“I’ve long wanted an Apple media server (the ‘iServe,’ perhaps?), though it may never happen,” Dennis Sellers writes for Apple World Today. “But who knows? Apple has filed various patents for such a device in the past, and has filed for another one (10,200,430) this week.”
“The ‘network media device’ patent filing is for a network media device that pulls multimedia data from one or more sources (e.g., a multimedia website or a multimedia server computer) at a first time, stores it to long-term storage within the device and transmits the stored multimedia data to one or more designated multimedia playback devices at a second time,” Sellers writes. “Apple says it would be beneficial to provide a mechanism whereby a consumer could off-load, over a computer network, specified multimedia content to a playback device that could at a later time, send the information to conventional entertainment devices such as stereo equipment, televisions, home theatre systems, etc.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Don’t get too excited. Apple has been filing patents like this for many years.
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”)? — MacDailyNews, August 25, 2015
SEE ALSO:
New patent hints that Apple is considering a network-attached storage device – August 25, 2015
Apple could make a killing with this little-known device – July 15, 2014
Apple patent hints at an ‘iServe’ media server – July 2, 2014
Apple ‘iServe’ home server for the masses? – December 11, 2006
MDN – long overdue, although that space if full
Interesting.
I already automatically record shows on my TiVo, use cTiVo running on my Mac mini server to transfer those shows onto the server (and into iTunes), then that server lets my Apple TV or any of my other Apple devices watch those shows without having to worry about the limited (1TB) storage on the TiVo (I have a 12TB media array on the Mac mini).
Something like that?
Apple has lost ALL credibility in anything with the word server on, so they can file all the patents they want.
They can start by bringing back the freaking macOS server software to a level that is actually useful, including for serving media.
It would also help if they had machines that come close to server configs.
I wish they’d do it, and also ise it as a return to routers and build in modern mesh capabilities (aka new airport system).
Yawn…..agree, way to late in the game and has no credibility with anything with ‘server’ in the name. At best, it could be some feature build into Apple TV that is enabled with a checkbox, but any stand alone hardware is delusional.
As untrustworthy as cloud services are, there is enormous potential for Apple to offer a home server that the average consumer can manage. Be your own cloud provider securely and privately.
Apple could have been in this space a decade ago, but then Cook happened.
No NAS.
Synology already has a very mature product for this. its not perfect, but more perfect that whatever Apple might offer.