“Apple had an announcement planned for July 6th but cancelled at the last moment. Interestingly enough, Amazon.com also had an announcement scheduled for that same day in July and it too was cancelled at the same time as Apple’s. Both companies planned to talk about their movie and TV Internet download services. The fact that both announcements were cancelled at the same time is especially curious given that the Wall Street Journal tells us that Apple and Amazon are using completely different technologies, with Amazon’s being based on Microsoft code,” Robert X. Cringely writes for PBS.
Cringely writes, “Channeling Steve Jobs now, I’d say the delay came down to this: Apple was still struggling to put together the right list of participating movie companies and needed to postpone the announcement so Steve could beat up on a few more studio honchos. What got Amazon to postpone their announcement was indirect pressure from Steve, who didn’t want to be shown up by Bezos & Company delivering more titles — a LOT more titles.”
“So Apple got Amazon to postpone its announcement by holding out the lure that Amazon might get Disney to participate in a later event. According to the Journal and elsewhere, the only major studio Amazon doesn’t have is Disney, which I am sure they would sorely like to have. Meanwhile, the only major studio Apple reportedly has IS Disney. That connection and Jobs’ role on the Disney board (as well as being the company’s largest shareholder) made it possible for him to force Disney to force Amazon — well you get it,” Cringely writes.
“And yet, next week’s announcement reportedly still has Apple with only Disney films to sell. This suggests the other studios are ganging up on pricing, trying to force Jobs to change the $9.99 and $14.99 price points that have been bandied about. Evidently these discussions have failed and Apple, not wanting to miss the Christmas season entirely, has to move forward now or wait until next year,” Cringely writes. “I am sure Apple will be negotiating with the studios until the last possible moment, but it may take Amazon trouncing Apple during the Christmas shopping season to have any real impact on those negotiations.”
“Frankly, I’m on the side of Apple on this one, because I like lower prices and tend to think that they discourage piracy much more than does the hated Digital Rights Management. With my kids on their 400th viewing of Shark Tale, I’d far rather pay $9.99 for a movie I know I can play than grab one for free that I’m not sure I can. On a dollars-per-hour basis, it is still cheap,” Cringely writes.
“Many pundits correctly predicted that Apple was about to announce new iMacs only to have that announcement take place earlier this week without an associated event. That’s typical Jobs marketing, casually presenting what we would have accepted as pretty big news in itself, which implies that whatever is coming next week, well it is REALLY big,” Cringely writes. “Maybe, maybe not, depending on those studio negotiations.”
“What I think is coming next week is exactly what I thought was coming last January when Apple at the last moment changed its mind about an earlier set of announcements. We’ll see a bunch of iPods, two televisions, and the Video Express adapter I first wrote about more than 18 months ago,” Cringely writes.
Cringely writes, “Yes, we’ll probably see a larger screen video iPod, a larger capacity flash-based iPod, and some models with yet larger hard drives. All of those are no-brainers. The televisions are no-brainers, too. Gateway started this trend, but now HP and Dell both sell HDTVs so it’s logical for Apple to do so, too. Apple was set to deliver a pair of plasma models back in January, but those may now have LCD displays, I don’t really know. But with the HDTV market booming, Apple would be crazy not to grab a piece of that action. However, the most interesting announcement I am expecting will be the Video Express, which I sure hope is finally here. If you don’t remember, this is a gizmo that plugs into a power outlet just like an AirPort Express, only where the AirPort Express sends WiFi AND audio around your house, the Video Express will send WiFi and audio AND video.”
Cringely writes, “This is key, because what’s been missing throughout this conversion to Internet television has been a way to incorporate our user device of choice — the TV. People don’t really want to watch movies on their computer screens. They’ll do it, some of them, but most people won’t, so for the Internet and downloadable video market to explode the way it is supposed to do, we need an easy way to get the movies out of our computers and onto our TV screens. The Video Express will do this in an elegant and typically-Apple fashion. It’s a simple device with no user interface at all, just ports. You plug it in the wall, it finds your WiFi network and video servers, then makes those servers available to your TV. But of course it is Front Row and iTunes-only, thanks — an iPodlike extension of your hard drive, viewable through your TV. And since the H.264 video decoding takes place in hardware inside the Video Express, your TV doesn’t even have to be a fancy one.”
Full article with much more here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Mark” and “LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Amazon.com launches ‘Amazon Unbox’ DVD-quality video download service with TV shows and movies – September 07, 2006
It’s Showtime: Apple invites media to special event in San Francisco on September 12th – September 05, 2006
“Full article with MUCH more here” ???? Yeah, if you define “much more” as an extra 1/2 paragraph. Come on. Don’t just cut and paste… THINK man, THINK!
Stevie keeps his army up his sleevy. This message was brought to you by Mrs. Milton’s 4th grade homeroom.
will the new, rumoured Video Express work on my year old 20″ CRT? plug the VE in the wall, then connect an s video and rca audio jacks into the VE and TV? And then my router, which is Wifi-ed w/ my ibook, will send, say a Google Video into the VE and then my TV? sweet, if it’s true and not crazy expensive.
“Cube to be re-born?”
I love the Cube. Still. To this day. It took me 4 years to get one, and I love it.
The cube was re-born a year and a half ago.. It was re-named the mini.
“[…] it may take Amazon trouncing Apple during the Christmas shopping season to have any real impact on those negotiations.”
Because we all know that everyone is going to buy downloadable movies for their friends and relatives at Christmas.
“The televisions are no-brainers, too. Gateway started this trend, but now HP and Dell both sell HDTVs so it’s logical for Apple to do so, too.”
Because we all know that whatever Gateway, HP, and Dell do, Apple is sure to follow.
RC: “Apple shouldn’t be concerned with trying to make VCR’s, DVD’s etc working together… “
What’s a VCR?
The only way HP could sell a lot of TVs would be to integrate a small screen and tuner into their ink cartridges.
Very happy with my Intel Mini hooked up to my plasma and 5 external ministack drives loaded with my DVD’s.
Only ask that they allow FrontRow to play VIDEO_TS files…
If they want to astound me, present this on Tuesday:
1 — iTunes Video Service at the same price as Amazon, but allowing burn to DVD.
2 — A widescreen iPod on which the video looks great and which has enough battery power to take me through a full movie and another few hours of music.
3 — One More Thing: An Apple Branded home server with remote. This baby connects to to the TV and is controlled by my mac wirelessly. Obviously it holds movies, accepts the downloads and serves the tv. The kicker is that it also holds my audio files, my photographs, my home video… and backups of my files. (All ready for Time Machine when it arrives.) With a cable input, the server will also TiVo television. This functionality will be directed by the Mac.
Cue the oohs and ahhs.
Ampar: What’s a VCR?
Continue reading my post, I explained it… Outdated technology
Shogun, everything you mention has been thought of and discussed before…. Here are the problems.
1. iTunes video service- Why would the Hollywood studios allow Apple’s service the ability to burn DVD’s but not Amazon?
2. Widscreen iPod – It’s a possibility
3. Apple media server – sounds plausible except for the TiVo part…. I can’t see Apple offfering TiVo functionality which will allow its customers to record content for free when Apple is selling that same content for $1.99 at the iTMS. It’s be like shooting themselves and the deals they struck with the TV networks in the foot….. I agree it’d be great for the consumer, but not so great for Apple’s iTMS tv business.
RC: Oops. Sorry that you took me seriously. I’ll try to remember to add an emoticon next time.
P.S. Speaking of outdated technology, flipbooks are still cool. (no sarcasm)
Ampar: I wasn’t taking you seriously, just thought I’d be a smartass..
RC,
1 — The movie execs wouldn’t be interested, which is why it’ll probably be Disney and Lion’s Gate Tuesday. The gamble is that the download numbers will grow so large so quickly that they will dwarf Amazon’s downloads and force execs to make the hard decision to go with iTunes. This is pro forma in a way, because they need some good reason to bring to Walmart to prove it’s necessary to allow DVD burns as Walmart is currently blocking that functionality because it will deeply eat into their DVD business and their wider business model (which, as I’m sure you know, includes low-priced DVDs to get people in the doors).
2 — A Gimmie
3 — I hadn’t thought that far ahead in my thinking. Great point. Still, the good of the user experience would seem to dictate that digital tv on demand is inevitable. So maybe iTunes comes out with a tv show rental option, where, for $25.00/month (say) a person gets unlimited tv downloads that are watchable only for that month. So you can buy a la carte for $1.99 or rent en masse. It’s not TiVo, but maybe close enough. Then again maybe not. Now I have to go sit in my thinking chair and mull (I’ve got the day off).
Ahh, yes, RC! The cerebrogluteal effect. I’m familiar!
Pretty soon, I’m going to be outdated technology.
If Apple does the video the same way as they did audio, then the video will be dis-DRMed at the Mac and encrypted. The Airport express video will decrypt and convert the H.264 stream to a digital and/or analog TV stream. Will the digital TV port be DVI, HDMI, and/or even Firewire? Will the analog TV port be RCA, component and/or RF? Your guess is as good as mine.
I have to believe there will be a difference. The Mac will actually compress the video for wi-fi delivery and the Airport express video will decompress it. (For audio, the Mac delivered encrypted Apple lossless to the Airport Express).
“The cube was re-born a year and a half ago.. It was re-named the mini.”
Regarding the patent, please note that this patent was applied for on May 5, 2006, and was apparently granted yesterday. This ain’t the mini, nor the old cube. I sent a link to this story to MDN yesterday but I guess they didn’t find it very interesting. This new design is upgradeable and has removable sides. Personally, I think the cube is coming back. Perhaps the mini will become a true media center and the cube will take it’s place?
New Apple Cube Patent
Sorry, that link doesn’t seem to work. Here it is in long form:
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=Apple.AS.&OS=AN/Apple&RS=AN/Apple
I find it interesting that the Apple announcement is sceduled on the same day as the CTIA Wireless (Mobile) Entertainment Convention in LA. Anybody who’s anybody in the mobile industry will be there, but Apple is having their own thing. So my guess that this event is related to Apples wireless strategy.
I think the key quote in the whole thing was, “I don’t really know”. I personally think Apple is going to announce that they’ve cracked the Da Vinci’s code. Can I write a column about that and get some press?
TVs schmeevees! I’m still waiting for that 30″ iMac. The 24 incher shows Apple is on the right path…just wait ’til Tuesday!
I prefer “AirPort Express AV” to “Video Express”.
Anyone agree that Apple hasn’t publicized AirPort Express enough?