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Apple Focusing on Existing Hardware Lines?
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This rumor is about (a lack of) brand new Apple hardware products. It doesn't address Mac or iPod updates. In fact, if Apple isn't working on new products, presumably they are spending their time on improvements to the current product line, making updates seem more likely.
Our People keep poking my screen discussion thread is for people like you.I hope they don't release touch screen computers. I'm obsessive compulsive about people touching computer screens. Like when they point at things on the screen and actually touch it and make contact, I totally freak out. God forbid someone touches my MBP or my LCD screen, I will kick their buttocks and then never allow them near my computer again.
Ok then
how about they actually, oh I don't know, UPDATE their current lines! We haven't seen a refresh of any of Apple's computers for 3 and a half months, and the mac mini is getting to be a joke. Come on Apple! AppleTV is all well and good, but for those of us who like your computers something new every once in a while would be nice.
how about they actually, oh I don't know, UPDATE their current lines! We haven't seen a refresh of any of Apple's computers for 3 and a half months, and the mac mini is getting to be a joke. Come on Apple! AppleTV is all well and good, but for those of us who like your computers something new every once in a while would be nice.
One thing we can be sure of is there'll be no more big announcements until the next ... big announcement.
hint: Watch NAB closely. April 14.
Is either that or at WWDC.
Apple will wait Adobe release CS3, it seems end of March as the day, plus I would expect on the same timeframe to have Leopard here.
The fatest Mac ever(MacPro Octo-core) with native Adobe and the latest Apple OS. It seems to be the case, IMHO.
Apple has been paying A LOT of attention to their computers. The problem is that you guys do not remember how it was back in PPC-era. You were lucky to get a measly few megahertz increase in clock-speed maybe once or twice a year. But now we have had nice increases in clock-speed, more RAM, new CPU's, entire architecture-switch, new features... And now we have people complaining that "it has been over three months since last upgrade!".
Hopefully that doesn't exclude new models of the existing families. An HDTV with AppleTV built in would be nice. I really don't see the stand alone unit flying off of store shelves.
It says a lot aboutTV that Apple thinks it is one of their four major lines.
I am absolutely convinced that it is going to be a direct competitor to cable and satellite and that this time next year we'll be talking about market share in the cable/satellite/
Prediction: Later this year, Apple will broadcast an event that will be available live (or short-delayed) on iTunes and
At Macworld '08 in January, Apple will announce (1) PPV movies in two tiers: $4.99 for new releases and $3.99 for catalog titles, (2) a subscription package that will allow you to download 50 episodes a month of any TV show in the store for $29.99 a month and $1.99 for each additional title.
After Macworld, we'll start seeing more deals for live programming like award shows, news, and sports programming.
Cover your nuts, Comcast. You're about to get kicked in the sack.
I'll admit, I'll be worried for Apple if they do try to go this route.
While it makes sense, I'm not so sure if the timing is right. Apple was able to revolutionize the music industry, first with the iPod and then with the iTunes Store. But Apple was only focusing on one industry at the time.
If Apple truly wants to compete with the major television providers while at the same time trying to change the cell phone market, I'm not so sure they can pull off both at the same time. Maybe if Apple focused on one industry and then focused on the other they might be able to do it, but I can't see how Apple is going to try to revolutionize two major tech markets simultaneously.
hmmm. iToast. I can see it..
I think it would be nice to be able to toast bagels and burn DVDs in one nicely designed, convenient product.
Why is it that every time Apple says "we're not going to do X" within a few months they do X? They denied the iPhone and Apple TV for some time as well . . . .
As long as I could play music and watch videos whilst waiting for my bagels to get toasted, of course.
I have one of those, actually. It's called a PowerBook G4.
Just start burning the DVD, flip over the PowerBook, and lay the bagel directly over the processor.
I think what Apple sees is the inevitable technological convergence on the horizon. As an extension of their "digital hub" strategy whereby they evangelized the concept of the computer as the central hub to which content-driven devices (e.g. digital camera, video camera, iPod, etc.) would connect to enhance functionality in both directions, Apple is cross-pollenating the market with iPhone and AppleTV... both are devices that communicate with iTunes (the "hub").
There may be several tactics at work here in the larger strategy:
1. Content captured with iPhone (photos, possibly video in the future) can be stored to iTunes and viewed in your living room via AppleTV.
2. Content viewed on AppleTV and stored by iTunes can be viewed on your iPhone.
The iPhone is basically the mobile equivalent of AppleTV... more so than the iPod ever was, chiefly because of the UI enhancements.
But there's even a third possibility:
3. iPhone as a wi-fi device could be configured to feed content directly to AppleTV, or to indirectly access other libraries on the network. In this way it could be a wi-fi remote control for AppleTV: Flip through your iPhone content OR network library using CoverFlow on the iPhone, and play through to AppleTV.
Granted, Apple may not have thought of this yet (I'd be surprised if they didn't) but it's only a software update away from allowing such functionality because iPhone and AppleTV have everything else needed from a technology standpoint to facilitate a Wi-Fi Remote concept.
Sorry, but that's not going to happen for a long, long, time. People like having their huge HD TVs with over 250 channels to chose from an any moment.It says a lot about
I am absolutely convinced that it is going to be a direct competitor to cable and satellite and that this time next year we'll be talking about market share in the cable/satellite/
Prediction: Later this year, Apple will broadcast an event that will be available live (or short-delayed) on iTunes and
At Macworld '08 in January, Apple will announce (1) PPV movies in two tiers: $4.99 for new releases and $3.99 for catalog titles, (2) a subscription package that will allow you to download 50 episodes a month of any TV show in the store for $29.99 a month and $1.99 for each additional title.
After Macworld, we'll start seeing more deals for live programming like award shows, news, and sports programming.
Cover your nuts, Comcast. You're about to get kicked in the sack.
tv essentially destroy that. It might work for singles who are busy working all day and don't have time for more than 1 or 2 TV shows a day, but for families, it's just is not feasible. ...Right now, tv is just a gimmick, and to be honest, I don't expect this product to take Apple anywhere. The only way
tv makes sense to me is if I were allowed to record TV on my Mac through my existing cable subscription, and stream it to my Television (similar to Windows Media Center, only better). That would actually be quite nice. ...But until Apple introduces this "true" Media Center, consider me totally unimpressed.This is a good thing. New products are usually cool, but it's good to know that Apple won't leave out the most important product of all: the Mac
I hope they concentrate on existing products for a while, because they haven't got them right yet. Moving from my rock solid iBook to a faster, brighter but highly unstable Macbook, which often fails to wake from sleep and has 3 times corrupted files while doing so has made me realise how flaky their move to intel was. Vista now has the edge for reliability and stability, and apple have some catching up to do
Bob
Bob
People like having their huge HD TVs with over 250 channels to chose from an any moment.
Speak for yourself. I have an HDTV and I want a-la carte programming more than anything else right now. Do you have any idea what a pain in the ass it is to spend $90 a month just to get a handful of HDTV channels?
The cable/dish companies tier their programming so in order to get the 10 or so HDTV channels available they require you to sign up for basic, extended and digital first... bringing you around to $80-90 a month just so you can have the few channels of HD content you really want to watch.
Even if you're a family of five and you have three TV's let's say... you still can't watch 200 channels all at once... So you're paying for tons of channels that at any given time are completely useless to you. Given the crap programming that's out there, frankly, most of them are useless when you're watching them anyway! Nevermind commercial interruptions...
Sure, that $80-90 seems like a steal when you break it out over the number of channels you get, but again that's a false way of calculating your return. Instead, divide that $80-90 by the minutes of programming you actually watch in a month. Then subtract from that value the programs you don't watch completely... channel surfing 60 different programs in an hour cannot be worth 60, or even 30 whole programs. i.e. You wouldn't pay the same for one random minute of sixty different hour-long programs as you'd pay for one sixty minute program, would you?
Now also subtract the total number of minutes of commercial interruptions... You almost forgot this one didn't you? Easy to forget but even if you're not watching commercials intently, you're being robbed of your time while you wait for the program to resume or surf until you hit another program in progress. The value of the commercials is partly what subsidizes the cost of 200 plus channels of crap. So why shouldn't it be subtracted from your net gain or added to the actual valuation of the monthly cost to you for this service?
What I want is a-la carte programming... so I can buy the few shows I really want to watch, and watch them whenever I feel like it... rather than surfing through 200 channels of garbage until something interesting comes on.
Recent consumer surveys show that the public wants this more than just about any other type of media service. Analysts also expect to see the video download business to grow from the current $111 million market it is today to $400 million in 2007 and $4 BILLION by 2011. Did you catch that? 1000 percent growth in five years... or an average 200% per year!
AppleTV is expected to be a key contributor to this growth in the same way that iPod has skyrocketed music download purchases.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: One great choice is better than many mediocre choices. Being able to pick the few programs I want is better than being forced to pay for a stream of hundreds if not thousands of programs I don't want, don't need and don't watch.
Most consumers agree with this and their purchasing habits don't yet reflect it because viable, easy-to-use systems for internet distribution and content streaming direct to your TV are only now emerging. There are many hacky alternatives to get a-la carte programming today but most of them introduce more complications than they eliminate.
AppleTV is one huge step toward fixing this and making the browsing, purchasing, delivery and exhibition of the internet-based model FAR more convenient than conventional cable and satellite TV.
The most critical component to the success of this distribution model is the successful, uncluttered, EASY bridging of the computer/network with the television with a user interface that's more convenient than existing menuing systems for DVR's and media center type configurations.
This is why AppleTV is the "killer app" of 2007.
I'd be mighty tempted by the MacSlab, but I don't want to splash out on what would be more like toys to me.
I would like to see a greater range of iPhones, (2Q 2008 I think), an Apple Mid tower, 15 and or 17" MacBooks and 13" or less MacBook pros, larger capacity widescreen iPods and lots of multi touch devices. If you consider a trackpad as multi touch, two fingered scrolling and now clicking is already here. I think Apple have a lot more in the pipeline than they have let on. By saying current product lines, they would want people to think updated specs, not new models.
I would like to see a greater range of iPhones, (2Q 2008 I think), an Apple Mid tower, 15 and or 17" MacBooks and 13" or less MacBook pros, larger capacity widescreen iPods and lots of multi touch devices. If you consider a trackpad as multi touch, two fingered scrolling and now clicking is already here. I think Apple have a lot more in the pipeline than they have let on. By saying current product lines, they would want people to think updated specs, not new models.
It's an absolute no-brainer that Apple will release an 80Gig widescreen Ipod on the Iphone platform with a ton of core animation and wi-fi -> Itunes integration and Apple TV streaming...
I bet it's sat waiting now - they just don't want to steal the thunder from the Iphone by letting it out just yet...
AND....when is Apple actually going to release an ACTUAL TV with all this streaming crap inside it...surely less than 18months away now...that's another no-brainer
I bet it's sat waiting now - they just don't want to steal the thunder from the Iphone by letting it out just yet...
AND....when is Apple actually going to release an ACTUAL TV with all this streaming crap inside it...surely less than 18months away now...that's another no-brainer