“With Macworld Expo just over a week away, many expect Apple CEO Steve Jobs to announce further details (and the availability) of the company’s yet to be released set-top-box, codenamed iTV,” Steve O’Hear blogs for ZDNet.
O’Hear writes, “Powered by something similar to Apple’s Front Row media center software, the iTV is designed to get the media content that’s housed on a Mac (music, movies, and photos), streamed to the living room television. However, with its built-in wireless networking (suspected to be the faster 802.11n), why not bypass the Mac and have the iTV connect directly to the internet?”
MacDailyNews Note: Steve Jobs explicitly stated that ‘iTV’ works with both Macs and PCs.
“Anybody who has used Front Row to watch movie trailers streamed directly from Apple’s website, will have wondered why they can’t access other internet-based content in a similar way. For starters, think Flickr for photos, and of course YouTube for video,” O’Hear writes.
O’Hear writes, “The combination of iTunes and DRM-free MP3s provided the ‘killer app’ for the iPod, and YouTube could well do the same for Apple’s soon-to-be released set-top box.”
Full article here.
Steve Jobs gives sneak peek of Apple’s “iTV” wireless set-top box:
Seems folks are finally starting to catch on. =)
O’hear is WRONG.
“the iTV is designed to get the media content that’s housed on a Mac (music, movies, and photos)”
it will work on Mac and PC.
Ahh…I love the Apple board of directors
Al Gore gives SJ the official seal of confidence…and the stock soars
Eric Schmidt integrates YouTube…and the stock will soar some more
Not so sure I want to watch YouTube video “quality” on my TV. Especially if I get a large screen.
I’m not excited about it yet.
Hope not. YouTube’s video quality is about on par with its video content. No way would I fund a device to squint at fools.
C’mon, Drunk Cheney!
You wouldn’t watch (and record) the 24 hour Diet Coke + Mentos Dancing Fountains Channel in glorious high definition?
how would you select videos using the iTV? it probably could accept a keyboard (think it has a USB input), but then it defeats the purpose of being a set-top box with a remote.
i think this is just somebody’s fantasy. and yeah, i agree with those people who wouldn’t want to watch the crappy quality of youtube on a big TV.
Word is that Steve will NOT be making a keynote presentation at MacWorld Expo. His new lawyers have advised him to stay home.
Selection could be via predefined genres of videos. Keyboard type entries only needed for search.
Only Enderle and his kind think Steve might miss the keynote. Since Enderle’s always wrong when it comes to the subject of Apple, this proves that Steve will be there to wow the crowd.
One thing to keep in mind with the currently awful YouTube video quality is that it’s awful because that’s what people will a) upload b) stand to download. This will obviously get better with time, and I fully expect YouTube content to go up in quality in the future, so it may not be so unimaginable that we’ll be watching it on our 42″ LCDs.
Speaking of YouTube, though, correct me if I’m horribly wrong here – don’t most of you watch YouTube when friends send you links to funny videos, or when someone links to a video from a blog, or when you think of a funny skit/ad/whatever you’d like to relive? This covers 95% of my YouTube use – I never just browse it randomly. The point here is, how exactly would that work with the iTV concept?
“Word is that Steve will NOT be making a keynote presentation at MacWorld Expo. His new lawyers have advised him to stay home.”
Why, so he wouldn’t get arrested while on stage? Or so his confident presence wouldn’t devalue the Apple stock?
just a little, though.
“Word is that Steve will NOT be making a keynote presentation at MacWorld Expo. His new lawyers have advised him to stay home.”
Word from where?
Word is that Thorin is the most desirable piece
of hotness on the planet. LOL
“However, with its built-in wireless networking (suspected to be the faster 802.11n), why not bypass the Mac and have the iTV connect directly to the internet?”
Um, because then you WebTV, you know, the biggest piece o’ crap to ever be invented to connect to the web for anything.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webtv
Whatever iTv turns out to be, I hope it will offer/stream HD content from iTunes… I just bought a 40″ HD LCD and a home theater system for Christmas… I WANT MY HD!
“However, with its built-in wireless networking (suspected to be the faster 802.11n), why not bypass the Mac and have the iTV connect directly to the internet?”
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I would hope that iTv would work with or without a Mac/PC and have a direct internet connection… Otherwise, consumers that will actually be able to use iTv would be limited to those with a latest Mac or PC equipped with 802.11n…
“Um, because then you WebTV, you know, the biggest piece o’ crap to ever be invented to connect to the web for anything.”
You speak the truth. There are differences now though.
WebTV was for 325 line NTSC video (really crappy resolution).
This would 1080 vertical line high resolution combined with
broadband and a box running Apple software. I’m just saying
that if they did pursue that path, it would be more viable because
of the newer / better technology.
Lots of Nintendo Wiis and PS3s will be browsing the web off their TVs soon. The iTV could easily have a remote control or *gasp* a wireless keyboard…
Or a tablet ipod that you can connect to it and write on the screen on the occasions that you want to type.
Apple’s “iTV” will have nothing to do with YouTube.
It will have everything to do with SlingBox.
Stay iTuned….
Since iTv has an direct connect ethernet port and the software resides in the iTv box itself, you should be able to use it without a computer. The computer only comes into the equation if you want to stream what is on your computers hard-drive, hopefully iTv will also have a built-in hard-drive too.
damnit, there are only a few days left until the keynote, and this is the best wild speculation we get? youtube content is about like podcast content – 2% good, 98% crap – no way Apple hangs the success of iTV on amateur content like that.
must…have…decent…mac…rumors…
there’s one word why this can’t be true
keyboard
how are you going to search for video’s with just a remote? there’s no point just having a limited selection because you can’t cater for everybody
how are you going to search for video’s with just a remote? there’s no point just having a limited selection because you can’t cater for everybody
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iTv has a usb port. Keyboard problem solved.. The wireless Apple keyboard is also an option.
Apple will just make it general Internet access directly from the “iTV.” That’s been done already, and it would be a nice feature. However, I don’t think most people sit on their livingroom sofa and surf the web. What would be better are Apple-controlled tie-ins that use the Internet feature “seamlessly” (like the mentioned movie previews feature) to improve existing products.
For example:
* People point out that you don’t get those “special features” that are often on DVDs when you buy a movie from the iTunes Store. Perhaps iTV can be designed to access web-based special features stored on Apple’s servers. These features would only be accessible if you have purchased the movie from the iTunes Store. Apple can include more content than may fit on a DVD, and update the special features so that the customers can get new content for a previously purchased movie, which would be something not doable on DVD.
* The obvious web-based capability is access to the iTunes Store on the TV screen. It would be through a special version of iTunes designed to work effectively on a TV screen using the remote control.
* If there is general Internet access, it will be through a special version of Safari optimized to work well on a TV screen using the remote control device.
The two key aspects are that the user experience be intuitive and seamless (not just a browser window on the TV screen) and controlled by Apple (not YouTube or Google).