Those video iPod announcements analysed
Over at The Register, I’ve written about Apple’s video iPod announcements in Media Center killer, or shoulder-shrug?.
Related (in a sense): The Apple Polishers - Explaining the press corps’ crush on Steve Jobs and company. By Jack Shafer
What explains the press corps’ exuberance for Apple in general and the iPod in particular? After all, the portable video player isn’t a new product category—Archos, RCA, Samsung, and iRiver got there months and months ago. The excitement can’t be due to the undersized screen, which measures only 2.5 inches diagonal, or the skimpy two hours of battery life when operated in video mode. As I paged through a Nexis dump of the V-iPod coverage, I searched in vain for a single headline proclaiming “Apple Introduces Ho-Hum Player” or an article comparing the V-iPod’s technical specs to those of competing brands. At least the techie readers of Engadget, free of the Apple mind-meld, recognize the V-iPod as a deliberately crippled by copy protection, low-res, underpowered video appliance that is merely Apple’s first try in the emerging market of video players.
An intriguing article from Slate (no longer owned by Microsoft, so don’t try that tack. Thanks to Andy for the pointer.). The video iPod really isn’t a great shakes, certainly compared to the PSP, and the DRM on the videos is horrendous. So why is the press so madly positive, in general?
(A footnote: I did forecast back in May, as did most of Planet Earth, that Apple would launch a music video store; here’s the Netimperative article.)
Update: Chuq Rospach (of Apple) has his own take. It’s full of Hints, Interesting Hints.
And here’s another person who agrees with me about the “Media Center iMac”: brilliantdays.com: [what’s wrong with] The iMac PVR or Media Centre
… Look at the picture of the iMac with the new Front Row software again. Four “buttons”: Music, Videos, DVD and Photos. What’s missing? TV. Why on earth isn’t there a TV tuner inside?? Unbelievable. If Apple want people to put their Macs in the living room they have to make the screen bigger and put a TV-tuner inside. I want to record my own TV-shows. I want to pause live TV. I want to use an EPG to program which programs I want to record.
- These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
- Your EULAs analysed, Microsoft's widg.. gadgets, Ive interviewed, iPod Tube maps, and the upcoming iTunes video store (18 September 2005; score: 58.05%)
- Apple's video iPod comes nearer... at least online (22 July 2005; score: 54.47%)
- Handheld video players: survey shows people aren't interested (3 November 2004; score: 50.9%)
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October 15th, 2005 at 2:52 pm
I think its because the itunes video store and ipod are easy enough to understand and use. The PSP you’re either forking out for their little movie discs or you have to convert your existing movies etc.. via duct tape and chicken wire, to get it into a useable format. The Archos is even worse (quite like the device but its clearly not a consumer product). The ipod comes along and everyone can see how it works and how they can get content on it. The ‘Lost’ episodes are quite clearly an experiment to test themarket. If it succeeds then over the next few months, when Apple brings out the Mactel imac mini, I think we’ll see the final step in linking the itunes store into a tv set, and hence a useable media center. The $64,000 is how will Verizon and Comcast react to these developments. As of course, its one way to bypass their media vision.
October 16th, 2005 at 12:21 am
To wit, the video ipod is a useful distraction for Apple’s competitors to what Apple is really interested in: The MacTel iMac mini as a media center.
October 16th, 2005 at 12:34 am
Hardly. Each quarter Microsoft sells more Media Centers (at least, they’re labelled as such) than Apple ships computers of any stripe. And the Media Center is a flop. Why attach a computer to your TV, when you can attach a PVR or DVD recorder which will do the job just as well, is cheaper, and doesn’t need endless software updates nor require me to switch a TV link on and off - nor indeed to have a TV link between my computer and TV?
The iMac G5 as “media center” is intended to be watched for itself, although it does have TV-out. But the screen size means that Apple is expecting it to be watched in its own right.
October 16th, 2005 at 1:40 pm
Interesting that you’re calling the Media Center a flop. There’s some research around that claims that 43% of al Windows machines sold via US retail are Media Centers (details at http://msmvps.com/chrisl/archive/2005/08/30/64655.aspx) But the interesting caveat to that: 70-something percent of them didn’t have a TV tuner, which clearly suggests that Apple is on the right lines NOT putting on in the iMac. Perhaps the whole “attaching your TV to your computer ” thingis a red herring - in fact, what people are doing is watching video content that’s not coming directly from TV…
October 16th, 2005 at 3:57 pm
I suspect the figures are misleading. Microsoft has been pushing Media Center heavily, and leaning on the consumer suppliers, who have been installing it on systems with widescreens and big sound systems. The customer goes in, loves the bells and whistles and buys it without realising it is MCE and with no intention of doing anything except play games on it. They open the box, say what the hell’s this remote for? and never use it.
October 16th, 2005 at 10:43 pm
Certainly agree, Chris, about what use “Media Centers” really get put to. That’s why one should take the carefully-timed announcement of “4 million Media Centers sold!” (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/244568_mediacenter14.html) with a pinch of salt.
And now, consider that in the context of 4.5m Macs of all stripes sold in the year (http://www.macobserver.com/stockwatch/2005/10/11.5.shtml). Assume a quarter are iMac G5s. Now, how many of those will get used for this “Media Center” function? It’s a tiny number. It’s RDF time again.
October 17th, 2005 at 3:10 pm
For now, most content comes via TV, so the computer is superfluous - DVR/PVR much simpler. But when most content can be accessed via the Internet, then the computer becomes more useful. Now think about why content over the Internet might be more desired than over TV.
One possibility among many: You can only record what’s shown on TV if you know, ahead of time, that it’s on and you want to record it.
October 19th, 2005 at 1:04 pm
Charles
I’ve waited a while to respond to the Register article, because it deserves some thought first!
I feel you’re unduly harsh on the announcement really. I don’t think anyone expected Apple to solve the PC/TV convergence in the home AND video on the move in one fell swoop. Apple didn’t try to announce it as that.
What they did was to come up with a smaller iPod with more features (eg overlooked is MUCH better recording - expect lots of people to start making podcasts directly on the iPod soon) at the same price points that just happens to play video. You are quite critical of the video playback features comparing them to a PSP. But, take a look at this to see what a seasoned PSP supporter thinks of the two. The iPod wins hands down.
From what I’ve heard, the video features are actually surprisingly good. By keeping the price point the same and making it smaller, Apple has given the user the option of going in this direction. The test is whether people will use it.
They understood that content is key. The original iPod worked because people had content in the form of their CD collection. With video they have to kick start it. Have they done a good job? Well, jury is out. In the UK it’s disappointing, but we can imagine BBC board of governors having endless debates about whether this is a good thing or not, whether it should be free to UK users (who’ve paid license fees) or not, etc etc. So, we’re probably going to have to wait for content. But I can easily see transferring my EyeTV recordings to this device, and somebody will make it easy. I’ve already played with ripping a DVD I own, and converting it to H/264. It works quite well, but is still time consuming and requires intervention at different points. Someone will make this easy. The PSP falls down in this area for all sorts of reasons as noted in the article. The only thing that Apple could have done differently here would have involved completely changing the form factor of the iPod. Think of the problems of a widescreen device WITH a scrollwheel (for left OR right-handed people). It would have been too big a leap at this time.
I would love to be able to pick up some old TV programs I’ve missed. They could be classic plays (eg a Dennis Potter), or a few classic comedy episodes etc. Very often PVR’s fail us due to bugs, our own errors, or schedule changes. I recently missed an episode of CSI that was billed as best ever and advertised for one hour. However, the best ever episode turned out to be a double bill and my PVR turned off 10 mins into the second episode. THis sort of thing isn’t isolated. I would happily pay a couple of quid for these lost episodes, especially without adverts.
I actually think music videos are a good idea at least at the US price points. The fact they can be played on computer AND iPod makes them very usable.
There are 2 things that I think they’ve screwed up on:
1. Resolution. While I understand that for size and the iPod screen a resolution of 320 x 240 is reasonable, and I also understand the bandwidth costs of moving up, I think the downloads should provide an option of DVD-quality resolution (ie around 2x the lines = 4 times the pixels). To watch these on a computer screen is disappointing (though they are much better than I had expected).
2. The UK price is a disgrace. But I wouldn’t blame Apple for that. They have never tried to make gobloads of money from selling material. They don’t do this with music and they don’t do it with the new video material, at least in the US. You have to place the finger of blame here on the record labels/content holders again. The extra cost of video in the UK is £1.10 (inc VAT), versus US$1 (exc sales tax). So, it’s close enough to a 1:1 exchange rate for that. Come on EU, force these guys to provide common EU wide access at a single price please. In the meantime, we should boycott the music videos (I’ll transfer my own from my DVD’s if I need to).
You are unduly harsh on Apple for UK pricing, when in fact they are much better than most US companies in this regard. As an example try buying a copy of Microsoft Office of Windows here and then try shopping for it in the US. Now, THAT’S exploitation.
So, in summary, I think it was a good product release. It’s conservative in some ways, but what is released is of good quality and is just as affordable. It’s only the start. A video-enabled airport express can’t be far away. The key is not to be ahead in every regard, it’s to make it all tie together. They do this better than anybody, and the bar has been raised. New things will come along that make great use of this (eg vidcasts, etc). The big unanswered question is how much the content providers are going to play ball with this and what will happen if they don’t.