“Ask Steve Jobs to describe the ‘next big thing’ for Apple Computer Inc., and a video iPod seems the furthest thing from his mind. For years, Apple’s CEO has dismissed the idea of portable video players, insisting that no one wants to watch movies on tiny screens. Then again, he pooh-poohed an Apple-branded music player just months before releasing his iconic white gadget in 2001. What’s more, two Hollywood execs say Apple has held talks with movie studios about downloading movies to PCs. While Jobs may be more interested in developing such technology to make it easier for Macintosh users to get movies at home, the talks have prompted speculation that the notoriously secretive Jobs will eventually launch a video iPod,” Cliff Edwards writes for BusinessWeek.
“In 2002, Creative’s Nomad products and Diamond Multimedia Inc.’s Rio-branded digital music players were the industry leaders, battling over which company had the better technology. Apple jumped onto the scene, boosting the sleepy market from 1.8 million units sold in 2001 to nearly 30 million this year. It quickly won 85% of the still-growing market by combining great hardware and software that made music downloads a snap with a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign that convinced consumers that the iPod was the coolest thing since the Sony Walkman. The result: In late August, Rio exited the market, and Creative remains awash in red ink after spending millions on advertising in a failed effort to boost its market share,” Edwards writes. “In some ways the portable video-player market today looks eerily similar to the music market in the days before Apple jumped in… Many analysts believe Jobs will bring digital movie downloads to home PCs and even to the living room before tackling portable devices. Perhaps. But rivals are taking no chances.”
Full article here.
Related articles:
BusinessWeek: video-ready Apple iPod won’t be about watching movies on the go – September 15, 2005
Apple’s iTunes 5 provides hints of future iTunes Video Store – September 13, 2005
Microsoft, Texas Instruments reps expect Apple ‘iPod video’ by end of year – August 16, 2005
Creative debuts US$399 video-capable 30GB music player – August 03, 2005
The next big thing? Apple’s iTunes 4.9 supports Video Podcasts (with example) – July 29, 2005
BusinessWeek: Think Apple’s developing ‘Video iPod?’ – Think Different – July 27, 2005
Apple’s ‘pure genius’ will soon make iTunes’ portal the ‘number one destination on the Internet’ – July 26, 2005
Video iPod? Does The Wall Street Journal have a ‘Deep Throat’ inside Apple Computer? – July 25, 2005
Cringely: Apple’s soon-to-come ‘iVideo’ movie download service very important to Intel – July 23, 2005
Selling music videos on Apple’s iTunes makes economic sense – July 19, 2005
Report: Disney considers teaming with Apple to deliver iPod video content – July 19, 2005
Ars Technica peeks at Apple’s portable video plans – July 18, 2005
More info about Apple’s reported iPod+iTunes video talks – July 18, 2005
WSJ: Apple in video iTunes talks, may unveil video iPod by September – July 18, 2005
Cringely: Apple working on HD movie download service and Video iPod – July 15, 2005
Cringley: Apple and Intel to merge; Steve Jobs finally beats Bill Gates – June 09, 2005
Apple’s shift to Intel really all about Hollywood, owning the living room, and Transitive – June 05, 2005
Cringely: This week changed the world of high tech forever – May 13, 2005
Cringely: Apple prepping Video iTunes, Video iPod, and setting stage for iPod clones – May 06, 2005
I told ya I told ya
What I am looking for in a video iPod would be to have video out capabilities so I could connect my iPod to any TV and watch a video that way. Another thing that it would be way cool if Apple implemented (and which Phil Schiller has actually mentioned before) would be viewing goggles for full screen viewing so you could watch in a mobile environment. (alright, semi-mobile unless you want to be running into trees
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”tongue rolleye” style=”border:0;” /> ) Of course they would have to have the option to watch on the iPod screen too but I think I agree with Jobs and don’t anticipate watching videos this way that much.
iTunes may be the software, but the iPod won’t be the hardware.
I agree with Jobs, nobody wants to watch a full length movie on a 1 1/2″ screen. Movie downloads will go to a Mac mini like device with cable out to a digital TV.
or how about varying levels of transparency or maybe with the heliodisplay projecting it into air
Mdn Magic Word: then, well then lets see a video iPod, or then lets have steve just announce this bad boy soon!
SJ said earlier this week that it’s not a technical issue but a bring to market issue, i.e., how do you get more people to want this.
Newsweek reports that Sony sold 100K copies of two UMD movies for the PSP in less than 2 months. This is a faster rate than the first DVD movie (100K in 9 months). The PSP has a 4.3″ screen, so some people certainly want to watch on a screen that size.
Maybe the market case for a video iPod with a 4″ screen is becoming more likely. Maybe the click wheel could reside on a slider or a flp-out, so that the iPod 20/60 would not have to grow in size.
Wouldn’t a suitably sized hard-drive (storage medium) be quite large if it were to hold a library (even a small library) of films? Makes more sense that Apple will adapt a Mac mini along with some new adaptation of iTunes software as the hub of a Home Entertainment Center that is somewhat portable (and could be quickly plugged into another television/monitor). Right? Sounds great to me!
Yes, Creative and others had tried the videopod thingy, but was not success. It’ true, nobody wanted to watch the full length on the tiny scrren, not unless apple set the trend.
I ever tried watching a full length movie on the Nokia phone, but after 5 mins, I gave up.
I would predict that they would introduce Music Video download to the (coming)Vpod. Watching a 1 – 5mins Music video makes more sense than watching the full length movie.
Remember, only apple can set the trend, others just copy and follow. Agree everyone?
Chris, that can all be done with a laptop, which is exactly what i have in mind for my G3 iBook i bought 3 years ago. Won’t be much chop as a computer in a couple of years but will still be a great portable music/DVD player. That is if it’s still working in a couple of years.
this is my take:
Apple will develop a device that connects to hardware that needs to placed on the map — in this case HD or HDready TV sets….I notice that while they are cool to own — no one has ran out in masses to buy a set.
Most people are holding out for the right media content to come along — and only then will they consider the purchase of such equiptment.
What Apple will do is not only help it’s own market share — but they will
help companies struggling to attract consumers to their products.
Very much the same way, the iPod has attracted consumers to buying portable speakers — and FM transmitter for music players…it created a new market — a healthy one at that.
forget the video iPod, what i want is a video equivalent to my airport express… one that has a video out as well as audio out. then i can watch videos without having to run all those stooopid cables.
if my G3 shoebox can last this long (its still going), your G3 iBook can last that long. The plastic should maintain the computer even better than cardboard….
Inside info
We will not see videos on ANYTHING, until spring 2006, when the new MacTels arrive.
Why?
The new Intel chips have the most stringent copy protection schemes we will ever witness in computers.
In order to watch a BlueRay or a HD-DVD a Mac will have to have a active internet connection.
To download videos the content will be scrambled and the keys changed constantly with online authentication.
Video to Apple monitors will be seperatly encrypted with Apple DRM, Apple monitors might already have the DRM chip inside.
PC users will have to buy new monitors, adoption to downloadable videos on PC’s will be slower than on Mac’s because they don’t want to absorb the costs of the new hardware, this will come down in time giving Apple a head start.
Video content to ViPods will also be scrambled using the same Apple DRM.
Apple is almost ready to go now, it intends to be the first as it’s products usually target the upper end buyer.
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I still reckon that an intelligent ‘iPod’ dock that sits in your HiFi cabinet is the way they’ll go. Download movies & songs to your iPod then ‘dock’ the iPod for full-speaker ad TV support or take the movies & songs on the road.
With a higher ‘wireless’ model to stream movies to your TV via your Mac, using your iPod as the cache.
MW to your TV ‘through’ your iPod
iPod HD (HardCore)
Why watch King Kong on a 2×2 inch LCD when you can watch it on a 42 inch plasma screen with surround sound.
MDW- Bill…
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Portable films are a stupid idea, besides having to watch them on a tiny screen you have to also hold that same screen for the entire length of the film. A device with limited capability to display music videos, trailers etc might help retain market share as a future upgrade to the iPod, however I don’t see it being some radically different device from what we have now, or that it will be marketed as a seperate product line – if anything it will be as different as the iPod photo was.
The main thing is obviously getting the video content onto your computer initially which I think would warrrant either a seperate iTunes-esque app or a radical overhall and renaming of the existing iTunes to accomodate it and to make playing films much more like quicktime and the dvd player in OS X than the good but tacked on video player window in iTunes. On top of that you also need some way to play these things on a TV in every room of the house.
I don’t think the technology is there yet to make it work really well, we’re getting there though.
One thing does spring to mind. If we can download films from the internet – with some sort of DRM no doubt. Why can’t they license the burning of films from DVD (or other media) in some way? Buy the dvd, burn it to your system for household use and save the download time.
I Reckon Whatever Apple Comes Out With, Will Come With a Blue Ray Burner So You Can Burn Atleast 1 Or 2 Copies Of The Downloded Movie, Leaving You More Space On Your Hard Drive To Download Other Movies.
Speaking of pr0n,
A news channel actually called iPods “Sexpods” and had a show on it tonight.
Basically kids are taking their pr0n on their iPods and trading and viewing them.
The trading isn’t the rough part, but being able to show it around class on a color iPod…
heheehee
ahhh technology
It’s not about movies… it’s about video pod-casts of news, previews, TV shows etc. A TiVo-like device that allows you to take your video pod-casts with you to the gym when you work out, or watch them while sitting on the subway.
How about downloading TV from your TiVo to your wirelessly equipped iPod? “Lord of the Rings” on a 2″ screen is not good, but this week’s episode of “West Wing” would be something. The viPod could also be the bridge from the TiVo to a PC away from home.
The iPod video will be slightly larger than the Mac mini. It will be preloaded with a thousand “greatest movies of all time”. You bring it home and connect it to your home theater and a broadband internet connection. You will pay a fixed monthly fee to unlock the iPod video for unlimited viewing.
You discard the movies you don’t want to keep and download new titles “overnight” to view the next day. Download pre-released movies a month ahead as they are automatically unlocked at 12:01 midnight on the release date.
You must be connected to the internet at least once every 60 days so you can take your movie collection with you to a friend’s house or on vacation. Your Mac (or PC) controls the downloading process via iTunes 6.0. You heard it hear first, now scram.
Introducing the iPod video… A Thousand Movies in Your Jacket!
how about a video-playing device that uses holographic images that either projects onto a white surface or that materializes out of thin air?
I suppose if video pod-casts were delivered pre-sized for an iPod screen it would be preety cool, you’d get away with far lower resolution, bit-rates and in turn size so they could be pretty small if designed solely for that purpose.
Could people not wrap their mov vidcasts with two video streams and then for transfer to the iPod only the small one gets extracted? Similarly wouldn’t it technically be possible to have audio files contain a lossless version and a compressed aac version for iPod/headphone listening?