“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’s QuickTime stream of Steve Jobs special event now live – September 12, 2006
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Apple unveils new iPod shuffle: world’s smallest digital music player – September 12, 2006
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
Apple pushes for next-gen 600Mbps Wi-Fi standard as member of Enhanced Wireless Consortium – – October 10, 2005
I only hope that they use a different streaming technology that 802.11b or g. We have projectors that use g and even then, they are virtually unusable on anything but a simple powerpoint.
web.mac.com/simon_elliott/
My feeling is that iTV is going to be more versatile than it would appear at first glance.
On it’s own, it will do exactly what it says it will do – and do it very well too. It will deliver entertainment to your living room. But if you plug in a USB hard drive, it will be able to store movies, but probably in an encoded form, only to be played if you have a valid software activation key.
Note how there was a mention of pre-ordering movies. If you’re buying on-line and having it delivered on-line, is there any real point in pre-ordering ? But if the movie were downloaded to you a little in advance of it’s release, but not be available for viewing until the time of release, then Apple’s servers would have a lesser peak demand to cope with.
There was also talk of viewing photographs via iTV. Obviously it could be done via a Mac, but with an attached hard drive, the iTV could do that job all by itself, the same goes for your music collection.
So by adding a simple hard drive, your iTV has become a Personal Server, acting as a repository for all your movies, audio, photos and more. As iTV can be accessed by any computer on your network, there would no longer be any need to store those bulky files on individual computers.
Then look at the forthcoming features of Leopard, such as shared iCals and Time Machine. Leopard server also includes things like Wiki facilities and much more besides. OS X is moving towards a model where a server would offer many advantages, but currently no small-scale server exists.
I can see no reason why iTV can’t be both a TV interface and optionally a server too. If you ask owners of an Airport Express what their device primarily is, you hear one say that it’s a portable base station that can be used away from home, another says it’s a wireless range extender, while others reckon it’s a device for streaming audio to their HiFi. It’s one device that’s designed to be versatile. There’s no reason why iTV can’t be versatile too.
Apple produces joined-up solutions. Apple products integrate with each other in many ways, so I’d be expecting future products to further extend the possibilities. The eagerly awaited iPhone would probably integrate in many ways. The recent patent for a multi-function device may one day see the light of day as the ultimate remote control. What you can be sure of is that iTV is merely one more piece of a complex jigsaw.
The announcement of iTV would no doubt have been just as much for the movie studios as for customers. They can now see a viable way for people to actually view their content whilst actually being able to control it with their beloved DRM.
I just wonder how many of these we’ll be able to tie into one account.
Showing iTV now also gives consumers another reason to load up on movies, TV and videos from the iTunes store (starting now and continuing through the holiday season) by letting them know that everything that that is currently available for viewing via iPod and computer will soon be easily available via TV as well.
Right. iTunes + iPod was successful why ?
NOT becuase of iTMS, which came later. It was successful largely because of the ability to rip CDs to the library. If iTunes can rip DVD content (so that consumers do it rather than geeks with Handbrake/MacTheRipper, then iTV becomes a much more compelling product.
I don’t see much value in the device just to stream the few movies downloaded from iTMS.
Honestly, I think this is a solutions to a problem that doesn’t really exist for most people. What’s easier ? To put a DVD in the DVD player un der the TV, or to go to the office to put a DVD in the computer, then come back to the living room to fiddle with the iTV control (which will be missing down the side of the couch anyway, and the iTV won’t have a play button on the front you can press).
So I think it’s something they HAVE to do, just to be in the game, but I don’t expect it to be much of a success for a few years.
Oh, and while you’re watching that movie, and you put some popcorn in the microwave, you’ll lose the picture due to interference.
They need a component video to SCART adaptor in the box in Europe too. Optional extra anyone ?
I hate to be a party pooper but I have a wee problem with the name iTV and so might ITV
http://www.itv.com/
With all this pod name stramash – what about pooor old independant television ?
Hywel, the studios are no more going to allow iTV to rip movies, any more than they are going to drop DVD zoning. iTunes came with CD ripping because it was first developed before the Music Store was thought up.
Why iTV as a seperate device dependent on another Mac rather than developing an Mac mini AV model? iTV is in the same category as <a href =”http://www.pixelmagicsystems.com/products/media_players/hd_mediabox.htm”>MediaBox </a>, though with a MUCH better interface and lower price. Capability wise, unsure which would be the better product for the job!
and what about Divx/Xvid playback???? We can’t give up on shows DLed from the net!
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p.s. oops for the URL messup in previous msg…
Well I think a point that few are seeing here is how, just as iTunes became dominant by offering a different and better solution to the inbuilt PC audio solution so this concept will effectively turn any PC into a media centre rather than having to buy an expnsive peice of pc dedicated junk that though the most expensive pc in the house will rarely be used in that function. ‘Hey guys unlike Microsoft we arn’t leaving 90% of the market out of the loop’. Look at our elegant solution on your pc, which brings in money to Apple, but equally just imagine how much better this experience will be with a Mac or an Apple tv, or Apple media player.
The approach takes shape. This is the modular approach that I have always thought seemed like the best solution to media handling. It has flexibility, adaptability and upgradability potential that no monolithic solution can match and you can buy into as much or as little as you want unlike with a media centre PC. You and Apple can upgrade parts without having to buy/sell it as part of the whole unit. Even if the whole lot combined will be more expensive than a monolithic media centre at purchase, it won’t feel like it, you can add and enhance later and will have better performance and longer life so life costs will likely be less. However technophiles generally find the money for their new toys so always having new options available is a no brainer. This is treating media from the hifi product perspective not the computer product perspective even though the computer is an integral part of it (for now). The potential for participating partners is massive.
Presenting this now will spur the interest of both the customer and the third party ‘add on’ brigade so that upon launch the iPod like ecosystem will already be in full swing.
Apple need the think a bit more differently about this one.
Video ALWAYS has been a medium which is RENTED – from TV, cinema to the more obvious Blockbuster-type stores. This is for good reason – a work of music becomes more pleasurable with familiarity whereas a work of video rapidly becomes less pleasurable with familiarity. Which makes it worth having repeated access to a music file and pointless having that same level of access to a video file.
The only exclusions from this are children’s video and the tiny minority of people whose pleasure in collecting outweighs the intended pleasure of what they collect (I think that’s called being anal as Freud seems to be around in this thread).
If iTV is little more than a box (a giant Airport Express with funny sockets) which replaces a wire between a computer and a telly, then the BIG question is: What’s on the computer that will make it worth bothering with a box when I couldn’t be bothered with a wire?
If my computer becomes a terminal to a vast, universal library of video which I can quickly access at my leisure and borrow from for a very cheap cost then a box – or indeed a wire – connecting it to my telly would be worth it.
If the box is only leading me to a place where I have to buy a ‘work’ I don’t want to own – for a price I don’t want to pay – which will become totally redundant to me after 90 minutes, then I may pass up the offer.
Strikes me that Steve Jobs has uncharacteristically lost his legendary focus… perhaps the phenomenal success of iTunes MUSIC service has led him to believe he can throw ANYTHING into the basket and it will be bought.
Hywel, the studios are no more going to allow iTV to rip movies, any more than they are going to drop DVD zoning. iTunes came with CD ripping because it was first developed before the Music Store was thought up.
Exactly.
(Though more accurately Red Book CDs don’t have DRM because they didn’t think of it back in the mid 80s when hard drives were smaller than a shuffle and consumer CD readers in computers was Sci-FI.
Twenty Benson has it figured out. It shouldn’t be about buying movies, it should be about renting them. Either time limited or view limited DRM. So you can download rented movies and watch as many times as you like, or a limited number of times within, say, one month, after which they self destruct. It needs to be cheaper and easier and more flexible than going to Blockbuster, or there’s just no point.
Benson,
Who’s to say that isn’t a possibility? Sometimes you have to evolutionary, not revolutionary everytime. Jobs may have wanted to offer movies for sale to get the studios on board, and then when iTV comes out, offer some sort of rental system… when it makes sense to do so.
When Microsoft was locking in its dominance its early days, they would announce “vaporware” to chill the sales of competitors products. It was a dirty stunt committed by an unethical company.
It is good to see that what goes around, comes around. I have no qualms about Apple sticking it to Microsoft using one of the latter’s dirty tricks. Microsoft often did not even eventually deliver its promised products, whether by intent or incompetence. But Apple is surely going deliver its living room solution for entertainment.
It seems to me that apple has an interest in making this new device backward compatible with all newer mac computer. 802.11g is more than enough becuase they will load the iTV with 8GB of flash storage to buffer the stream. It’s a mac mini without the hard drive.
You obviously know fsck 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.
Petey:
1) Switch to decaf
2) Learn to use spellcheck
3) Read up on the 3GHz G5 Tower
My biggest problem with this device is that it doesn’t add any “TiVo-ish” features. It’s just another box to add to the mess on my entertainment center. Why? Why would I buy a movie from iTMS when I could just go buy it. By the time this thing rolls out, Blue-Ray or HD-DVD will down in cost significantly. HD-DVD could easily be under $299. So, there’s probably no HD advantage. Maybe a slight price advantage if you pre-order. You loose the DVD extras. What about DTS audio? At least if you buy music from iTMS, you can burn the music to CDs. Make this a true home entertainment center. Let it control all of your media…music, movies….and TV. After all, that’s what the TV is used for most. Maybe it will be included, this wasn’t a final announcement. We’ll see what happens…
Just some thoughts on iTV and its ability to play video content other than DRM-ed movies.
First, its obvious that iTV is basically a specialized device running Quicktime, Front Row, and some sort of networking application.
I’ve been able to play .wmv and .avi/Xvid videos using quicktime and Front Row if the proper codec is loaded into Quicktime. So, it is technically possible for iTV to play other content besides DRM-ed titles.
The question then becomes whether iTV will come with those codecs, or will you be able to add them?
I think its a no-brainer that iTV will be able to update its onboard version of Quicktime, iTunes or Front Row via its wireless or ethernet connection. I mean, everytime somebody hacks the iTunes DRM, Apple has to patch it, right? So, there will be ways to modify the onboard software.
It would be best if the iTV comes preloaded with the proper codecs, OR allows a user to download selected components from Apple’s “approved” component listing, such as found here:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/resources/components.html
Like I said, its a no-brainer that you can update the software onboard the device, just like you update the Airport Expresses. So, it should be technically possible to add or update components for your video codecs also. If you can’t, its probably for other reasons.
A quick look at the menu options they show on Engadget does not show any obvious “Download Update” selection under the Setting manual, but that may be a “push” sort of thing from Apple. Adding codecs might also be under the “Movies” menu setting instead.
Soemthing we should be looking for, in any event.
And to all the people who keep harping on the “iTV/ITV” bit: Yes, we know, thank you….now, SHUT UP! We got it the first time. “iTV” is supposed to be a codename, not the final product name. I would say that you rarely get into trouble with codenames, but then there was “Sagan”….
Nothing’s obvious about “iTV.”
Who said it was running anything onboard?
The OS that some people seem to think is running “iTV” is actually called “Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard” and it resides on the host Mac(s).
Does your Airport Express run and OS and iTunes? No, it does not.
I think SJ has a very detailed road map of the future of technology. If we started at A he has things mapped out to Z but we are only at D or E right now. Baby steps he can deliver. This is opposite of Microsoft which is impatient and wanted to deliver the living room experience in one product on their first attempt. SJ knows better and works on one piece of the puzzle at a time while keeping his eye on the final outcome.
The iTV is a huge step in that direction. Many are suggesting it be a mini with hard drive but the last thing I want is another computer to have files on — everything is on my iMac in my office which is a floor away from my living room. With all my content downloaded to and managed from my iMac I don’t want to move it to another computer — that is a MS way of thinking.
The problems is the concept of a “set top box” as there is no real top on a flat screen mounted to the wall. I don’t even want boxes on furniture near the TV. The iTV is likely a solution for those people that already have a TV but as an earlier commenter suggested, the real deal will be Apple TVs with this ability built in. The big deal? The remote! Try hiding boxes out of sight and then you get into some very costly solutions to get remotes to work. Put the remote sensor in the TV itself. One less box.
Functional issues will arise and it will be interesting to see how this is solved. If I’m at my computer in the office and I want to listen to some music while I am working will that prevent someone else in the house from watching a movie or listen to a different playlist from the same computer? Also, say you have multiple computers in the house on the same wi-fi network — can you pick and chose easily?
SJ has managed to create worlds of speculation over the next 3-6 months about this product. They will be able to see people reactions to the concept and perhaps tweak the final product interface based on comments. The man is brilliant, it will be a pleasure to follow him down this long road that only he has the map.
About the G5 3Ghz being vaproware– not really the same thing. A product roadmap was announced– IBM’s roadmap, promised to Apple. It seemed possible and probable. Furthermore, the G5 already existed when the claim was made, unlike the pre-announcement of unmade products.
The cool thing is that this works for Mac and PC. Talk about a coup d’ete! Apple will sell millions to the PC crowd wanting a good multimedia experience. Then they will want to see their pictures and buy a Mac Mini or iMac.
Wow, that is a good strategy. Although, I do wonder what v2 and v3 of the iTv will do differently, HDPVR or HDIPTV maybe?
ClueTrain:
The iTV is at least running a UI resembling Front Row on it, because it is usable with both PC’s and Macs and Front Row is not (right now) available for PCs. Therefore, it is not running Front Row from a PC.
I figure it is running a Quicktime decoder onboard since trying to do that on the computer hosting the data file then sending the uncompressed picture to the iTV would probably be too much for the wireless network to do.
Also, the comparison with Airport Express falls short for the principle reason that AE is essentially a passive device with no significant user interface. iTV does have one, with a variety of user-controlled settings (based on the shots of the menus at Engadget).
Therefore, there is quite a bit more going on inside iTV than an Airport Express box.
Hey Clue Train? The software is definitely on board. PCs don’t run Front Row. Just sayin’….
Why do I get the feeling that this iTV will somehow be crippled so much that it won’t actually be useful. Will it stream stuff from my Mac other than movies purchased from iTunes? And will it still be using Bonjour? Which means I have to be logged in to the Mac and have iTunes running. Stupid, stupid, stupid. What if I have a QT Streaming server running? Will it connect to that?
Apple always has great ideas, but always seems to not go the final step to make them perfect. Still doesn’t look as good as a MythTV based system.