Technology Review’s Daniel Turner takes a look at the speculation running up to next week’s Macworld Expo and covers the usual rumors: Intel-based iBooks, Intel-based PowerBooks, new iPod shuffle; you know, the usual rumors. But, one of Turner’s notions is interesting (they’ve got quite an eclectic mix of writers over there, it seems):
Last fall, Apple refreshed its all-in-one iMac line and debuted Front Row, a piece of software that hijacks the usual Mac UI and replaces it with a simple interface — easily visible on a TV screen from the couch — allowing for presentation of photo slideshows, home movies, music, purchased TV show downloads, and movie trailers. The last item is the most interesting: if Front Row can stream movie trailers from Apple’s website, why not whole movies?
“If Front Row can stream movie trailers from Apple’s website, why not whole movies?”
We just tried, for the heck of it, running Front Row on an old 450 MHz Power Mac G4 via a cable modem (approximately 1.5Mbps). We chose a random movie trailer and it streamed very nicely. Very watchable on a rather large LCD. Imagine if Apple somehow jacked up the encoding a bit? Anyway, backing away from the monitor a few feet (like you probably would at least be positioned to relax while watching a movie) helped even more. (Close up, things like a yellow #2 pencil in a medium shot of an actor registered pretty high on the pixelation scale. But, from only a few feet away, it was more than acceptable. Can you guess which trailer we watched?)
Full article here.
What do you think? If Front Row can stream movie trailers from Apple’s website, why not whole movies – after you buy them of course, or – dare we say – subscribe to Apple’s service? Could Apple manage the bandwidth demands and deliver as perfectly smooth an experience as we just had with the trailer we tested? It’s fairly obvious that Front Row 1.0 is a test; a test of many things, but is one of its most important tests for Apple to see how well streaming content works?
[UPDATE: 8:49am ET: See related article: Apple Computer sues Burst after negotiations over iTunes, iPod licenses breakdown – January 06, 2006]
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If there is any choppiness due to the CPU trying to do many things, well, then, that’s exactly what Viiv is for.
Back on topic of Burst, on the one hand, the Burst lawsuit certainly could confirm something bigger coming next Tuesday. But it could also just be Apple misdirection, since Burst has claims on the Quicktime Streaming that’s been with us for awhile.
haha Yes, now I see how ancient I am. Like, lunar ancient.
Truth is, I live in the woods (sorta) and dial-up is all we got right now. We could spring for satellite, but here in mid-Alberta (that’s Canada, for you foreigners) it’s pretty expensive. Like $100 a month, and in my mind, it ain’t worth it.
The town we live by promised that the “wood-people” would get a wireless internet service like 2 years ago. Jack-shit has happened since, and here I am, slaving away to the 56K.
Hmm… “slavin’ away to the 56K”… sounds like a good folk song to me!
I don’t blame Apple, either. I’d rather they be ahead of the game myself.
Apple should release a new even smaller Mac mini for around 199$, destined to the living-room , it would have no HD, just flash memory. It would be able to run the iTunes music store, so you can buy tunes and videos, or download podcasts, and put them on your iPod.
It would feature built-in Wifi so you could use your main computer to store your music and video collection. Obviously Front Row and its remote would be included, and you’d be able to access not only the music/videos/photos stored in its internal Flash memory, but also stream them from your collection on your main Mac via Wifi.
Apple would also start to sell/rent streamed full-length movies, that wouldn’t need permanent storage (hence fit with the Flash memory model), so that you could make a good use of the box, even without linking it to a computer.
The movies wouldn’t be in HD and the first version of the box wouldn’t support HDTV, because bandwidth issues will make mass streaming of good quality HD movies almost impossible for the next few years and the majority of people don’t have HDTV’s, especially if you think about the whole world market, not just the US. It would support 480p resolution, and would be able to play DVD’s at full resolution, which is enough for most people anyway.
Now, some games on this new Apple box could be interesting… how about Nintendo’s complete NES/SNES/N64 back catalog available for download on the iTMS for this new box? Apple would need to add a game section, and DRM to prevent copying. A retro wireless controller would be sold as an add-on, and the box may include GameCube controller ports, since this controller would work with all those older games.
To bring new games to casual gamers, Apple would need to update its Front-Row remote, so that people don’t have to buy or add a new controller to play games. Apple could add 3d position and rotation detection feature to the Front-Row remote, and add 2 or 3 buttons. So people would be able to play fun puzzle games and other mini action games by waving or pointing the remote.
How should Apple name this box? I suggest they name it the Revolution!
Makes sense?
Lakitu:
“Makes sense?”
No.
It does make sense in my own parallel universe
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Oh ok then, that’s perfectly alright
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