iDunno
So, while I wait for my body to stop sweating after the spinning class I just took, I figured I would just write a bit about the new stuff Apple announced the other day. I am cool with the iPods, I think the 80GB is a good size. I like the new iPod Nanos but feel like the original ones look cooler than the new iPod MiniNano that they have now. Sure, the colors are nice, but original nanos just tough. The new shuffle is fine, good price, great.
But this iTV thing. Let me just say I think it’s lame. I know, I know, there are going to be some changes, but as it is, I think it’s lame. Why? Well, like many things Apple has done in the past, it’s an 60-70% solution. Basically, this little box supposedly works as a wireless transceiver, allowing you to stream movies, podcasts, videos, music and other content from your computer and Apple’s servers. Steve made a big deal about how you were going to be able to hook this thing up to your big flat screen TV. Every time he talked about it, it was how you were going to be able to hook it up to a “large” or “big” flat screen TV. Which is most likely going to be HDTV, which means that people who own these things will be used to watching HD, DVD and possibly HD-DVD/Blu-Ray content. Nice big screen, nice clear picture, nice sound, everything’s nice.
But the movies you get from Apple are 640x480. 640x480 is the size of one of those old Apple monitors that you saw with the old Mac II’s way back in 1988. 640x480 sucks and will look lousy on these flat panel displays, which, we are all aware of by now, are large or big--maybe even huge.
So that’s lame. Now, I assume they will figure things out and you’ll be able to get better resolution video, but that means there will have to be a drive or something... I mean, hanging out with DVD quality video on your iMac or MacBook is cool and all, but unless you have a MassAssive drive, you have a few movies and boom, that’s it. No more room.
Lame.
People who are calling the iTV a TivoKiller smoke the best weed in town. What we all should know by now is that Steve Jobs hates television. That’s why there are no tuner cards in Macs though everyone complains about it. People like TV, Steve doesn’t. So, the iTV, or whatever it’s gonna be called, doesn’t have a tuner, which means you can’t watch TV on it which means you cannot record TV shows and skip commercials and pause and rewind the crap that you like but Steve hates.
Which means that it does one thing, and Tivo does another.
Apple should have partnered with Tivo, took the Tivo backend, redesigned the UI to take the best aspects of Front Row (which, frankly, is okay but isn’t so great), combine it with the stream junk from your computer features and then presented it as the ultimate (here it comes) convergence utility.
So, though you’ll read editorials like this one talking about iTV is a Tivo-killer, just remember what I said and you realize that there is better weed out there. And although the geeks at MDN will try to shrug off excellent complaints like this dude has, which are correct (though slightly unrelated to what I am talking about but still--valid)...it just all shows there is a long way to go.
I dunno why I get all riled up about this.
Oh yeah, I know why. Because I have been talking about a MacMini Tivo since the MacMini came out. A lot of us have. People watch TV. . Unless the iTV gets a tuner, it will fail, crash and burn, and Apple will stumble, badly. They made a big deal about pre-announcing this, and I think they made a mistake in doing so.
But I am stoked, I got called back for a really great part and I will tell you about it when I book it. Despite my technological ranting, things are going quite well!
‘night!
Thursday, September 14, 2006