Has Apple been dropping hints?

[keyboardholder]

Just a few thoughts - maybe it's nothing.

November - Apple releases new Airport with AOL support. Late December they switch their homepage load to Netscape (which is part of AOL). Why?

A comment made at this site yesterday made me look in my newly downloaded 10.1.2 IrDA "modem menu" only to find a host of new "modems?" I think they are not modems, but stereo and telephone devices. I speculate a new product to communicate with your Mac by or using a telephone or cellular phone with it - or perhaps broadcast through your stereo or TV. (Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson, Panasonic, Aiwa, and more) are all listed in this control panel. Why?

Will iPod talk to your stereo?

What if you could call your Mac? What if Instant Messenger was remote by cell phone to your Mac? What if you could use voice recognition to record to your Mac - via a cell phone? What if you could play DVD's through your Mac - wireless to your TV with an Airport like device - that would be a step between burning a CD to play on the DVD and hooking up S-video to play it on TV.

All of these ideas are places no PC has ever gone before.

Just thinking different.

 

[benmac]

Maybe...

 

[nahaliel]

maybe its just to sync phonebook on your cell with your mac

 

[eyelikeart]

they know what's up

I think Apple is most definitely screwing with us asmuch as they legally can...

why wouldn't they at least have fun with it....I mean with websites such as this one....ha ha ha!!!

 

[Timothy]

No Home Entertainment device!

OK...am I the only person on the planet who doesn't want Apple to release a home entertainment device? They already have...it's called the iPod.

And guess what! The iPod ALREADY interfaces with my home stereo! And, the connector only cost me $2.99 from Radio Shack! It's this great device called a mini-jack to rca converter. Truly fabulous technology!

So, why would I want to buy some computer device to bridge this gap when it's already taken care of? What could such a device do better than what I have explained above?

Oh...and by the way, I already also use my laptop with Airport, connected to the stereo in my bedroom (with the same nifty radio shack device mentioned above) to "stream" my MP3's off of my desktop computer in my office. Works great! No need for new or dedicated hardware.

 

[iCinder]

I would not buy a home theater device from Apple. I don't need anything to connect my iBook to my stereo or TV cause they include a video AND audio out jack. I keep my AV cable hooked up to my tuner and whenever i want to listen to tunes or watch a DIVX movie I just plug and play.

 

[eyelikeart]

Re: No Home Entertainment device!

Originally posted by Timothy
And, the connector only cost me $2.99 from Radio Shack! It's this great device called a mini-jack to rca converter. Truly fabulous technology!

This exactly how I have my PowerBook playing through my stereo! And as cheap as a solution this is, it would still be nice to somehow use Airport to work through an unused FM channel to play through the stereo....hence no need to have the unit near the computer because of wire length limitations!

This would be cheaper than buying a base station that would connect to the stereo and then send & receive signals to the computer via Airport...

[Edited by eyelikeart on 01-05-2002 at 05:25 PM]

 

[dcCma]

miniDV decks from apple?

i pray .. .

 

[bkbragg]

What about a stripped down G3 Mac with duel hard drives, no monitor and a super drive.

Then, they install OS X, use the TV as the monitor, and you get TiVo type functionality, only the software will automatically strip out the commercials.

Then, you can select X number of hours of content and then burn it to DVD using the embedded version of iDVD 2. The same applies for CD's. Stick one in, it automatically rips it as an mp3 using iTunes 2.0.3

Add a firewire port on the front and you just plug in your iPod and it synchs.

It comes with built in airport so you can pull the content down to your mac, and it also serves as a cable/dsl modem/cable box/satellite decoder, AM/FM receiver

There is your digital hub.

Heck, it's not even that hard. All the technology exists, it's just no one has put it together before in a nice package.

It'd be killer if the DVD player was region free to boot, but even if it isn't, if it's running OS X, you can fix that...