“In a company first, Jobs introduced a product that isn’t immediately available—the iTV. Plus: a movie-download service and updated iPods. Apple Computer Chief Executive Steve Jobs made a few out-of-character moves as he unveiled a slate of new products on Sept. 12. For starters, he left the trademark black mock turtleneck at home, instead donning a black button-down. The real shocker, though, was Apple’s decision to tout a product months before it’s due to hit the market,” Arik Hesseldahl reports for BusinessWeek.
MacDailyNews Note: It’s not a “company first.” It happens all the time, in fact it even happened today with the new iPod shuffle due in October. It’s happened with Macs several times in the past and with upcoming Mac OS X versions every time. The reason Jobs pre-announced “iTV” so far in advance, in our opinion, was to freeze purchases of such things as Media Center PCs this holiday season. We think it’ll accomplish that task quite nicely.
Hesseldahl continues, “Apple made what can only be called a highly unusual move for a company that forbids employees from even speculating publicly about forthcoming products. Jobs unveiled the iTV, a product he’s hoping will bridge the chasm between those movie downloads and the TV set in the living room. Thing is, it won’t be available until early 2007. When released, it will sell for $299.”
“Where Apple is going—or hopes to go—is territory that rivals have so far failed to conquer. Apple says iTV is capable of moving music, movies, and other content from a computer to a television, or another entertainment device. This would be done using wireless technology—probably some variant of wireless fidelity, although Apple didn’t explain further,” Hesseldahl reports. “Microsoft has made attempts with its Media Center PCs in conjunction with Hewlett-Packard although the combination hasn’t truly succeeded in getting entertainment off the PC. Intel has also made noise about its own entertainment PC concept called VIIV (rhymes with “five”) but little has been heard about the initiative in recent months.”
“Apple seems to be betting that it can teach the motion picture studios the same lesson it taught the movie [sic] industry: Marry the device and the content in a harmonious ecosystem with a simple price structure, and consumers will flock,” Hesseldahl writes.
MacDailyNews Note: Ignore Hesseldahl’s Freudian slip. Substitute “music” and/or “TV shows” for “movie” in his sentence above.
Hesseldahl continues, “One important question left lingering about iTV was exactly how the device will work. Jobs said it will use some variant of wireless networking known as IEEE 802.11, and Apple already has some history with this technology. It was early to deliver Wi-Fi networking products under its Airport brand. But Jobs also said that the iTV will support HDTV video content. That implies the device will use a version of Wi-Fi that is faster and more advanced than the prevailing standard (802.11g), which tops out at data transmission speeds of 54 megabits per second (Mbps).”
“The next iteration of that technology, 802.11n, will boost the data speed to above 200 Mbps, and perhaps as high as 540 Mbps. That would be fast enough to support a high-definition stream, but it isn’t expected to be approved until 2008,” Hesseldahl writes. “Meanwhile, companies such as Netgear, Linksys, and D-Link have been pressing ahead selling gear that is based on competing iterations of early versions of the standard. For Apple, pressing ahead with Wi-Fi technology before it becomes a ratified standard is nothing new—the Airport Extreme line of products used 802.11g before that standard was ratified.”
Full article here.
Steve Jobs gives sneak peek of Apple’s “iTV” wireless set-top box:
Related articles:
Apple eyes living room market with device codenamed ‘iTV’ – September 12, 2006
Analyst: Apple ‘s iTunes+iPod+iTV model ‘the gold standard for the digital home of the future’ – September 12, 2006
The Motley Fool’s Lomax: Apple news ‘mostly underwhelming, with some potential future bright spots’ – September 12, 2006
Analyst: Apple ‘s iTunes+iPod+iTV ‘will be hard for other players to match’ – September 12, 2006
Apple gives sneak peek of ‘iTV’ set-top box to debut Q1 2007 (with images) – September 12, 2006
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Apple intros new iPod nano with new aluminum design in five colors and 24-hour battery life – September 12, 2006
Cringely on Apple video experiment, future 802.11n Apple Video Express, Sony TVs in Apple stores – October 14, 2005
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The announcement of this device was a message to the other movie companies– that there is a market for their content to grow into. It also sets up a possibility for a subscription service, as the iTV streams off of the internet, as well as from a hard drive in your vicinity. This sort of announcement, though, is exactly the sort of things people say they want from Apple, but when it happens, they get uncomfortable. Too funny.
Simply put…….”Its Apple’s turn”.
It was a highly strange move in my opinion. He obviously wants to get out ahead of the pack.
Its going to be an interesting few months….
Gecko:
“get out aheead of the pack”???? Try googling “stream movies”. There’s already tons of ways to stream audio and video content, and many of them cost a lot less than $299.
A Freudian slip is when you say one thing, but mean your mother.
Dare I say…Microsoftian? (i.e. Don’t get too excited about those other guys–we’ve got something better coming up, even if it’s vaporware for now.) You can get away with that kind of crap when you’re the big name in your field (digital media downloads in this case).
what pack?
When will people learn? 54Mbit trafic, 24Mbit actual data throughput/sec! Google on it
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oh you mean the strangling bunch of hyenas trying to nip at the gazelle’s heals?
The way Apple intends to achieve the feat of bandwidth is by duplicating the parallel processing concept with parallel broadcasting. The device will have shared 802.11g cards moving the split data until 802.11n cards are is released.
You heard it here first
ok here is something noone is talking about but has got me enthusiastic … did anyone notice that on the streaming video of the announcement that you could pause, play, pause, play, fast forward, play, pause, rewind, play, fast forward, play, pause, play and quicktime wouldn’t miss a beat? try that on quicktime 6 or M$ mediocre player and see what happens? I guarentee you won’t get the same results. I am excited! Thank you Steve and all the hard working people at Apple Computer. You guys rock. nuf sed.
Well, the iTV sounds pretty compelling. And why NOT pre-announce it? All eyes are on Apple these days to lead multiple industries. And lacking full-blown product releases, why not let the industry, investors and consumers just an inkling of what Apple (and Steve Jobs) have in mind in the near future?
The iTV is really a natural extension of what we all already own… a Macintosh. The fact that it has he same footprint as a Mac mini is telling. Stack it under a new Core Duo Mac mini and atop an external Firewire hard drive (with the same footprint) and you’ve got a compact and powerful media center. You could easily hide a Mac mini and the external drives and discreetly run everything via an iTV. Tres cool!
Let’s hope that Apple has the foresight to include 802.11n or pre-n Airport capabilities. The whole setup shines even brighter.
I’ve got a Netgear wireless router that uses pre-n and it’s quite nice. The signal is considerably stronger than the standard ‘g’ router and can move files faster, too. This is just what’s needed for A/V streaming. It wouldn’t be bad to do some everyday computing on a spankin’ new 1080p monitor with a setup like that… all with Bluetooth keyboard, mouse and WACOM tablet!
I was hoping that Apple would announce updated 1080p/iSight monitors, but they will come at a later date.
I bet the iTV is released alongside the real iPod AV… a BIG one-two punch!
Gates and Company must be quaking a little harder tonight. Chairs are flying in Redmond! Maybe even a sofa or two…
Perhaps the reason for Jobs speaking “early” about iTV is to get all the rumor speculators to shut up a little bit in the meanwhile…
iTV is not much more than what one can already do today with an iMAC mini and a flatscreen. I have enjoyed all the things he’s shown for months already. iTV will just be the next release of the mac mini.
doPi said:
The way Apple intends to achieve the feat of bandwidth is by duplicating the parallel processing concept with parallel broadcasting. The device will have shared 802.11g cards moving the split data until 802.11n cards are is released
==
Doh. The two 802.11g cards would then have to share the 54 Mbps throughput from the router. Two cards running half the speed.
I think Dopi has leaked it. I wonder if it is true?
In truth, the rumor mills ruined this show … not. Who else in the industry is even close to Apple now? I say no one. M$ has been targeting the living room for years now and still has nothing but a brown brick to show for it. So much for innovation from M$. The codenamed “iTV” package will truely be a step into the living room where most of us really live. Technology will have to catch up to Apple, but that’s just the way it has always been, right? I am deeply intrigued in what Steve meant by: we are in your den, we are in your living room, we are in your car, we are in your pocket. Could he be alluding to a device with all the capabilities of all four components? Would it be plausible to assume that an iphone would have those capabilities? It would seem plausible, given the new patents just recently applied. Just a thought. New remote/iphone/ipod/itunes/TV shows/music/iTV/etc? The possibilities are seemingly endless and the implications are staggering. Let’s redefine media. Ahem! Let’s redefine everything…
MW: “building”
I wouldn’t expect anything less from MDN with respect to their MW selection.
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I think the iTV is a great idea and I’ll probably get one. BUT, I hope the implementation matches the hype. Bandwidth remains an issue – both on the download from ITMS and across the living room. Stating that the material is “near DVD quality” or HDTV says nothing about the level of compression used. I have HDTV on satellite and there’s a noticeable quality variation between programmes depending on the bit rate used – but all are notionally 1080i. ITMS and iTV could provide HDTV material over an old 11Mbps wireless net – but the compression artefacts would be awful.
Steve has to announce the iTV, otherwise who would pay $10 or $15 to watch a movie on their computer screen or iPod? This tells people that if you buy the movie today, you can stream it to your big flatscreen tv that you plan to buy over Xmas, come Springtime.
Also, no one seems to have noticed that Cars was streamed in HD, except RC. And, as he points out, though movies are currently VGA, depending on the compression, and whether they use the original masters to recode the video, these movies could have less compression artifacts than the rather pedestrian MPEG2 used in DVDs.
Why bother with a ‘stream’ across the living room. (and the need to upgrade airport etc.) Makes more sense to wire your mac mini to iTV and then into the back of your set – a mac media centre
re: Dennis..
Dare I say…Microsoftian? (i.e. Don’t get too excited about those other guys–we’ve got something better coming up, even if it’s vaporware for now.) You can get away with that kind of crap when you’re the big name in your field (digital media downloads in this case).
—–
HAVE YOU ACTUALLY SEEN THE KEYNOTE????
How can it be ‘Vapourware’ when SJ physically show the device, proves it works and tell us a price??
Are you thick or what?
It is not Vapourware – it’s an actual product.
You obviously know fuck all about Steve Jobs and Apple – Steve Jobs NEVER announces a product unless it is DEFINATELY going to ship. He is not the sort of person that would stand in front of the worlds press and say bullshit.
Microsoft on the otherhand ALWAYS try to sell their vapourware and throw verbal bullshit at the press and their customers.
Im lucky – my isp has just upgraded my adsl line to 8mbs FOR FREE!
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Just goes to show, stay loyal with an ISP for 4 years and they give you free upgrades.
Bring it one Steve!
My adsl is ready for those movies!!
Mac mini on top of a NewerTech miniStack (or similar product) on top of an iTV… that’s the NEW Macintosh Cube! Well, it’ll still be a little short for a “cube.” Maybe with two miniStacks, it’ll be a cube.
Apple Multimedia Cube. Very cool…
a bit off-topic but what happened to the iTMS -killer URGE ??!
vaporware anyone..
Why pre-announce iTV? – Marketing 101
1. Pre-Announcing slows sales of competitive offerings already in the market place.
2. Pre-Announcing a product into a new market not yet entered does not hurt existing sales.
3. Pre-Announcing Apple style builds an enormous amount of hype, and pent up demand.
While all eyes will be focusing on “iTV” for MWSF, the other shoe will drop – HDTV’s from Apple.
The catch with Apple’s sets will be that iTV will be built-in, and they may have an iSight camera with zoom as well (although that is a bit more fuzzy). Movies may also gain 720p resolution, but again, an unknown.
Lastly, Apple will get a few more studio’s onboard at or before MWSF ’07, and yes, 802.11n will be the trasmission solution.
QUESTION: So the iTV device is 802.11n – how then does a non wireless or networked in the home (just to Cable modem and out the house) connect to this device in the living room?
ANSWER: Steve did not reveal a the add-on solutions – which will include:
– A 802.11n PC card for laptops
– A PCI card for WinXP PC’s… This card requires the most work compatibility-wise (what a pain).
– A new MovieExpress card (AKA Airport card) for older Macs.
– A new MovieExpress card which also incorporated bluetooth for newer Macs.
Most of these solutions will run $39.99
Steve showed us the iTV, but did not show us how Apple plans on getting the data to it wirelessly (as that will proove to be the easiest – in theory – and most popular way to do so).
Notice Steve skipped over the “settings” selection at the bottom of the list?
~OUT