“When Apple released the iPod in October 2001 and launched the iTunes Store a year and a half later, only the company’s most fervent fans would have predicted it would become a force in digital music. Now, all indications are that Apple wants iTunes to become the place for video-on-demand. Within three months of introducing a video iPod, the company has sold more than 3 million videos. Recently it began offering NBC shows like Law and Order and The Tonight Show for $1.99 apiece to complement its collection of ABC/Disney titles like Desperate Housewives,” Adam L. Penenberg writes for Slate.
MacDailyNews/iPodDailyNews Note: The Tonight Show offerings via Apple’s iTunes Music Store feature all of two clips that are each under six minutes in length.
Penenberg continues, “As it tries to become a major power in the video world, Apple will face far greater obstacles than it did in the music biz. While record companies, fearful of piracy, refused to create an infrastructure to sell digital music, Hollywood has been inking deals with cable companies and technology companies. Last month, CBS and Comcast announced a video-on-demand service that will offer “digital rentals” of CSI and Survivor episodes for 99 cents a pop. NBC and DirecTV have worked out a similar deal.”
MacDailyNews/iPodDailyNews Take: CBS and Comcast, NBC and DirecTV both only offer limited time to viewing and they’re not portable, but, hey, you saved a buck! Neither ideas compare well to Apple iTunes+iPod which offers ownership (no limited viewing period), portablity, and content that’s playable on Macs, Windows PCs, iPods, and any screen to which you wish to connect and output to your iPod or personal computer.
Penenberg continues, “For Apple to become a major player in the digital video business, two things must happen. First, they’ll have to convince downloaders to pay them $1.99 to own movies and TV shows instead of a dollar less to rent them over cable or satellite.”
MacDailyNews/iPodDailyNews Take: Rubbish. Apple’s content offers much more than “renting over cable or satellite.” The value is much higher, so the price is higher, too.
Penenberg continues, “While the iPod has given Apple a foothold in cars and offices, it has yet to make the move into living rooms… Apple will become a force here on the day you can plug your iPod into your television…”
MacDailyNews/iPodDailyNews Take: That’s a strange statement considering that later in the full article, Penenberg shows that he understands that Apple’s new iPods can display audio and video on any TV or other video device. Users can do so by using a US$19.99 Apple iPod AV Cable. An Apple iPod Universal Dock ($39.99) plus an Apple Remote ($19.99, included free with the new iMac G5) are a nice solution for using your iPod to play video on any size screen. You can also use Apple’s $19.99 VGA Display Adapter to connect the mini-VGA port on many Mac models to any VGA-equipped monitor or external projector for video-mirroring. The VGA cable plugs into the VGA video-out port built into your Mac. Or use Apple’s Apple Video Adapter to connect the mini-VGA video output port on your Mac to any S-video or Composite enabled device (TV, VCR, or overhead projector’s S-Video or RCA (composite) cable).
Penenberg presses on, “If Steve Jobs can make the iPod an entertainment hub, Apple will be the company to beat, a feat it could never accomplish with personal computers. But that’s a big if. Apple’s attempt to cram the functionality of the iPod into a phone has been a failure…”
MacDailyNews/iPodDailyNews Take: Apple doesn’t make a phone. Motorola makes the phones that incorporate Apple’s iTunes mobile software. Penenberg is grasping at straws here.
Penenberg continues, “The question is whether Apple will be able to gin up a wireless iPod—perhaps one that downloads shows and beams them to your TV—before it gets lapped by the field. Apple’s first step should be to create a vast media portal, essentially an Amazon.com for digital downloads that uses its iTunes store as a foundation… The company has already sketched out a description for such a portal in numerous trademark applications… The descriptions that go along with Apple’s trademark applications are often vaguely worded. But a shopping supercenter coupled with a wireless iPod that could plug into your TV and stereo would offer a serious value proposition for Apple. A revamped iPod and iTunes makes too much sense not to have crossed the minds of Apple executives. It can be folly to predict Steve Jobs’ next move, but this is one he almost has to make.”
Full article that gets a lot wrong, but winds up interestingly here.
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“,,,whether Apple will be able to gin up a wireless iPod…before it gets lapped by the field…”
lapped by the field? who’s even in sight back there?
actually, this is about as accurate as Slate magazine gets… are they still owned by M$? who else could afford to prop up this rag for this long?
February 2006 will be 4 years since Lost Budgie purchased his first iMac with OS-X.
Thats 4 years of stable computing. 4 years with ZERO DATA LOSS, zero viruses, zero trojans and not a single hang or blue screen of death.
The darn thing just keeps working.
Thank you Apple.
http://lostbudgie.blogspot.com/
“only the company’s most fervent fans would have predicted it would become a force in digital music. “
hammer take: Or people who KNOW the company and their panchant for creating really high quality products that are easy to use because of their tight integration.
“First, they’ll have to convince downloaders to pay them $1.99 to own movies and TV shows instead of a dollar less to rent them over cable or satellite”
hammer take: Should be a very easy process. Once people lose their tv shows after the time limit expires and people wonder what they just spent a buck on, being able to convince them to spen another whole dollar will be easy.
“Apple will become a force here on the day you can plug your iPod into your television…”
hammer take : uh, like right now. The cable costs 20$. Oh, maybe he’s referring to january 10th 2006.
“Penenberg presses on, “If Steve Jobs can make the iPod an entertainment hub, Apple will be the company to beat, a feat it could never accomplish with personal computers. But that’s a big if. Apple’s attempt to cram the functionality of the iPod into a phone has been a failure…”
hammer take: Um, yeah this guy isn’t just misinformed like i thought early in the article. He’s a complete idiot. Why do people who write articles for publications never do any reseaerch?
Free viPod ready bodcasts here.
Warning, not for the timid. Observe at your own risk, it’s all just fun and acting, foreplay.
Come back in a bit, uploading may be in progress
http://homepage.mac.com/hogfish
Availalbe for a short time only.
Slate was sold by M$ to (Washington) Post-Newsweek Interactive in 2005. Hint, if you want to work for the Washington Post or Newsweek, but aren’t a good enough journalist to be employed by either, Post-Newsweek Interactive will give your sorry ass a job, and you can say on your resume that you work for the Post.
While record companies, fearful of piracy, refused to create an infrastructure to sell digital music, Hollywood has been inking deals with cable companies and technology companies.
—
Eh..*clears throat.. I assure you, Hollywood is shitting its pants over digital downloads right now. File size aside…
Most major movies gross 80-120m in an opening weekend..
On the other hand, rarely do artists gross that much in an opening weekend.. (Eg. getting 1 million sales in a weekend is incredible.. that’s around $16m in revenue..artists make money on merch. and concert sales etc)
Movie companies are currently trying to flood dl networks with mirage files to screw with downloaders. But this thing isn’t going away.
So the market for music was not a big deal for Apple, but movies will be?
One problem. Portable video doesn’t really work. You can’t sell a device intended to watch movies (portable).. since.. most movies only get one view. A music player is perfect because you can amass all these little songs and listen to them over and over…
The market for video will be EASIER to capture than the market for music, i think, because it’s smaller. most existing channels are either overpriced (blockbuster, brick/mortar) or too limiting (aforementioned comcast deal)
To paraphrase 50 cent, “Apple’s about to put some [black people] out of business”
here’s the best way i see for apple to advance its video/media position:
make any/all television episodes with limited ‘freshness’ free. television shows with limited ‘freshness’ shows like jay leno, david leterman, sportscenter … maybe even the daily show. these are all shows tied to a date in time, and for the most part, they lose their value over time. they are shows that the networks don’t/can’t make more money on by selling complete season dvds. apple will pay the networks for them, but hopefully not much, and then make them available for free download from itunes.
free, easy to aquire, quality content will drive ipod sales even higher, increasing awarenes (of the video download movement) and building a huge base of users who are becoming more accustomed to downloading video content. this will create demand.
bottom line – you want people to get used to downloading content.
apple can continue to charge for its premium shows – shows such as lost, the office, law and order … shows that, compared to the types of shows listed above, have no shelf life. i think these shows are worth the $1.99 … almost.
320 x 240 video might be worth $1.99 now, but that’s only because it’s a new phenomenon. eventually, users will want full-quality (SD or HD) content for that price … and apple should deliver. true, the problem at this time is file size/download time. but it will become more and more feasable in the next couple years.
downloads could include a separate video specifically formatted for the ipod or itunes software could be upgrated to easily convert full-quality content to something more suitable (size wise) for a portable device.
finally, the hub for all this content should be the computer, not the ipod itself. the ipod is made to be mobile, not a vault containing all of a users media … and most definitley not as the portal to that media.
thoughts?
wish i had proofread.
Mike,
I agree…to a point. But kids watch movies over and over and over. People LOVE to collect movies and watch them later or show them to friends who have not seen them. It’s a whole cultural phenomena. BUT…movies in a portable format can also TRAVEL…along with your business files, and your whole music collection…in your shirt pocket. The current chip in the ipod with video is capable of ONLY 320 x 240. But the next generation will be higher. Count on it. If I could carry all that material around that easily I would do it INSTANTLY (if the visual rez was higher)..As it is the thing is
sold out in many stores. I was in three stores yesterday and it’s GONE.
It’s worth noting however that higher rez will take longer to download. So Short Form will continue to dominate for some time to come. Hence TV shows, and music videos. Movies will work on it..using HandBrake to down convert a DVD to ipod format (it works great)…but they are not where the
per piece money is anyway.
Sorry, PR, the chip in the iPod can support 640×360.
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