Cringely on Apple video experiment, future 802.11n Apple Video Express, Sony TVs in Apple stores

21 years ago

“So we have don’t have a specific video iPod, but an iPod that does video. We have an Apple deal to distribute TV shows and music videos, but not movies,” Robert X. Cringely writes for PBS. “And the Apple Video Express wireless adapter I predicted is nowhere to be seen yet. Did Apple still change the future of television this week? Probably.”

“It is easy to say that Apple’s deal to distribute a few ABC and Disney TV shows at $1.99 per show was motivated mainly by Disney’s desire to renew its movie distribution agreement with Pixar, Steve Jobs’ other company. Corporate deals aren’t supposed to work that way, of course, with one public company being effectively paid for something another, completely separate, public company has done or will do. But this is Steve Jobs and his rules are different than yours or mine,” Cringely writes.

“The Five TV shows [currently offered via Apple’s iTunes Music Store] are an EXPERIMENT, not a business. The experiment going on here is all on behalf of the major movie studios, the very outfits that haven’t yet signed on to distribute their movies through iTunes. The studios want to see how the market accepts these TV series distributed in this format, whether the ability to download the shows has a material impact on their broadcast viewership (ratings), and most especially whether we see a surge of pirated copies of “Lost” – copies that can be traced back to iTunes distribution,” Cringely writes.

“If the experiment is successful — if these five shows are able to demonstrate incremental revenue increases that don’t harm their existing revenues or pose an unreasonably increased piracy threat — then the studios and other TV networks will sign on and Apple will be in the movie and TV businesses, big time,” Cringely writes. “[Then] we’ll see the movie studios sign on, at which point Apple will finally announce that Video Express, which is the component still required to practically link this new video system to your TV. That rash of products will also include Apple’s much faster 802.11n version of its Airport access point, which suggests that the Video Express will be 802.11n as well, which figures.”

Cringely writes, “And of course that’s when Apple will start selling Sony flat panel TVs in its stores. I don’t think Apple will do its own brand of TVs like Gateway, Dell, and HP have done. They’ll stick with Sony, which makes sense for a ton of reasons including undermining any thought Sony might have to competing with Apple in the video distribution business.”

Full article here.

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