“With Google Chairman Eric Schmidt sitting on Apple Computer’s board of directors, people have been expecting the two companies to do some kind of deal that will combine the best of both companies’ technologies,” W. David Gardner writes for TechWeb.
“That may happen next week when Apple’s Steve Jobs takes the stage at Macworld in San Francisco on Tuesday. Jobs is expected to reveal more about the video playing device he tentatively has called the iTV,” Gardner writes.
Gardner writes, “Google watcher Steve Arnold says Jobs is likely to announce that Apple will use Google’s video search capability. ‘Apple needs to cut a deal with someone to find and distribute videos,’ said Arnold, who is managing director of information technology consultancy Arnold IT. ‘There’s this huge Internet video flood that’s been unleashed. But you can’t find anything.'”
“The first hint may come on Monday when Disney chief executive Robert Iger gives a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which may set up Jobs’ Macworld presentation. It’s a foregone conclusion that Iger will unveil Disney’s upgraded Web site along with links to Apple technology. Jobs is Disney’s largest investor thanks to Disney’s acquisition of his Pixar Animation Studios,” Gardner writes.
Gardner writes, “Apple introduced the iTV last September along with a deal with Disney that enables users to purchase Disney movies from Apple’s iTunes Store. While the service has been widely hailed as visionary, it’s still painfully slow. This is where Google comes in, according to Arnold, who believes Apple will tap onto Google’s powerful IT and network infrastructure sooner or later to deliver content.”
Full article here.
Related articles:
Google exec: ‘Apple iPod will hold all the world’s TV in 12 years’ – November 27, 2006
Apple+Google+Disney vs. Microsoft? – November 08, 2006
The ‘Macs Inside Google Group’ launched – October 16, 2006
Google launches official Apple Mac blog – October 10, 2006
Google CEO: ‘Apple is engaged in probably the most remarkable second act ever seen in technology’ – October 04, 2006
RUMOR: Apple and Google to add geotagging to iPhoto – October 04, 2006
What are Apple and Google up to? – September 18, 2006
Newsweek: Apple and Google talks could result in ‘iTV’ menu item for Google Video – September 17, 2006
Enderle: Anticipating an Apple-Google Merger – September 05, 2006
Google CEO declines Apple automatic stock option grant; plans to buy 10,000 AAPL shares instead – September 01, 2006
Google CEO on Apple’s board opens up many possibilities, including outdueling Microsoft – August 31, 2006
Re: Google CEO elected to Apple Computer’s Board of Directors – August 30, 2006
Apple and Google cozy up to make Microsoft jealous – August 30, 2006
Google CEO to help shape Apple’s future – August 30, 2006
Google CEO Dr. Eric Schmidt joins Apple’s Board of Directors – August 29, 2006
Would that this were true, but it’s extremely unlikely. Steve Jobs, as a Pixar-Disney man, is a video content provider. YouTube-Google is afloat on a tide of not-for-profit content. Some of that content is stolen or borrowed, some is amateurish or at least homemade. None of it does anything for content providers.
(It’s also all in a grainy Flash format that would drive not only perfectionists like Steve Jobs crazy, but nearly anybody else who tried to actually watch it on a large display–but that’s another story.)
You can easily imagine Iger’s displeasure at learning that the iTV offered an easy way to find and download bootlegged copies of Disney movies.
I don’t see such an alliance unfolding. I think other forms of cooperation make a lot of sense, but it’s a wild-goose chase to try to try figure out some way in which YouTube and the iTV can be folded together.
“painfully slow?” Says who? It’s always interesting when writers throw comments like that into their articles as if they are gospel truths…
It is not in Apple’s DNA to let go of control of lynchpin technologies. I’d be surprsied if Google is at the ehart of Apple’s movie distribution plan. I can see a partnership that improves or replaces the long problematic .mac service, but not the movie distribution business. Unless of course, Google provides the search and distribution technology but adopts an iTunes-like interface for serving movies, video and music, and then let’s Apple contribute the look-and-feel, and keep the software updated.
“While the service has been widely hailed as visionary, it’s still painfully slow.”
Hmm…maybe I just have way-highspeed Internet at home.
Last night, I figured I’d download City on the Edge of Forever. I’ve only downloaded a couple of TV shows. In any event, I started the download and I was able to start watching the show almost immediately–certainly within the first minute or so after clicking the Buy button (and that includes Fast Forwarding through the credits).
So I’m not sure where the “painfully slow” comes from…
There is some truth to this, I think. Didn’t Bertrand (sp?) mention Spotlight’s Google function accidentally at the last keynote?
All I’m hoping for (besides the Leopard stuff and the “iTV” stuff) is other locations for the iTunes stores video content.
I live in Canada and have been dying to purchase some content… particularly Canadian content…
The CTV Network up here has “CTV Broadband” which streams shows and does “work” on the Mac, but it stutters and stalls and stops and must be restarted constantly (even on the latest and greatest Mac Pros). Would that I could download “Corner Gas” or last night’s Canucks game to watch at my leisure…
C’mon Steve. Remember Canada.
YouTV
“Steve Jobs, as a Pixar-Disney man, is a video content provider. YouTube-Google is afloat on a tide of not-for-profit content.”
Shhh. Don’t tell Steve that podcasts are free. And MP3s. And CD-ROMs. And Photos.
Apple is a company. It doesn’t have any fsking DNA.
I can’t think of anything earthshattering that ever happened because of an “alliance” between Apple and a more-or-less equal partner. I suppose you could call Apple’s media distribution deals “alliances” or Apple’s part’s supplier deals “alliances” or Apple’s manufacturing deals “alliances.” You also have Apple working with the technology of much smaller companies such as PortalPlayer and some companies Apple will buy outright for their technologies.
But the last situation I would truly call an “alliance” was between Apple and Microsoft, but that just maintaining the status quo of having Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer for Mac around for a few more years.
So I don’t believe there will be any news of an Apple-Google “alliance” that will be “rock the house” at MacWorld.
Goopple?
ken1w: I can think of one. Google’s absolutely enormous “dark” infrastructure. They have so much unused bandwidth and server space that I’m sure they’d love to recoup some of those costs by leasing a bit to Apple. That’s the kind of thing you need to download a lot of movies/video data in a distributed fashion.
Not seeing it.
Most of the videos on youtube are a waste of time. Google video is terrible to navigate through.
When will the iPod do simple video capturing.
Turn the iPod into a camcorder with an iSight camera added? When you plug in the iPod it syncs with imovie or iPhoto?
“Goopple?”
Maybe. Or MacGooney. Sounds like a pub.
So an iTV… with a simple remote is going to use Google to search for video? How ya input the words? Oh riiiight… by manually flipping through letter by letter on the remote? Ain’t gonna happen unless iTV can pair with a bluetooth keyboard, that seems sorta… tarded.
I still don’t see what Google has to offer Apple, except maybe bandwidth. Google maps?
‘Apple needs to cut a deal with someone to find and distribute videos,
Why???? Apple didn’t need any help to distribute music in itunes. Sounds like a record executive talking.
I don’t know if there is any meat to this rumor, but there is one thing I DO know:
Steve Jobs has a unique ability to divine what people WILL want long before most of even know it is possible. Steve is one of the true Visionaries alive today. Best of all he is a visionary with capability of bringing his visions to fruition. He doesn’t need to invent the technologies (PARC’s GUI and Mouse), or SCSI, Bonjour, iTunes and Store, etc.. He just seems to how to implement the technology in combinations that make sense and seem so fundamental that we say, “Of course!” And then we all want go in the direction his pointed out to us. My life (outside intrapersonal relations) has likely been impacted more by Steve Job’s inspirations than anyone else.
This may sound radical and far fetched, but I predict that something will be integrated with Leopard, ichat, a mini OS X Google Earth, and the iPhone. Possibly GPS related. I see Google Earth as one of the most intriguing programs out there and a with a bright future. In five to ten years, I think Google Earth will be displayed near real-time and with a more closer-up view, as I am sure the military can see a tick on a dog right now, as long as the weather is clear.
Radical? Maybe. Maybe not. Our privacy is already out the window, so why not take the lack of it even farther. The constitution may have to change to make this possible, but I predict this kind of thing sooner rather than later.
“So an iTV… with a simple remote is going to use Google to search for video? How ya input the words?”
Maybe searching by watching videos and rating them.
Maybe searching by choosing keywords.
Maybe by voice recongition.
Sarcasm does not be imaginative solutions.
To answer the question that the thread title poses:
Um, no.
HolyMackerel Software: I see your point, but Apple doesn’t sell its own radio programs, songs, or photos, since it doesn’t have any. It does sell its own (Pixar’s and Disney’s) movies and television shows.
Google does nothing that Apple can’t do better!
More baseless speculation wasting bandwidth.
@Georgy Porgy: I’ve been thinking along these lines, too. I’m thinking that somehow a communication device can be tied to GPS to integrate virtual locations and contacts into the real world.
Imagine if you had 3d glasses that you could see through when they were off, just a clear lens. If you had a location on your iPod, it could superimpose a giant arrow right on top of it, right out there in front of you like a HUD. You could maybe even see where the person you were talking to (or more importantly, trying to find) actually was in real time.
You could even create a virtual input device (think the Matrix 2) that would appear to float in space in front of you. Or a movie screen that hangs in the air.
I don’t think Apple would do something as in-elegant as 3d glasses, but you get the idea.
It wold be hella cool, though.