“The browser wars are over. Moz doesn’t matter. IE is irrelevant. Opera is doing a swan song. Why? In a word, iTunes. And the implications for everyone from Web publishers to you, the hyper-clocked tricked-out geek, are enormous. In fact, being the hyper geek means you can cash in on this trend now. You heard it here first,” David Strom writes for Tom’s Hardware.
“What makes iTunes such a sea change in how we use content is very simple to explain. The newest version allows you to search and download podcasts from Apple’s directory, and in doing so bypasses the Web, email, RSS feeds, and a raft of other software and utilities to search and view content. And it does its work so easily and so effortlessly that you will want to use it to grab all sorts of content from the Internet, even if they aren’t audio programs that you will ever want to run on your iPod,” Strom writes. “That is exactly where Apple is heading, and while I have my own love/hate relationship with Apple, what they are doing is pure genius.”
“In a few years, if Apple is successful, their directory server, their extensions to RSS to include content tags especially for iTunes, their portal if you will – will be the number one destination on the Internet,” Strom writes. “There is a reason why the EU is now looking at why Windows Media Player, rather than IE, is the true leading edge of the Microsoft Monopoly. Too bad Microsoft didn’t lock up the portal market like Apple just did with iTunes and its Music Store. This has nothing to do with playing music or watching videos. It is how we all will be getting our content in the future, coming to a computer near you.”
MacDailyNews Take: Shhhh, David. Couldn’t you keep your big yap shut for a little while longer?
Full article here.
Hit it right on the head!
Steve Jobs MacWorld 2001: “Apple will be one of the ten largest Internet companies in the world.”
maybe if apple could just team up with google.. .
Perspiration.
Perspiration.
Perspiration.
Perspiration.
Altho I think the browser will still be useful for some non-multimedia content-retrieval purposes, unless the VISTA overcomes it.
VISTA – viruses, infections, spyware, trojans, adware
A bit exaggerated, of course, but there’s definitely something to this…very interesting.
electrikmonk:
i add my voice to yours.
those 2 companies are the most innovative ones.
What would be cool, is if there’s a new form a browser that basically emulates what iTunes does, but for the purpose you want to use it for, ie Shopping, Research, Movies, Music, etc. By-Passing all the other crap and adverts you get when your just looking for a javascript snippet or something.
But it won’t tread on the browser. I don’t agree.
I guess M$ just needs to keep making an OS to run iTunes.
IE irrelevant? Yeah right. It is still the number 1 browser in corporate environments not to mention is the only browser supported by a lot of web developers.
Having said this I think an i-Tunes like browser for the consumer market is exciting.
I hate when my weather widgets show the sun at nite time.
My weather widgets do that too, what gives?
I think that guy just bought some stock and is now trying to make some quick dough.
Once again, iTunes is just a killer app for the iPod. That’s it. Apple’s not going to waste valuable programmers to make one giant app that can do everything. people just don’t want that. It makes the programs slow and top heavy. iTunes Music Store is – even with a 3 Mbps connection and a current high end machine – still kinda slow when it comes to surfing around. Add web browsing capabilities with Flash, Shockwave, and what have you will make the program a nightmare to navigate.
keep it simple.
Podcast function is not great because you “bypass…a raft” but because it is so freakin’ fast and pretty much automatic.
JEG – you’re right…IE is far from irrelevant, but it is only perception that keeps it from being so. Not so long ago, websurfers using Safari or Camino or Opera were in for a rough ride without IE. This is no longer true.
It only takes one moment of clarity or one recommendation from a friend to cause someone to switch browsers…
Sherlock (which is essentially what he’s talking about, it seems like) is the best, quickest way to look up movie times and other random bits of info – you don’t have to deal with a website and ads and their navigation etc. etc. If they worked features like this into iTunes (or another app that wasn’t so clunky) I’d be in hog heaven.
ploosh,
Tip: in the Google bar, type movie:(your zip code) for movie listings.
Much faster than Sherlock.
So basically what the writer is saying is that iTunes is going to become the next AOL? No thanks
Sometimes I wonder how much of what Steve Jobs does is a smart, well-thought-out chess move and how much is just going on his gut instinct and it being right.
So I guess the question is: Is he more Machiavellian or just connected to the cosmos in a little bit different way than the rest of us?
Whatever it is, he hits the nail on the head time and time again.
“Once again, iTunes is just a killer app for the iPod”
Wrong-o, twdldee, I use iTunes daily to listen to songs I have ripped from my CD library, I peruse the podcasts and subscribe to a few to check them out, and I don’t own an iPod.
Although when I go on another trip I will buy a 60Gb iPod to store my photos.
“Strategy
VISTA – viruses, infections, spyware, trojans, adware”
i like that. Can I use it next time?
There’s an overall move to task-specific web applications, but it’s not limited to iTunes. Widgets will be a big part of it too (hence Yahoo’s purchase of Konfabulator)
Dash and Leon: are you adamantly sure you are pointing to the right city?
Just the name is definitely NOT enough. Especially if you are looking for weather of some EU cities that share their names with some copy-cat in the US.
Then, you will have night at day-time and viceversa. And the wrong weather too
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From: Strategy
Jul 26, 05 – 10:01 pm
Altho I think the browser will still be useful for some non-multimedia content-retrieval purposes, unless the VISTA overcomes it.
VISTA – viruses, infections, spyware, trojans, adware
Maybe it’s the real meaning of VISTA. Microsoft recognizing what is indeed Windows.
Don’t worry all, Microsoft will copy this model before the decade is out.
egarc,
that’s quite neat that google will let you do that, but Sherlock gives you reviews and trailers much easier than Google…
MW=Faith… of which I have plenty in Apple…