“Apple, whose iTunes internet music site sold its billionth tune last week, is preparing to launch a film download service. An announcement is expected as early as this week,” Tony Glover reports for The Business.
The news will represent another move in Apple’s strategy to network computing and entertainment products around the home so music and video can be wirelessly streamed from one device to another. Films downloaded on to an Apple computer from iTunes could be transferred through an Apple Airport wireless connection to a digital television or stored on a video iPod,” Glover reports. “Using the success of Apple’s iPod, the world’s most successful portable digital music player, and iTunes, Apple’s hugely successful music download service, as a springboard for a film download service makes perfect commercial sense for Apple chief executive and founder Steven Jobs.”
“There is also speculation among US analysts that Apple is also working on additional video and audio-enabled products to complement a revamped iTunes services offering feature-length films. Some believe Apple is also planning to unveil a new widescreen computer notebook to be called the “Macbook”, which will be distinctive because of its small size and widescreen cinema display. It is expected to retail at less than $1,500,” Glover reports. “There is also talk that Apple is planning the launch of an Apple-branded hi-fi that will enable iPod users to dock their iPod music player into a device that will then turn the compact digital music player into a fully-fledged hi-fi that will enable them to share their music collection in the living room, the kitchen or at the beach.”
Full article here.
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Related articles:
RUMOR: Apple to debut iPod ‘Hi-Fi’ Boombox this Tuesday – February 25, 2006
Analysts: Apple Video iPod ‘likely’ on February 28, ‘coud be tablet-sized or HDTV-based’ – February 23, 2006
Apple to launch iTunes Movie Store with full-length feature films on February 28? – February 23, 2006
Analyst: new Intel-based Mac mini, iBook, iPod ‘boombox’ may debut at Apple event next Tuesday – February 22, 2006
Analyst: Apple to unveil Intel-based iBooks, ‘real’ video iPod at special event in April – February 09, 2006
RUMOR: Apple iBook to become ‘MacBook’ while ‘MacBook Pro’ will offer more screen size choices soon – January 11, 2006
If they do start offering movies via iTunes, and the quality is just as crappy as their current video offerings…no sale.
Cool, glad to see your here on the weekend MDN.
Rememeber folks SnapZ ProX will screen record anything into Quicktime format, of course it might not work yet on Mactels.
Don’t expect it to work forever either if it does.
Of course the problem is getting the file size downsized to fit your DVD burner.
They’re wrong — Steve is going to unveil the iWalk, at long long last.
What the heck is “The Business,” anyway?
Oh I forgot, MyVu is supposed to be released very soon as well.
This will allow us to watch video from the viPods and walk around with it on.
http://www.myvu.com/
Apple Insider has a great record lately and they say no laptops are expected next week. (But it can’t be that far off.)
I just heard a rumor that Apple is going to be releasing Intel-based Macs this year.
Actually, the quality of the H.264 movies on iTunes music store is very good, considering the low resolution. If they would only use SD (720×486) resolution, which would only quadruple the bandwidth requirement (which would still be quite low), the quality would be as good as DVD.
Ideally, they’d let you buy an HD version, which would be WAY better than DVD. They’d remaster when feasible and do a high-quality upscale when not. But I doubt that they’ll do this.
I’ll be disappointed if it’s not SD though. I mean, I’d still buy one…
“HEY, let’s just mention everything that Apple might release this coming Tuesday in our article, okay? That way we’ll have our asses covered and we can claim to our readers later on that our predictions were 100% correct. Sound good?”
Sheesh. Talk about giving us “The Business”!
Again, I would be amazed if the Intel iBook had a Core Duo processor and the Core Solo’s aren’t shipping yet. So I think if the iBook is mentioned, it will be more of a “taking orders now for April” type of thing. Maybe one will be shown.
For what it’s worth:
As of iTunes 6.0.3, when you select a video, you can now choose between three options under ‘video kind’: movie, music video and TV show. Before this, you only had music video and TV show.
What do they mean debut MacBooks. Didn’t Apple already release a MacBook.
Oh and Sum Jung, It won’t be WAY better than DVD if it won’t FIT on a DVD.
Surely they mean to crank up the resolution for full-length movies. TV shows watched on a computer screen are fine as they are, but it’d be nice to be able to take movies on an iPod to a friends house or on business trips and play them through the TV, and 320×240 ain’t gonna cut it for that.
Also, I hope the next iTunes iteration gives you a litle better video control – maybe put the floating full-screen controls that you have in QTPro.
Oh, and chocolate sprinkles.
Greg –
I think they mean an iBook replacement – MacBook vice MacBook Pro.
I’ll still put my money on new Macintelitosh machines until April 4th or 11th.
Why?
There’s no point in releasing several products that compete for column inches, so you’ll only see iPod Boombox and/or iPod hi-fi on Tuesday. You may also see an Apple remote for AirTunes, based on the work of OpenPeak.
April 1 is Apple’s 30th birthday – sadly it’s a Saturday, so nothing new on the day. April 24 is NAB – so you can expect the back end of April to focus on the new – UB – version of Final Cut Studio.
April 11 is the day before Apple announces its Q2 numbers and it’s more or less three months since the first bunch of Intel announcements, as well as being six weeks on from whatever they announce on Tuesday – so it’s my bet for the next tranche of the Intel migration.
Whatever. Let’s have the RDF and see what spills out. With movies we’ll eventually get a media center — actually long overdue. And maybe a quicktime update that won’t tell you it’s lacking software to play a file even after you’ve paid. Naah … use VLC instead.
Anyone have any idea what this is:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewGenre?id=33
A cheaper portable would only hurts sales of the MacBook Pro, which only just started shipping. Not going to happen.
Well there must be a new video ipod on the way if they’re planning to sell full length movies on itunes. The lack of adequate skip facilities on the current ipod (video) means it takes F O R E V E R to manually scroll to rejoin the latter part of a movie – chewing up precious battery life in the process. Indexing facility and skip controls through ipod software update please!
A MacBook (non-pro) may hurt sales of MacBook Pro a little, but the sales from the non-pro computers will much more than make up for it. That model must work or Apple wouldn’t have used it for years.
a cheaper portable would only hurts sales of the MacBook Pro, which only just started shipping. Not going to happen.
—
brilliant…lets cut product..since we all know an ibook and a MBP are pretty much the same thing
:S???
I’m going to go out on a limb and guarantee with absolute 100% certainty that Apple will sell some product on Tuesday.
The quality of the vid has to be better than whats currntly being offered.
A few comments/opinions:
First, a MacBook (non pro) is going to happen. It could be a core solo based item or it could be based upon the lowest speed core duo. Either would be possible.
This coming Tuesday is a bit early for the MacBook to be introduced, but it is crucial to get it out the door by May. That’s the start of the buying cycle for next school year. If it’s not out by May it will hurt sales to schools for the next year. Apple won’t miss that deadline. However, that said, getting things out the door before then will work too.
Second, lowest end core duo or a core solo based MacBook with lower end/fewer options (why would a MacBook need to write dual layer DVDs?) than a MacBook Pro would not significantly affect the number of MacBook Pros sold. Plus I don’t believe Apple’s profit margin on the lowest end MacBook Pro will be much different than the highest end MacBook.
It is possible Apple will anounce a Mac mini with the lowest end core duo. This would be enough horsepower (assuming enough RAM and a decent enough video card) to deal with most of today’s multimedia. The problem with this is that to be a good multimedia box going forward it will have to support both HDCP and AACS in hardware. To date there are absolutely no shipping video cards which support both HDCP and AACS in hardware. One was announced this past week, but I don’t think it’s shipping yet.
Certainly Apple could surprise everyone and ship a Mac mini with HDMI out fully supporting HDCP and AACS, but the AACS standard just reached “interim final” status within the last couple weeks. I doubt Apple has had time to get hardware and software to the poin of supporting it all in that short a time.
But Apple has pleasantly surprised us before.
Third, and a bit more on topic…
The newest statements from the Blu-ray group (the one of the two competing HD formats Apple has formally stated it will support) is that they are going to push for 1080/60p video with 7.1 sound. Compressed with H.264 this comes to approximately 24 Mbps.
I very much doubt that Apple will support this data rate through the iTunes Music Store (iTMS). Even if you have an 8 Mbps link like I do this would take at least six hours to download a two hour movie. If you have a T-1 equivalent (DSL or other) then at 1.5 Mbps it would take 16 hours to download.
Customers won’t want to sit and wait for 6-16 hours for a movie to download. How many of you would give up 100% of your bandwidth for hours at a time? maybe if you downloaded overnight, but most people today want instant gratification. That’s why the video on demand systems are starting to catch on.
Thus it is clear (to me at least) that Apple will offer a lower resolution product for their video on iTMS — if they offer it all all next Tuesday (more on this below). This would set up a two tiered system just as it is now for music. You can get higher fidelity music by buying a CD, SACD or DVD-A or you can buy lower quality, more compressed music through iTMS (though some people claim they cannot hear the difference).
Why might Apple not do a video add on to iTMS this coming Tuesday? The digital rights managment system, the Advanced Access Content System (AACS), has just reached interim final approval (the BD+ aspects have not been finalized as of yet). Thus the standard is not yet truly final, but it is final enough for the HD-DVD group — the group Apple is *not* supporting. They (HD-DVD) were anxious to get their boxes shipping before the Blu-ray group and thus pushed hard for the interim final status.
Thus if Apple ships videos with AACS in its current form it may not be compatible with future editions which include BD+ for the Blu-ray media. However, to get around this Apple could just never implement BD+ on iTMS video. The studios won’t like this, but then they don’t have to put their films on iTMS if they don’t like it.
Also, AACS has JUST reached interim final status. Unless Apple has been actively reprogramming changes to the standard as each change has evolved then they won’t have anything ready by Tuesday. It is possible, but it is a great expense to have software engineers coding and re-coding the software as the standard evolves.
Then again, Apple could just implement their own DRM as they did with music on iTMS. I doubt this will happen this time since there is a generally accepted, open standard and there was no such thing when iTMS came out. But it could happen.
Just my thoughts and ramblings.
Shadowself,
There’s nothing to stop people downloading overnight or while they’re at work. I do that now on a modem. It can take me a week to download a movie (by means other than iTunes of course)
This is just another example of the Bad Mac Rumour Echo Chamber Effect.