It's Showtime
Just a few thoughts about Apple's Special Event held yesterday in San Francisco.
iTunes 7.0 - Slightly new interface but seems much cleaner now. People complained about the excessive white space on the left column, but I like it. It's more logical now with the categories standing out. My favorite feature so far is the cover browser view. I love how iTunes downloads all my missing cover art and displays them in a slick 3D view as I scroll. Bravo Apple!
iTunes Store - Formally known as the iTunes Music store, the name change was needed to reflect that they also sell TV shows and now movies. Still iTunes sounds like a music store. iMovie is already taken by their fine digital video editing product so that wouldn't make sense. iMedia Store would be better but I guess they didn't want to rock the boat with the powerful name recognition of iTunes.
Movies - As strongly rumored, Apple now sells full length motion pictures, albeit only from Disney at the moment. This is most likely going to change as other studios apply the wait and see approach. I see that Steve Jobs lost the battle of consistent $9.99 pricing for all movies. Now they are only that price at the low end, and could be as high as $14.99 for the premium demand movies. Normally I wouldn't complain, but you can buy a brand new DVD for about the same price, that sports a higher resolution, contains all the extra bonus DVD features and with no difficult to circumvent DRM restrictions. Again, this isn't really Apple's fault, but comes from studio greed.
Increased resolution on all videos - This was a must have feature for movies, especially at the above mentioned prices, but even at 4x the resolution of the old videos (320x240) the new res (640x480) still falls short of the 720x480 of current generation DVD's. With Apple claiming that last year was the year of HD, and that they are part of the Blu-ray consortium, you would think they would have a high definition option. Perhaps they are waiting for their next big product to be released first...
iTV - In a very uncharacteristic Apple move, Jobs previewed a new A/V home device called the iTV. It's essentially an Airport Express for streaming movies to your TV in addition to music and other iTunes media. Details on how it's really going to work is still sketchy at this time but my only beef is in the form factor. Jobs is making it half the size of a Mac mini, which normally is a good thing but it looks really out of place on top of standard width A/V equiptment. I still think Apple should go for the DVR market and come up with their own full size Tivo killer that has enormous hard drive capacity for ripping DVD's that you already own in addition to streaming movies that you bought on iTunes, all in HD resolutions. I hope you are reading this Steve.
New iPods - Normally I'm indifferent when it comes to new iPods as it seems like a new model comes out every 6 months but these new models are cool. I love the new form factor if the shuttle, I can't believe how tiny that thing is! The up to 24 hour battery life of the nano in addition to the scratch resistant aluminum cases are much welcome features. Another bonus for Dave is that Apple quietly increased the resolution of the 5G models to the new iPod standard 640x480, all with a software update. Nice!
iTunes 7.0 - Slightly new interface but seems much cleaner now. People complained about the excessive white space on the left column, but I like it. It's more logical now with the categories standing out. My favorite feature so far is the cover browser view. I love how iTunes downloads all my missing cover art and displays them in a slick 3D view as I scroll. Bravo Apple!
iTunes Store - Formally known as the iTunes Music store, the name change was needed to reflect that they also sell TV shows and now movies. Still iTunes sounds like a music store. iMovie is already taken by their fine digital video editing product so that wouldn't make sense. iMedia Store would be better but I guess they didn't want to rock the boat with the powerful name recognition of iTunes.
Movies - As strongly rumored, Apple now sells full length motion pictures, albeit only from Disney at the moment. This is most likely going to change as other studios apply the wait and see approach. I see that Steve Jobs lost the battle of consistent $9.99 pricing for all movies. Now they are only that price at the low end, and could be as high as $14.99 for the premium demand movies. Normally I wouldn't complain, but you can buy a brand new DVD for about the same price, that sports a higher resolution, contains all the extra bonus DVD features and with no difficult to circumvent DRM restrictions. Again, this isn't really Apple's fault, but comes from studio greed.
Increased resolution on all videos - This was a must have feature for movies, especially at the above mentioned prices, but even at 4x the resolution of the old videos (320x240) the new res (640x480) still falls short of the 720x480 of current generation DVD's. With Apple claiming that last year was the year of HD, and that they are part of the Blu-ray consortium, you would think they would have a high definition option. Perhaps they are waiting for their next big product to be released first...
iTV - In a very uncharacteristic Apple move, Jobs previewed a new A/V home device called the iTV. It's essentially an Airport Express for streaming movies to your TV in addition to music and other iTunes media. Details on how it's really going to work is still sketchy at this time but my only beef is in the form factor. Jobs is making it half the size of a Mac mini, which normally is a good thing but it looks really out of place on top of standard width A/V equiptment. I still think Apple should go for the DVR market and come up with their own full size Tivo killer that has enormous hard drive capacity for ripping DVD's that you already own in addition to streaming movies that you bought on iTunes, all in HD resolutions. I hope you are reading this Steve.
New iPods - Normally I'm indifferent when it comes to new iPods as it seems like a new model comes out every 6 months but these new models are cool. I love the new form factor if the shuttle, I can't believe how tiny that thing is! The up to 24 hour battery life of the nano in addition to the scratch resistant aluminum cases are much welcome features. Another bonus for Dave is that Apple quietly increased the resolution of the 5G models to the new iPod standard 640x480, all with a software update. Nice!
posted by Marcos at September 14, 2006
3 Comments:
Nice commentary, especially since I didn't get to see the show. You wrapped it and summed up nicely for me who likes to go thru long winded stuff with only a glance ;)
Yes, I miss lots of info I'm sure, but not this time! :) Great blog and thanks for the rundown! Apple FTW!
Krudd
I have to agree on all of your comments. I finally figured out why my albums were being split up with previous versions of iTunes. (Solution: select multiple items to ensure that the entire album is titled the same and have compilation set to yes if applicable.)
Without a doubt Apple will increase the resolution to HD but I'm sure they are taking it one step at a time.
All in all, a pretty good presentation, especially compared to the lame Fun new products keynote earlier this year.
I have to retract my comment that the latest iPod software update will take the 5G iPod resolution to 640x480. Both these new 5.5G and the "older" 5G iPod's both have the same 320x240 resolution on the built in display, but they both can store and play back to a TV the full VGA res videos that are available on iTunes.
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