“Apple has been granted a patent (number 9,118,642) by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office that hints at an Apple NAS device/home server I’ve long wanted. The patent is for ‘asset streaming,'” Dennis Sellers reports for AppleWorld.Today. “NAS — or network-attached storage — is a computer data storage server connected to your computer network that provides access to a wide variety of data.”
“According to the patent, servers secure access to the stream of assets, on both an account level and an asset level in accordance with asset metadata registered for the assets during streaming,” Sellers reports. “Of course, this would be great for serving up movies, music and photos to all your Mac OS X and iOS devices.”
“But Apple could take it further,” Sellers writes. “Imagine a range of ‘iServe’ appliances, all based on the Mac mini form factor, that provide media services throughout your home, that are always on, and worked with Siri, Apple’s voice-activated, personal assistant. The media sever would store all your photos, movies, TV shows, music, and more and make them available to all your Macs, iOS devices, and the Apple TV.”
Read more, and see Apple’s patent application illustration, in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Okay, who wants an Apple NAS device/home server (one that comes ready-to-go out of the box, that you don’t have to build yourself and which definitely won’t be called “iServe”)?
I’d buy one like a shot. It could be a local version of your iCloud account to save having to repeatedly download content onto multiple devices which isn’t stored on them, but also it would be amazing to have a robust way of streaming my iTunes library to Apple TV without having to leave my Mac running. I’m sure it would also be great for updates. Download once to “iServe” then any devices on your network would update from there. All stuff you can technically do, but out of the box is what I want at home.
Apple should have done this four years ago. I’m on the fence waiting to see what to buy now that this is out there. I need a large NAS for home now, and while there is the Apple premium, I’d wager I will find it worth it.
Maybe this with the new TV is coming soon. I hope.
Would LOVE one from Apple. My Drobo conked out for the second time and I’m loathe to replace it with a third. Synology seems to have reliability issues as well so now I’m gunshy. Apple NAS please!
👍
Would buy instantly.
Instant buy. All your media, photos and iCloud Drive local storage on a sweet little home unit!.
Not I. For your average Joe (like me), iCloud is more than enough and I don’t have to worry about security. Apple does the security for me and believe they are competent. The other fact is I prefer a mobile life and want access to my stuff on the road.
Dennis Sellers doesn’t understand patents at all and deceives people. The patent figures he doesn’t show you includes “Photo Stream.” So it’s not new or coming it’s here.
I’d consider it only if I can purchase OtS NAS drives of my choosing. I’ve never been quite happy with Time Capsule drives as it seems a bit slow even on a Gigabit Ethernet network. I’ve had good results with WD Red drives and will continue to use them.
Yes, absolutely yes! I’ve wanted Apple to make one of these for years.
Sounds like a software update for the Airport Time Capsule.
Sounds like a feature for the updated Apple TV
I would buy them. I’d like to replace my Drobopros.
A nightmare!!!
1 Your cable goes down. 4 times this year for me. And that is with the best provider in my area.
2 iCloud goes down. I think it is twice that an outage has affected me this year.
3 ‘iServe’ gets hacked. Could be because of a user fault or more sinister. Ask Jennifer Lawrence.
4 NSA. However I would trust Apple more than most here.
As a backup, great! However, to run important apps… No, I will not be jumping on this one for a while.
Forgot to add, anybody’s iTunes Match been messed up by Apple lately???
So why trust them to deliver iServe?
How many Apple patents resulted in or were integrated into Apple products, and how many Apple patents currently exist?
Isn’t this already called the Time Capsule? I’m down for any additional way to network my data between devices, but for the moment I’m not seeing anything lacking from iCloud really.
Unless it’s pretty much exactly like iCloud but free, and backed up reliably.