“Apple Computer sent out invitations Tuesday to an event next week in San Francisco with the clue ‘It’s Showtime’ — fueling speculation about its plans to distribute movies online,” Michelle Quinn reports for The Mercury News.
“One rumor has Apple Computer announcing it will begin to sell full-length movies that can be downloaded at its iTunes store,” Quinn reports. “Another predicts the Cupertino company will start to sell video iPods with bigger screens. Or maybe it will be an iTunes cell phone. Still another has the company selling a video streaming device that could put video on any screen in the home, including the television.”
Quinn reports, “They all might be true. What seems certain is that Tuesday in San Francisco, Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, will don his trademark black turtleneck shirt and jeans, take the stage at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theatre and unveil new products and services, striving to cast an iPod spell on the Christmas shopping season.”
Quinn reports, “The invitation itself contains a few big hints. Spotlights scan the sky on a black, gray and white background, illuminating the Apple logo in the center. “It’s Showtime” may be the biggest clue and one that has led Apple aficionados to wide speculation. ‘The word ‘showtime’ may mean Apple is going to go more into long-form video, perhaps motion pictures,’ said Michael Gartenberg, vice president and research director at Jupiter Research in New York. ‘Whether it’s a rental or subscription model or on what devices, I can’t say. With Steve Jobs, it can always be one more thing as well.'”
“But ‘It’s Showtime’ could just refer to the show that Jobs will put on. Not everyone believes the announcement is only going to be about movies. ‘It’s been a year since we’ve seen new iPods,’ said Larry Angell, senior editor at iLounge… ‘Apple’s not going to let last year’s models sit on shelves for the second straight holiday shopping season. The only question is whether Apple has a radically new iPod ready or if we’ll see more minor revisions.’ But Angell said it is possible the company will introduce a ‘home media product,’ something that will make it possible to download music, movies and TV shows into the living room,” Quinn reports.
Full article here.
After clearing the decks with today’s iMac and Mac mini announcements, Apple must feel they have some really big news – that they don’t want to be muddled in any way – planned for next Tuesday’s special media event.
Related articles:
Report: Apple to unveil movie service with full-length Disney features on September 12th – September 06, 2006
It’s Showtime: Apple invites media to special event in San Francisco on September 12th – September 05, 2006
Analyst: Apple ‘iPhone’ finally ready for production – September 05, 2006
RUMOR: Apple plans blockbuster product announcements next Tuesday – September 04, 2006
RUMOR: Apple to launch iMac Core 2 Duo, movie store, new iPods on September 12th – September 04, 2006
It’s starting to sound quite interesting!
What will we see?
Steaming Movies?
New HDTV 1080p compliant monitors? 24″ iMac 1080p just released today…
New Mac mini SetTop Box?
High-Speed Airport?
The X-Mas list could go on and on…
Hopefully its not an update to their speaker system
Hmmmm. I don’t know about you, but there are way too many days between now and the 12th for me to get cranked. Hype leads to dissappointment. Usually.
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Mr. Reese: “Steaming Movies?” — Are those the “adult” kind?
Hey
“
Steaming Movies?
New HDTV 1080p compliant monitors? 24″ iMac 1080p just released today…
New Mac mini SetTop Box?
High-Speed Airport?
“
I like this idea but it doesn’t make any sense to me.
THe new macs have extreme cards as standard. If a new airport extreme exists surely they’d release the new macs after High speed airport.
my 2 cents
peace
\ln
How about, just this once, we set our expectations low. Let’s say we think it’ll either be the addition of movies to iTMS, or a new video iPod, or if we’re really lucky, both. That way, if they don’t come out with the 60″ iMac everyone is drooling over, or a flying car, there won’t be curses thrown from every direction.
The new computers may be 802.11n draft 2.0 compliant and are upgradable. Apple has in the past sold items and not fully publicized their true capabilities.
I hope SJ forgoes his turtleneck and wears his old Bow Tie that he used to wear when Apple was still young. That would surprise analysts and people who only started following Apple in recent years
ndelc – Good advice, but wrong crowd.
: )
Lowered expectations sounds great. Like expecting an “F” for a class and coming out with a C-, its really fun. So let me help us out: expect the iPod Hi-Fi mobile. All they’ll do is add a shoulder strap to that thing.
So when they add a freakin tape player to the ipod it will be a pleasant surprise, and put all the FM playing iPod/iTunes wannabe’s out of business.
iPhone… iPhone… iPhone…
(need to replace my POS Sony Ericsson)
Notice one major aspect of all cell phones that totally sucks (besides the GUI)? Web integration…
If Apple would release an unlocked iPhone which has perfect .mac and web integration (possibly even Google), this could turn the phone industry model upside down, like Apple did to the MP3 player market. Soon buying phones independent of your carrier would become the norm.
MW: line. I’d be first in line for an iPhone.
But can’t they just throw in the updated MacBook Pro along with the other stuff please….
The 24″ iMac didn’t seem to have HDCP, so it’s not quite there yet as a HD home theater. Monitors have got to have HDCP if they don’t want to be obsoleted by DMCA.
8-Track adapter for the iPod.
You heard it here first.
Look at the new mac mini site. You will see a screen shot that if you look carefully you will see a splash screen tucked in there that looks like a screen with movie choices. At the top of the screen pic it says “Wallace & Gromit”. Look at that graphic. It is right behind the media chooser of Front Row.
The cat is out the hat or bag.
Goober- Good find!
Goober is right. That’s a movie page – the icons are DVD-shaped, and that “G” in the upper right corner is clearly an MPA rating.
There may still be a hardware announcement next week to go along with all this, but it would be new, and not directly related to the computer line.
“THe new macs have extreme cards as standard. If a new airport extreme exists surely they’d release the new macs after High speed airport.”
In a recent post about the secrets of the intel macs, they mention that the cards are actually capable of twice as much bandwidth, but without drivers. Therefore, a simple update will make the airport cards much more capable.
Oops – not so clearly an MPA rating, unless there’s a G-rated version of DOOM.
sorry to burst your bubble guys, but that page with the movies is Front Row’s movie trailers. its been around for quite a while.
More slow downloads from iTunes as Comcast, COX and other cable companies throttle the downspeed.
Oh yea, retaliation is coming. Just like ISP’s started to limit bit torrents, then people switched to encrypted bit torrents and now there’s a new hardware device that can detect those streams for throttling.
You didn’t think the cable companies were going to just let Apple steal all their customers and use their bandwdth for free now did you?
Get Netflix, a copy of Handbrake and VisualHub and your all set to clog your hard drives with movies your only going to watch a few times and then it just sits there, robbing your machine of performance.
Simple answer, Mr. Incredible has joined Apple’s board of directors. duh people.
With the “Showtime” label, it doesn’t look good for an iPhone – but I’m still hoping…. an widescreen iPod with downloadable ITMS movies would be a cool 2nd place though
What about this?
Samsung to Ship moviNAND Flash
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/ZDM/story?id=2401403
Goober is wrong. That graphic on the Mac Mini site shows one of Front Row’s functions: browsing movie trailers. You can see a demonstration of this by visiting the following page and clicking on ‘Videos’ at the left of the iMac.
http://www.apple.com/au/imac/frontrow.html
“New Mac mini SetTop Box?”
Oh my god. Is this Mac OS Rumors circa 1997?