“I’m surprised that there was less outrage over Apple’s Front Row software, which is a complete Media Center rip-off (albeit one that offers only a subset of Media Center features). Joe Belfiore, the general manager of Microsoft’s eHome division, is in New York this week for Digital Life for the soft-launch of XP MCE 2005 UR2, and he’s surprised about a completely different issue. ‘I was surprised that it took them as long as this to do a feature like Media Center,’ he said. Indeed. But this lengthy gestation–Media Center has been out for over three years now–suggests that Apple isn’t all-powerful. Furthermore, Apple is only now dealing with issues Microsoft first solved four years ago–IR interfaces, for starters–and has yet to figure out all the issues involved with TV tuner cards, TV recording, and so forth. In short, they have a long way to go before they can ever catch up with Media Center. Most tellingly, perhaps: Why is Apple’s interface so text-based? It looks sad next to Microsoft’s highly-visual approach. Which, frankly, is what you want with digital media content. Just a thought,” Paul Thurrott writes for WinInfo.
Full article here.
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Long before Microsoft began pushing Media Center computers, before most Wintel PCs even had sound cards, Apple made a Mac with a built-in TV tuner. Macintosh TV, introduced by Apple in 1993. More info here.
Like the GUI, the mouse, FireWire, Wi-Fi, ad infinitum: Apple leads. Microsoft tries to follow. As usual.
So, Apple was not “slow” with the new Front Row, more like “waiting for the right time.” The Front Row interface is instantly familiar to iPod users for a reason. Obviously, Apple has a way to go, but if you think Steve Jobs doesn’t have a grand master plan, you’re wrong. We’ve only seen pieces so far. By the way, if you want TV tuners and recording and so forth for your Mac, take a look at Elgato’s offerings here.
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The thing is, Microsoft is a software company. They will never be like Apple, a hardware company and a software company. Microsoft will never get any hardware design correct, they cant’t get the software designed correct since day one. So Microsoft should stick with what they know best, try and make software that works, and copy the looks “only” of software that works with the systems it was designed for, Apple.
Don’t go to his website! It only gives him hits so he can charge advertisers more money! He’s smart like a fox. He knows the more wrong he gets it the more money he makes? What’s to lose?
There is a clear difference with MS media center and Apples front row. It’s about 37 buttons different. Apple’s works and is totally integrated where Microsofts is an add-on.
John… you forget about xbox
Apple has yet to figure out TV tuners, IR, remote…??!
Some of us remember the Performa 5300 series back in 1995 that had all that features – even boot into TV with a push on the remote.
Who is this jerk anyway? Oh, I actually have blogged about one of his lies before:
link
Hey Brando, the ConvertX for Mac IS a great product, with more capabilities than the ElGato 200 at a hundred dollars less (and especially easy to use now that TOAST 7 burns directly from your archive without any additional encoding). But if you need a remote for it, the Plextor FAQ says there are two:
1. KeySpan (http://www.keyspan.com/products/homepage-Remotes.spml)
2. ATI (http://www.ati.com/products/remotewonder/index.html)
As for why no TV card in the new iMac? First, it would compete directly with iTunes video — makes no economic sense for Apple to provide it. Second, there’s no room for it in the iMac – hell, they can’t even fit a modem in it anymore. And third, people seem to be missing the fact that what’s being tested here not a computer as a home entertainment center, but the iPod. What Steve J. wants to know is if people will be willing to download Desperate Housewives to iTunes, load it on their iPods, amble down to the livingroom and plop it in the universal dock, to play it back on the TV. Because iTunes syncing with the iPod is so easy, this might work, especially with the added ability of using the same setup for your home entertainment music, photo shows, iMovie, etc. Remember, the new Apple remote works with the iPod, too. Personally, though, I don’t think the video quality will suffice at the current resolution on any screens larger than 19 inches, and even then, it’s VHS EP quality at best. Hard to say if it will catch on….
good call, John.
Windows Media Center is a turd and everyone knows it. It was a good idea, but nothing more.
Just as with the iPod, Apple has taken an existing good idea and implemented it.
Rob, If you go to the united states patent office I think you will find that Microsoft was not the inventor, but the assignee.
“I’m surprised that there was less outrage over Ford’s vehicles, which are a complete rip-off of Chevrolet’s” said a GM spokesman.
Obviously, if you are going to have two different devices performing roughly the same tasks, there are going to be similarities. Just because Microsoft has a “Media Center” doesn’t mean nobody else is allowed to tackle the same tasks and, inevitably, end up with something similar. Aren’t a lot of the TV functions in Media Center just copies of TiVo’s ideas?
Microsoft Media What? Anybody out there actually see this thing? I’ve never seen it anywhere, albeit I’ve never looked for it either. It must be in the clearance bin at Best Buy or something…
“Media Center has been out three years now…” Oh really, who’s got one, nobody I know. And this from the biggest most dominant PC maker in the industry. Where’s the marketing been. Er, um, maybe it’s the interface design (or lack thereof) that hasn’t moved conusmer or this dud.
If Microsoft already supposiedly solved all this years ago, how come we’re not all using them now? How come the “wunder-machine” isn’t as popular as other electronic offerings, say like the iPod for example?
Thurott is an idiot, too.
P.S. I go back to the funniest post I’ve read in over a year here (and I’m quoting Macdailynews staff):
F$%*king start something f$%*ked you f@#*ker!
Well guys, theres more to come! On October the 19th another press conference from Apple hosted in new york where apple will unveil its latest pro innovations. New Powerbooks and Powermacs are coming!! get ready. Read mac world.
The Media Center PC is not an original idea… Commodore had such an idea WAY back in the early ’90s called the CDTV (Commodore Dynamic Total Vision). Media Center is a rip off of Commodore’s innovations of old!
http://www.cdtv.org.uk/
Isn’t it ironic…don’t you think. Right below the Apple copied MS is the report that XP will be receiving Widgets, oops, I mean Gadgets. What a fookin pile of shite Wintel and their fanboys can be.
Seriously. Apple makes a super advanced OS and some truely amazing hardware like the iMac and iPod. And what does nimrod use to question if Apple will be capable of pulling of the Media Center concept.
The IR remote!
Give me a break if Apple’s future hinges on its ability to make a stinking remote control with 6 buttons work then heavon help all mac users. Hell I saw a build your own remote project TOy and hte Discovery Channel store last christmas. Maybe I should send one of those to Ives.
Talk about M$ convergence of peecee and entertainment.
Every time I go out to a movie and try to avoid the physical line by using the ATM style ticket purchasing machines, I remember why I loathe Mafia$oft: Half the time the damn machine malfunctions. You can watch the little pathetic beast reboot into some variant of Winblows and try hopelessly to right itself.
But hey! At least with these little crappy boxes at the box office, M$ can claim huge “market share” numbers.
Fsking Mafia$oft.
Rock on Steve!
Ok guys. Stop using the argument that Media Center must obviously suck because of its lack of popularity. I know of a certain computer manufacturer and an operating system that is quite nice but has a very small marketshare.
There are plenty of reasons to ridicule the Media Center, so at least try to stick to valid ones.
Media Center is a joke. It will not consistently run for more than a few days before the video starts losing frames. ($300 ATI card that was on the hardware compatibility list). Then factor in the constant stream of patches that are required to keep it running. Finally, because of its reliance on controlling the cable box, when you send a channel change command from the remote, it goes to the PC first, then the PC translates the command via an IR flasher to the cable box one digit at a time. Bottom line, to change a channel requires about five seconds while this mess executes. Simply changing channels was EXCRUCIATING!
I fixed it all with Format C:\
Mark my words: Apple will never release a TV tuner. Because TV is old school. And Thurrott and MS are looking at the wrong place.
The future is the Internet. Video content delivered over the Internet, anytime, anywhere you want, for home devices, portable devices, or pocketable devices. Personalized, RSS-type subscriptions. With fatter pipes and bigger storage (local or remote), this future will come.
Think radio. Think iTMS. Think iTunes.
Think TV. Think iTMS Video. Think iTunes Video.
It’s already started.
Why is Apple’s interface so text-based?
—
Damnit! I want pictures instead of song titles!!!!
hahahah… Text base interfaces aren’t what people want?
Has the dude ever seen a Tivo?
Much rather have Text I can read from across the room, than an icon which I first have to learn.
And who says they want to emulate the media center. They may just come up with software that can work with exsisting DVR’s and let the DVR’s take on that end of the media center development. That lets Apple avoid every variation and combo of DVR, Cable, and Satellite solutions out there. This is where Microsoft bites off more than they can chew.
Now, if Apple would just let me use my mini I have in the living room already….
That’s funny Paul, I have a PowerMac 5260 with a TV Tuner, cable input, and IR remote control and it was built in 1996. Last time I checked, nine years is longer than four years, right?
SO, WHO was first with a multi-media computer?
Apple released Macintosh TV back in October of 1993!
It was a BLACK all-in-one machine with a TV-Tuner card built-in. had a 32mhz motorola 68030 CPU, 160MB hard drive, 1MB VRAM, 16mhz system bus.
It did not sell and was discontinued in early 1994.
Thank you Mactracker for the info!
More info from Apple History:
http://www.apple-history.com/?page=gallery&model=tv&performa=off&sort=date&order=ASC
Thurott is yet another Microsoft SHILL. Ignore him, please.
Somebody said “ANYONE can rush a crappy product to market. It takes time to get it right.” And a lot of other people have been claiming that ‘broadcast is dead’, so that’s why Apple’s Front Row is feature poor relative to some other options out there.
Well, I think both are wrong. First, Apple didn’t include a TV/radio tuner or DVR abilities for the simple reason that they’ve committed themselves to hardware DRM with Intel, and there is absolutely no sense in creating a class of PPC machines that would be ‘unsecured’ AND have all the capabilities that they intend to use as selling points when the Macintels arrive.
The risk of course is that by waiting for a self imposed ‘start point’ (meaning there is no real technological reason why they can’t do all this now), they could wind up behind the Market 8-Ball. On the otherhand, since it appears M$ is their only competition, and since Vista will be coming out around the same time as the x86 turnover is in full swing, Apple is probably playing the odds that they can manage any extra demands that their new iMac/iPod/iTMS capabilities will create. We’ll see about that.
Second, once the full financial weight of all these on-demand ‘pay as you go’ services finally hits people, I think there will be a new appreciation for broadcast. Commercials are out of control now (thank you Ronald Reagan), but if the paid commercial-free model starts to get traction, commercial service will probably re-adjust back to something like how it was before it became so onerous (roughly 2mins of ads per 15mins of programming). And the fact that it’s FREE means people will use it. If Apple really does want to be a digital hub, and not just a digital cartel, then they’ll have to adjust.
Problem is, I think they want to be a digital cartel. With music, they’ve been a relatively benign cartel – allowing ripping and burning with modest restriction. But the new video offerings are completely restricted, which reflects how much they’re going to have to cow-tow to the providers just to get their hands on the content. To me, this is a little like selling your soul to the devil for a career – and as Keanu Reeves showed us, that path is fraught with unexpected perils.
M$ might make Vista’s media software with an interface just good enough, with hardware just flexible enough in aquiring content, and have the entire package just free enough from restrictions that the public picks them. Sounds crazy, but M$ is the company that’s been fighting against the most stringent of restricitions that the Hollywood companies want for video, not Apple (see the whole HD-DVD vs BluRay debate).
I’m not making a prediction, just a warning; call it Karma, call it a bad read of consumer desires, what have you – but Jobs could easily wind up wondering how this all went wrong if he’s not careful.