pay close attention to the man in front of the curtain
first off, apologies on behalf on my hosting service which has yet to apologize to me–the site was down yesterday for at least 24 hours through no fault of mine. there are several of you getting your daily queerspace fix, a number sure to rise into two figures anytime now, and yesterday must have been hell for you.
i love the picture above. i blatantly stole it from a mac rumor site posting–it’s steve jobs playing around with his newly introduced photobooth software. it reminds me a lot of kai’s power goo, a little program i had for my student’s macs years ago, but that was so long ago that i’m sure everyone has forgotten about it and the concept of photobooth seems fresh and fun once more.
anyway, i made some predictions about wednesday’s big apple event. actually it was in california, not new york. har har har. let’s check in and see how i did.
» a gadget (specifically a new airport express) that streams video wirelessly to your tv from the hard drive or the broadband connection to your computer or the cable tv coax–ok, not so hot here. but i still think this is coming soon. stay tuned, so to speak.
» an offshoot of itunes (itunes media store?) that both gives away video content and sells it–100% spot on prediction. although not a particularly difficult one to make. the next-day sale of tv episodes was a cool surprise detail.
» a mac mini-based computer (with an intel chip inside?) with pvr-like/home theater capabilities added–ok, so it wasn’t the mac mini, and it doesn’t have pvr capability. but i was on the right track. a new imac with a remote control and the new front row software installed is still miles ahead of a clunky-ass windows media center. and pvr is coming to mac, again sooner rather than later. maybe when the mac mini gets an intel chip inside. a mac mini repurposed as a media center is too obvious and too tempting for apple to ignore.
» a new handheld player to view movies on (the wireless video ipod) that will also be a music player and a remote control device–ok, so i’m either 100% right (there was a remote control involved, just not a part of the ipod) or 66 2/3% right, depending on how you look at it. i think that apple is positioning this just right–the new ipod is primarily an improved music player with the video thrown in for free as a bonus for you to screw around with. but apple is playing the expectations game there. this video thing is gonna be huge. the kids will love it. mark my words.
so, overall impressions? i think that apple fell a bit short of a home run, but that’s probably ok. the itunes music store started small too. and media companies will be falling all over themselves to get their content onto itunes. for tv networks especially, it’s a new and safe revenue steam for them. why not take advantage? as steve jobs has shown, those $1.99s will add up fast.
the new imac has the coolness factor. the built in webcam is fun if not extremely useful, but the real winner is the front row software. control your content easily from across the room. of course, there’s no tv tuner so you can’t watch tv on it, and you will still be watching content on a 20″ maximum screen size, so there are a few drawbacks. but it’s all a work in progress. i implied it earlier and i’ll say it again now–this new imac is a dry run for the mac mini with front row as a media center device in living rooms near you. right now, you can hook the mini up to the biggest screen you want with minimal configuration. if the mini were optimized for media center use, it would be a huge hit, and apple knows it. they want the mini to be more successful than it is now–that’s why they killed the emac.
apple, once again, is the last person to the party.
but, once again, they are the most popular guest.