Patent: Apple Media Hub?

[MACaBAMA]

in my opinion apple has a golden opportunity to impact even to a greater extent the way we access, watch, listen, and interact with the content we want to use.

We all have to many individual devices that we want to work together as one but have no simple easy it just works type of device to control it all. My original hope was that apple TV would be that device. No such luck.

There is company out there that makes a great control unit called "control 4". Check out their stuff. If apple can take the ideas these guys have and integrate ipods itunes my Mac and the apple TV by way of a central hub we'll all be dancing in the streets.

 

[bigjohn]

codename: asteroid

 

[crees!]

Remote

Regarding a remote whose interface is tailored to the hardware it's paired with.. this is old news. Back in 2006 there was an Apple patent (w/ images) showing a remote control-like device whose interface became specific for the device it was currently controlling. Or, maybe it was an iPhone patent in disguise?

 

[ortuno2k]

Another useless consumer electronic piece of junk?

 

[Max Payne]

Apple is working it's a$$ off everywhere. Do their workers have holidays?

 

[Porchland]

Once the Apple TV has evolved to handle HD formats fully (i.e., BluRay 40mbps decoding, not 720p 5mbps decoding) then I can see the possibility of adding a BluRay drive in a similar style to the Apple TV 'stack', or a DTV box, or cablecard box. Like HiFi separates. Maybe someone will release an Apple TV styled surround amplifier/receiver...

If Apple goes that direction with TV, I think it would be a significant shift from the digital-media-only model they're headed toward at the moment. Otherwise, wouldn't TV have a DVD drive now?

I think Apple sees the digital living room as one without CDs, DVDs, DVRs, etc.

I could eventually see TV marketed in a bundle with an AirPort and an external hard drive as a digital entertainment center that doesn't need a computer.

Buy your songs, TV shows, movies and other content from your TV, which stores them on the external drive. No computer necessary. (Of course, if you have one, so much the better.)

 

[SPUY767]

I have my MacPro hooked up to my HDTV, and I must say, when I scale up movies to 1080i played in DVD Player on the Mac, they look nearly as good as HD-DVDs. Not quite, but they look much better than played straight through the DVD player.

 

[Digital Skunk]

I agree that this is some sort of "ultimate form" of tv. Face it, tv is just not going to cut it for the 97% of us who aren't iTS whores. As much as I hate to admit it, we still need optical media (when will we move to flash for our media distribution?!) and until Apple competes in this realm (or offers a wide selection of high-quality media content on iTS), it will never be a complete solution to the "digital home."

-Clive

Remember... the only reason Windows is so large now is because it was just 'Good Enough' And the Apple TV seems to be good enough for some people to buy it, void the warranty, and reprogram it and add larger HDDs. I agree with you though, and hope Apple doesn't start making good enough tech... not going to go over well with the FanBoys/Girls.

 

[Digital Skunk]

Another useless consumer electronic piece of junk?

Yeah... during the keynotes.

 

[Peel]

Where is the Toaster attachment?

I have a burning need to run OS X on my toaster, or at the least, have it properly run by OSX, with a suitable GUI interface and browning control.

My 1MB Mac Classic had toast browning control way back in 1987. Granted it was for the Flying Toasters screensaver in After Dark. I always knew that they were visionaries.

 

[mrthieme]

I feel like someone in Cupertino has been listening in on my bedtime prayers. The whole home media environment could use some Apple gui in a bad way. The wifi 6g iPod could be a killer remote, all the stored media would be accessible and viewable from the remote ( think Sonos), and music could be played without ever turning on the plasma. Separate modules could contain optical drives, additional storage, DVR, or whatever. iPod Hifi could be morphed into a pair of powered wireless monitors, or maybe a complete 5.1 system. A separate module would be a dedicated surround decoder and tranmitter. Lots of hardware could be sold around the TV, and selling hardware is what makes Apple happy.

 

[BiggWill2007]

A Blatent copy os Salling Clicker

check out www.salling.com to see for yourself.

Salling have been doing this yor the last 4 years

 

[matticus008]

its ok to patent everything,
but if all these stuff get materialized, apple is going down the tube, an phone and tv topset can delay leopard for 4 months, plus a bunch of side products may or may not be successful, god knows what apple is thinking.

Probably the same thing people are thinking when they BUY component systems. People buy them one at a time; there's no reason that they can't be developed one at a time. Obviously some sort of Mac is going to sit at the center of this. You can add components slowly as they become available and as you can afford them (whether you're the customer or the manufacturer).

Not many of us can drop $15,000 on a home audio system at once, even those of us with few financial worries. But $2000 here and there over the years can put together an amazing setup.

A Blatent copy os Salling Clicker

Salling Clicker is a remote application for your phone or PDA. This is an entire media array of hardware, run through a central interface displayed on (presumably) your television. It might very well include similar remote functionality, but it is nowhere near the same thing.

 

[Babasyzygy]

Face it, tv is just not going to cut it for the 97% of us who aren't iTS whores.

Nonsense. I love my TV, and I own no iTS content.

I do, however, have iTunes and MediaFork (aka Handbrake), so can rip CDs and DVDs.

 

[Babasyzygy]

Where is the Toaster attachment?

I have a burning need to run OS X on my toaster, or at the least, have it properly run by OSX, with a suitable GUI interface and browning control.

That's AmigaOS, silly.

 

[GregA]

Interesting approach. Like Hifi separates under your TV.

If there's a PVR, I'm in.

There seem to be 3 main types of devices in the definition
- media module (source of digital media)
- media controller (co-ordinating device)
- media player (decode digital media)

As such, I would greatly hope that 3rd parties can make media modules. This would allow DVD players (+ HD-DVD or BluRay DVD), Cable boxes, Satellite boxes, EyeTV (FTA) receivers, iPods, iTunes libraries.

A PVR could be constructed by attaching a cable receiver (media module) and a hard disk (another media module) to your Apple media controller. The Apple media controller would control the receiver's channel etc and direct its output to the hard disk, telling the hard disk to record it. The media player would have to be capable of decoding MPEG2 of course.

 

[GregA]

I don't think apple will take it far enough.

What I would like to see is a spec which specifies how a device can present itself to a module network and provide to the controller of that module network an api definition so the module network controller can manage it and present it's options on it's gui.

Imagine you buy a brand A DVR, a brand B phone, and a brand C toaster which have implemented the spec.

You plug these devices into the module network controller (apple's hub in this case) and via the spec, OSX can recognize what that device is, and by reading it's api via the spec, could manage that device, and present it's interface on the gui. Want to record a show? open up the multimedia center, select your DVR, and set it. Want to make some toast? open up the multimedia center, select the toaster, and make your toast!

Isn't that what this patent implies already?

 

[blkaplan]

I'm on to you...

I'm on to you, twoodcc! don't think you'll be sneaking any drugs past my super-drug-detecting-vision. All those macbook you've been using as mules?!!? You should really reconsinder where you're going in life. Please don't make this mistake, ever again....



I'm watching you............ and next time, I'll report!


P.S. The whole tropical island breeze (flannel) v-neck shirt was SO '98.


P.P.S. I love you.


P.P.P.S. Are you a member of the lostblog, with username bwoodcc? Because I'm searching you!!!! And you don't even have good theories!


P.P.P.P.S. You never call me when you're sbober!


P.P.P.P.P.S. The strip turned blue .

 

[macwatcher]

I had a dream and in my dream was this diagram.

I've been waiting so long for a REAL media center... not the hype that Microsoft has been touting for years. Maybe this is the wrong forum but does anybody remember the Windows 98 "read this while it installs" slideshow... they were all about Windows 98 showing videos and TV and making movies. What a joke!