APC Magazine’s Dan Warne reckons Apple is about to deftly round-house kick Microsoft’s media center strategy for six. First Apple leaves a mysterious header on the Mac Mini motherboard for a non-existent iPod dock connector. Then it brings out media center software and a video iPod at the same time. Then it recruits the head of TV recording company ElGato. When you put the pieces together, it ain’t pretty for Microsoft.
Warne writes, “Apple’s a shrewd operator. First, its spreads misinformation from the top – like how Steve Jobs famously slagged off media centre PCs in a conference call with financial analysts last year. ‘We might as well make it a toaster too,’ he said. ‘I want it to brown my bagels when I’m listening to my music,’ he said at the time. ‘And we’re toying with refrigeration, too. We’re not going to go that direction,’ Jobs concluded. ‘There is a small audience that likes this.'”
Warne writes, “Yet only a year later, he has released the video iPod, along with the ability to download good TV programs from its iTunes Music Store. Apple has simultaneously released an upgrade to its iMac G5 to give it media centre capabilities. This model of Mac can’t record or watch TV, so it’s a half baked media centre solution, howl the critics, and fair enough too. But what if the industry’s presumptions about the future of ’converged’ computing is fundamentally wrong?”
“Apple’s about to do to the media center PC market what it did to the portable music player market. It doesn’t mean people will switch to Macs as their primary home PC, but Apple is going to sell a truckload of Mac Minis along the way anyway as under-the-TV media-centre boxes. The next phase of its long term strategy isn’t too hard to imagine, and it will be to do with replacing home PCs (with the assurance that you can always run Windows on an Intel-based Mac if you need to.) Love him or hate him, Steve Jobs is damned clever at assembling the pieces on his chess board without people noticing until it’s too late,” Warne writes.
Full article, an excellent read which includes the first Australian review of the video iPod, here.
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Related articles:
Elgato CEO to head Apple Germany – October 18, 2005
How Apple can win the OS war – October 19, 2005
Apple’s Front Row with Apple Remote and iMac G5: media center done right – October 12, 2005
Apple introduces new thinner iMac G5 with built-in iSight video camera, ‘Front Row’ media experience – October 12, 2005
GO STEVE
Magic Word “death”, as in how long will microsoft be able to hang on
MacDaddy: you forgot about me. I make truckloads of cash. Pssst, do not tell xpPRO girlfriend that I am not Literature Nobel Prize quality.
On a second thought, does not matter: she still would buy my books as xpPRO still uses XP
UHAHHUAHUHAHUHAOUHAUEHHAHAUHAUHAUH
Jobs inserts feet in Gates’ and Balmer’s bums and uses the nerds as slippers, that is until the big fat bald slipper got his long-ass, radioactive tongue caught on a table leg sending Jobs plunging to the ground. Job gets up, looks at the 2 nerd slippers and says, “One More Thing…That’s not the last time I’m going to have my feet shoved up your ass!”
What this has to do with the article, I’m not sure, but it just felt good saying it
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Rainy Day et al,
.mac users use their online accounts to backup their photos/etc already.. whats a document? its a backup, and option you dont even have to use. Save all your stuff on your own machine if you want to.
All I am saying is the internet is going to be the next desktop. Apple should make a move now and place their (not PRO) processing applications like Pages/etc online and offer a subscription based use of it.
think about it. 5 bucks a month back up your documents/et al files (encrypted) free virus check thrown in.. makes sense to small/big businesses alike.
That would put a big dent in microsoft, why? because you are taking away from them their office suite market, which is huge.
Rainy Day et al,
.mac users use their online accounts to backup their photos/etc already.. whats a document? its a backup, and option you dont even have to use. Save all your stuff on your own machine if you want to.
All I am saying is the internet is going to be the next desktop. Apple should make a move now and place their (not PRO) processing applications like Pages/etc online and offer a subscription based use of it.
think about it. 5 bucks a month back up your documents/et al files (encrypted) free virus check thrown in.. makes sense to small/big businesses alike.
That would put a big dent in microsoft, why? because you are taking away from them their office suite market, which is huge.
Rainy Day et al,
.mac users use their online accounts to backup their photos/etc already.. whats a document? its a backup, and option you dont even have to use. Save all your stuff on your own machine if you want to.
All I am saying is the internet is going to be the next desktop. Apple should make a move now and place their (not PRO) processing applications like Pages/etc online and offer a subscription based use of it.
think about it. 5 bucks a month back up your documents/et al files (encrypted) free virus check thrown in.. makes sense to small/big businesses alike.
That would put a big dent in microsoft, why? because you are taking away from them their office suite market, which is huge.
“What Microsoft got planned and what actually happens ain’t ever been exactly similar!”
“What Microsoft got planned and what actually happens ain’t ever been exactly similar!”
“What’d you guys order a dead OS for?”
1) Microsoft cans Office for Mac
2) OpenOffice for Mac suddenly gets TONS of developers (including some from Apple)
3) OpenOffice gets momentum from millions of Mac users.
4) Two years later, MS Office for Windows sales tank.
The iPod buzz started when it was a Mac only product. When Windows users got to have a go, Apple destroyed Redmond’s DRM media revenue stream. Gates isn’t stupid enough to let that happen again.
Ballmer might be though
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Bravo iMaki
Story continues…. Balmy uses his greasy rubber neck to rock his glistening pointy head back and momentarily blind SJ, then extends his massive lizard tongue to reach for a nearby chair… “not so fast Balmy” exclaims Steve as he dons a secret prototype pair of Apple 3D specs. In a brilliant move our hero Steve steals the chair away and soundly clubs Balmy over and over and over….
Meanwhile, Billy chuckles to himself (in his best Sagan voice) “I don’t care, I’ve got billions and billions and billions and I kind of like the way it feels with a foot up my A**”.
It has everything to do with the article.
“Apple deftly places pieces in strategy to checkmate Microsoft’s media center.”
Why do you think OS X ships with chess instead of minesweeper and solitaire? It’s a secret distributed network experiment that harnesses the chess prowess of millions of Mac users. That power will be redirected at the Redmond behemoth to overtake the OS kingdom. And there was something about sharks with lasers mounted on their heads, but I forget . . .
Worker Using Office:
“You people who want to dump Office, probably are unemployeed.”
Yu no wat? Yer rite, I am unemployeed – I don’t have any employees. How sad.
Talk about mixed metaphors. “Round-house kick for six”? Round-house kick on its own would be good, hit for six (hit over the fence) on its own would be good, but not together!
Actually, if cricket metaphors were going to be used, ‘caught’, ‘leg before wicket’ or ‘bowled’ would be a better way to describe what Apple’s done to Microsoft.
I love that.. get a Mac.. use the delicious OS X.. and.. whenever you feel like it.. you can go back to SP3..
that’s like bringing in a bum off the street, having your maid make him a steak and saying.. anytime you want mac n cheese.. just ask
(I know it sounds arrogant, just trying to make a point.. the ‘offer’ of using Windows is an offer Apple doesn’t expect many to take up.. was my point)
Interesting take, but Apple is not going the PVR route, just because they hired the head of ElGato. That guy is running the German Apple office, he’s not an engineer writing code at Cupertino. Also, a PVR undermines why you would download a show from iTMS.
It’s a simple check and reraise. Only fools show their cards.