More Leopard Screenshots, Details Emerging?

[BenRoethig]

I note on the appleTV site also that the heading says "what's on TV? Anything you want." It does not have a limiting statement like "anything you want, as long as it is iphoto, imovie or itunes based."

Also, just wondering, I never messed with TV-on-Computer when I was in the windows world. Is eyeTV and whatever TV options there are for mac as good as what is available for windows boxes?

EyeTV 2.0 is as good as anything out there software wise and the EyeTV hybrid is a top notch (if pricey) piece of hardware. Unfortunately because of either Steve's Biases or the delusion that everyone is going to give up live TV to buy from from the iTunes store it's not intergrated as well as the PVR software on the windows side. I keep hoping Apple will wake up and spend to the small amount of money it would take to buy Elgato.

 

[mostman]

Killer iPhone feature is easy - integration with Office/Entourage. The OSX version only of course.

 

[BenRoethig]

I'm hoping they'll get smart this time around and integrate the quicktime player into iTunes. Even better, they'll also announce they've purchased to the windows media codec from Flip4Mac and integrate into that package. Access to Yahoo and hotmail accounts through Mail would also be nice.

As for the "secret features" I hope they're something earth shattering that wasn't ready yet, but they're probably just little tweaks that Steve hyped up to get your attention.

 

[Porchland]

I disagree - calendar integration with the phone is a killer app.

...

Let me make a change, calendar integration is not "a killer app" - for me it is "the killer app".

Apple is effectively foreclosed from more than half the potential iPhone market until they make it an Exchange/ActiveSync client. That's the first question office IT people are going to ask: Does it talk to Exchange?

I think the guys in Cupertino get that, and I think you're going to see it on the 2G iPhone if not as a surprise feature on the 1G.

 

[Porchland]

Don't forget that Steve is limited to the little n after 802.11. 1080p movies would require better speed IMO, if you take in consideration the distance and the obstacles (the loss of signal).

I assumed that's why Apple TV has a hard drive.

The newest version of iTunes allows you to watch video content shortly after it starts downloading, and I suspect Apple wants to do the same with Apple TV. Ideally, the Apple TV box would cash most of what you want to watch and delete it when you're finished like a DVR box.

 

[BenRoethig]

Look at the HP "Media Smart" televisions recently introduced. It has a frickin' Ethernet port, and will *on*its*own* discover music, video and photo files on the home network and build a library from them.

I was very impressed by HP's announcement. I hope Apple will either do something similar or allow AppleTV compatible TVs.

 

[Project]

Apple is effectively foreclosed from more than half the potential iPhone market until they make it an Exchange/ActiveSync client. That's the first question office IT people are going to ask: Does it talk to Exchange?

I think the guys in Cupertino get that, and I think you're going to see it on the 2G iPhone if not as a surprise feature on the 1G.

Nonsense. The corporate market is NOT the target for the iPhone. I thought that was pretty obvious. There is a whole lot more to winning the corporate market than ActiveSync. Namely a ton of security standards that have to be attained before an IT department would even consider your phone.

The iPhone is a consumer device. Plain and simple. The SmartPhones were used as a comparison because Steve said they were the most 'advanced' phones on the market. He was comparing technology/feature set, not the target market.

 

[MrCrowbar]

Which ,btw, is useless unless you dont have an human eye.

Huh?

As a reference, Star Wars Episode One was rendered in 1050p24.
If you have seen that movie in a good theater, it's a good reference for high def on a big screen. I suppose some detail was lost when putting it on film since the ARI-Laser was not available then but I think there is still room for improvement.

Bad thing about high def (1080) is, that you see the film grain a lot. I find it annoying when the film grain changes at cuts, when they used a different ISO-value for filming. Go to the Apple High Def theater and watch the Brothers Grim Trailer in 1080.

720p is a good balance in my opinion, a higher framerate would be nice though. I mean, all LCDs do 60 Hz, lets do that. Even my small video cam can record 60 frames and it looks so much real.

 

[BenRoethig]

Nonsense. The corporate market is NOT the target for the iPhone. I thought that was pretty obvious. There is a whole lot more to winning the corporate market than ActiveSync. Namely a ton of security standards that have to be attained before an IT department would even consider your phone.

The iPhone is a consumer device. Plain and simple. The SmartPhones were used as a comparison because Steve said they were the most 'advanced' phones on the market. He was comparing technology/feature set, not the target market.

Then who is going to pony $600 to buy the thing? It isn't going to be teenagers?

 

[Project]

Then who is going to pony $600 to buy the thing? It isn't going to be teenagers?

Thats what makes the phone interesting, and ultimately whether it will succeed or not. Its a high end consumer phone. Apple hopes to create a market for it as this market effectively doesnt exist. Im in my early 20s and will be getting one, and the response amongst my friends suggests the same too.

As the brand becomes more mature in this space, Apple will branch out to cater to lower income pockets. Its the exact same business plan as they did with iPod for MP3 players. Time will tell whether it works.

 

[kcmac]

Then who is going to pony $600 to buy the thing? It isn't going to be teenagers?

I will.

I travel alot for my business. While reading email on my phone may be nice, I prefer to do it from my laptop when I reach an office or a hotel. I get a lot of attachments (landscape architect) and can't do this on my phone. If people really need me, out of office assistant tells them to CALL me. (Use a PC for work but have my own PB that I use most of the work day and all of my personal use).

Yes. I will buy this phone in a NY minute. Adding to that, I think the Cingular plan will be less for this phone than others because they aren't subsidizing it. That would make it even more desirable.

Having my entire addressbook with all the information as well as my entire calendar reading exactly the way iCal works is just killer.

Finally, this phone appears to be easy to update just as easily as my Mac or the iPod. This should keep it fairly, if not entirely bleeding edge through the length of the 2 year plan.

Naysayers existed on the iPod as well. It is no different this time around. The iPhone will fly off the shelves for primarily consumers but business users as well. Sometimes, we are the same people!

 

[maveness]

Personally, I suspect the iPhone will ultimately be a "Home To Go" device. Your phone goes everywhere with you, right? How convenient it would be to be able to hook it up to someone else's Mac and just get right down to business with all your settings and preferences and key documents in place!

 

[barnaby]

I can see only one solution for this, when the iPhone gets more important than the Mac its inevitable that osX Leopard will be made available for PC's for compatibility reasons. Luring Windows users into changing computers is a lot harder than run a second OS on there current machine.

Two reasons I can't see this happening:

(1) Apple won't cannibalize their hardware market.
(2) OS X is stable in part because it supports fewer hardware configurations. Drivers are essentially built into the OS. They won't give up that luxury.

 

[GregA]

http://blog.hometheatermag.com/geoffreymorrison/0807061080iv1080p/

This guy is right that regular film is 24 frames/second, and it de-interlaces nicely. Thus 1080i or 1080p from film source doesn't matter (as long as your de-interlacer recognises it as a film).

If your source material is not film, things get more complicated. I can't remember the standards offhand.... home vs professional video, PAL vs NTSC, etc. That's why there are multiple de-interlacing methodologies... it's not as simple as the author made out.

As a reference, Star Wars Episode One was rendered in 1050p24.

I would have thought 2160p24 would be the minimum... hmmm.

Even my small video cam can record 60 frames and it looks so much real.

It's interesting that they showed 1080p24 next to 1080p60 at a trade show, and the audience preference was almost universally p24. It had a more natural feel to them - the 1080p60 looked more like a home video, they said, it didn't have the cinematic feel. That'll change in time, of course.

 

[iPoodOverZune]

M***** copies and then tries to patent

Folks,
This is off-topic (sorry for that) but if you are a M$ basher, then read this "M$ copies and then try to patent"
http://www.bluej.org/mrt/?p=21
Help to spread word around. May be someone can help the cause and also try to stop M***** to keep doing its monkey business of innovating by coping.

 

[rick98761]

Well wait, if this thing can stream the desktop, then what is the video format problem. Depending on the quality, we could just full screen and divx movie and stream away. The res would have to be high in order to make it look half way decent and useable.

 

[GregA]

Well wait, if this thing can stream the desktop, then what is the video format problem.

Using Quartz2Dextreme nearly all the processing for the desktop gui can be done by the video card. The data throughput required between the computer and the video card is minimised. The high-speed bus for the video cards is used more for the bursts of data - like loading up a graphics image, or video. The video cards themselves can decode some video codecs, again minimising the transmission over the bus AND minimising the processing power required in the CPU.

If Apple starts using Q2Dextreme (it's currently available but disabled due to visual anomalies)... then why have your graphics card attached to your Mac at all? You could put it in the screen itself, for instance - though that doesn't allow for as high throughput for all the litle things which the card can't handle (or which need to be uniquely handled by the CPU).

All of which is to say - Apple could have a great remote-control feature that works REALLY fast for most things - even over the Internet. Some things would take a little longer, and some things MUCH longer (anything which can't be described "simply"). And if the remote device itself can't decode the video the Mac is watching, the Mac would have to decompress it first then send it - slowing down the system.

For good quality, even if we could remote control a Mac, we want the local device to handle the decompressing of the video.

 

[AidenShaw]

And if the remote device itself can't decode the video the Mac is watching, the Mac would have to decompress it first then send it - slowing down the system..

The Viiv architecture for Digital Media Adapters handles this situation by having the host transcode the video stream for the display adapter.

But, as you say, that's one reason that a Viiv system has to be at least dual core

 

[twoodcc]

The screen sharing thing would be nice for presentations, etc

yeah it would.....and for other things as well

Wow, pretty interesting ... it looks great.. can't wait for Leopard!

yeah it does......can't wait either.......hurry up Leopard!

 

[MrCrowbar]

It's interesting that they showed 1080p24 next to 1080p60 at a trade show, and the audience preference was almost universally p24. It had a more natural feel to them - the 1080p60 looked more like a home video, they said, it didn't have the cinematic feel. That'll change in time, of course.[/QUOTE]

well, that depends on the material. 60 fps shows camera shaking much more than 24 fps, where shaking results in massive motion blur. We are all so used to low framerates that we feel more comfortable with it. A stationary camera or a good steadycam system can produce awesome material for action sequences. High framerates require a different style in producing. Not as much as the switch from silent movies to movies with sound, but you get the idea.

 

[GregA]

well, that depends on the material. 60 fps shows camera shaking much more than 24 fps, where shaking results in massive motion blur. We are all so used to low framerates that we feel more comfortable with it.

This was done by one of the movie houses - and yes they said that 24p was what we were used to, it was part of the cinematic effect. And that was after they'd adjusted the digital picture to match the colour etc of the film (another cinematic effect we're used to).

Time will change that, of course. I imagine we'll also see movies where dream sequences or flashbacks are shot at a different framerate - unconsciously we'll notice the difference but not pick it.

 

[spicyapple]

1080 24P is great for dramatic movies.
1080 60i is great for sports and reality TV.

Whereas North Americans prefer seeing 24P in movies, the Japanese are the opposite. Most Japanese films are shot interlaced. I prefer 24P just cuz it's progressive. (or 60P, too)

 

[GregA]

1080 24P is great for dramatic movies.
1080 60i is great for sports and reality TV.

Actually, interlaced is no good for sports if you're watching on a plasma or LCD (which have to de-interlace on the fly - tube TVs handle it fine). Anything which is fast moving gets a blur as, in effect, every 2nd line is one frame behind.

Being 1 frame behind isn't what matters (after all... 1/60th of a second isn't long) but if every 2nd line of a fast moving ball is in a different position, the effective resolution really suffers. The cleanest thing to do with decoding is just to drop every 2nd line and replace it with the line above ("line doubling") - then the blur disappears but you have 540p.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinterlacing

The only exception to the above problem is for film shot at a lower frame rate (24p) when the de-interlacer can determine how it was converted to 60i, and undo the conversion. Then the de-interlace is perfect. Also, for slow shots, you don't really notice the de-interlacing.

Perhaps Apple is being forward thinking by leaving out 1080i. Hope they add 1080p at some stage though!

 

[Cepe Indicum]

Maybe the secret app on the iPhone - given that is aimed at encouraging switchers - is some sort of "Pocket Bootcamp".

You can partition your iPhone to run Windows Mobile, and therefore Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc. etc.

(And, yes, I am being sarcastic.)

 

[dernhelm]

Then who is going to pony $600 to buy the thing? It isn't going to be teenagers?

It wasn't going to be the typical fortune 500 corporate type anyway, since it isn't running windows. Apple couldn't bring Microsoft in early for obvious reasons, so they knew up front that echange support wouldn't be possible. However, as a device for creative professionals, for the anti-microsoft crowd (which is growing every day) and as a high-end consumer device it hits the mark.

It seems I've heard the cost argument before with the original iPod. Apple didn't do too badly there, either.