test balloon to see if people will buy videos and to see if college students will buy iMacs to use as Media Centers in crowded college dorm (or sorority) rooms. A 20″ iMac from 6 feet away provides a pretty darned good viewing experience for DVD content.
HD is a pipedream. It is stillborn. Everyone who is complaining about Apple iPod video compression is part of the 3% who care about quality. Manufacturers are going to have to give away HD features to drive volume consumer purchases. Average consumers don’t care about real delivered quality – most don’t care about sound quality or picture quality, otherwise MP3 would not be so popular, Beta VCR technology would have whooped VHS and the blocky Mpeg2 artifacts of DVD would be unacceptable. Should I even mention the fact that most people who buy 16×9 TV monitors stretch the 4×3 aspect ratio of their standard content to fill the screen (causing everybody in the picture to gain about 17 pounds in visual weight due to the distorted width-stretched image).
My Mac Mini playing on a standard definition Sony big screen TV looks way better than the stretched aspect ratio distortion rendered on 16×9 plasma monitors.
I think it’s great that Apple is finally opening the door to delivering more content on our TV screens and in our coat pockets via iPod.
Go Apple. Go Apple.
There is so much I want to state here on this subject but it will a very long message that is hard to read here anyhow.
For us here in the UK full Front Row functionality will have to overcome many hurdles before becoming a reality, not just in terms of technology but legal and logistical hurdles as well.
Our only DVR service is Sky’s own set top box called Sky Plus and even with that it is hard to copy recorded material off directly onto any computer without losing quality. The connections are only in composite and are not that good, being in effect a digital to analogue conversion in the process, yes it is possible via a DVD Recorder like in a hi-fi set up a separate device.
Our fully digital component output is SCART and as yet I have not heard nor seen a computer hooked up to that directly and only the above DVD-R can connect to it. Sure that would change if our set top box in any forms had DVI outputs, then and then only will this allow for computers to hook up to it.
There that is my summary – sort of.
Macs King,
I agree that HD is still born. It’s crazy. My sister’s family and my sister-in-law’s both have big wide screen content that they stretch 4:3 to fill the screen. Drives me crazy but they don’t care. What a lot of people here don’t understand is the average person doesn’t care about quality. The dvd is not successful because of it’s quality (though that helped get it going) and cd’s are not successful because of their quality. There’re successful because they’re more convenient. No rewinding!! Convenience is what makes the iTunes store successful. Hd broadcasting is a pipe dream. The standard will most often be used to broadcast more channels of SD content so people can more crap not to watch. I don’t think that the video content is going to take off on the iTunes store, even though it is convenient. It’s just that, unlike music, most people don’t want to own video content, they just want to rent it. I have about 30 dvds and I never watch most of them. Free video podcasts are a different animal though. Video on demand from cable is nice, and if more content was available, that would put dvd rental stores out of business.
Macs King – I like the sound of your setup, I’ll take notes if you don’t mind, ty.
With HD I don’t think is quite dead yet as the format war between Blue-Ray and HD-DVD is not yet over, once that has been cleared up then HD will become a reality in whatever end product form factor it will take.
You see HDTV gives everyone greater freedom from differing TV system formats. Meaning that no longer will it be necessary to convert from PAL (Europe and other parts of the world) to NTSC (North, Central and South America including adjacent island countries) or vice versa as just like miniDV, HDTV is universal.
The differences in currently used TV systems was born out of the differing voltages being offered in each country. Those that chose the 110/15v, Americas use NTSC and those that are 240/60v, most of Europe use PAL. NTSC or National Television Standards Comittee, they are behind shows such as NAB – National Association of Broadcasters and PAL stands for Phase Alternate Line invented by the Germans.
HDTV has found a way, hence the lengthy delay in roll out of HDTV, of being compatible with itself regardless of electricity supply provided by a countries grid. I won’t go into the details of how here.
It is because of this universality if you will that has the TV broadcasters excited, it cuts costs of conversion or to give its full name: Standards Conversion. Cut that out of the equation and you have more money for the programmes budget, though less work for facilities grown up around this service.
In closing the comical version of NTSC is Never Twice the Same Color and PAL, is taken over here to mean, Pictures Always Lovely. The French and Russian system SECAM, this is in French to give its full name begins with Societe something or other, its comical name is System Essentially Contrary to the American Method, but SECAM is compatible with PAL without any standards conversion being needed.
Anyhow this is probably pointless to those in here and I offer it as trivia.
I’ll probably use shareware since my files are not “managed” by iTunes, iPhoto, etc.