Apple to take on Dell

And the angels sing, "Halleluyah, Halleluyah" while the geeks rejoice in the streets. Apple will not stand in the way of people who want to load Windows on their MacBook Pro or iMac Core Duo. Yeah, you heard me (angels continue to sing).

So what does this mean. Well a couple of things:

1. Apple really is a hardware company. People have been saying that the money is in software for so long that we all just assumed Apple was a software company. They're not. They use software to sell hardware. When they (finally) figured it out that they can sell (much much) more hardware by being on both sides of the the fence, they jumped on it.

2. Apple will eventually take on Dell for dominance in the consumer PC market. Apple will probably never have a chance in the corporate space due to the price premium they put on their products for desirablity, but there is no excuse anymore that a home PC user will have not to buy the Apple PC they so desire. For years folks (including myself) have been avoiding Apple at home because work PCs run Windows and they don't want to have the headaches. Now, you can run either (and I bet there will be an option to dual boot with some 3rd party software that'll cost $0 after rebate). You can run Windows for work and games AND run Mac OS for iMovie/Final Cut, GarageBand, iPhoto or whatever else. It's going to be a god send for people like me who adore Final Cut software but just can't afford another PC (especially a high end Mac) to run it. For my next upgrade (probably end of next year or early 2007 right after Macworld) you can bet that I'll have my eye on a dual core notebook for Hongyun and a big bad Intelimac quad core for home/media center usage.

And guess what, only Apple hardware will be able to do this. You'll pay a little more, but it beats buying a Dell AND a Mac. Eventhough Apple stock was up a few percent today, I'm selling just about everything else I own in my "speculation" investment account and dumping it into Apple. I'll probably keep a little left over for even crazy specualtive moves, but I'm betting Apple is going to big in 2006 and much BIGGER by 2008 or2009.

See For Yourself.

But will it run Windows?

The blogosphere is abuzz with the news: Steve Jobs announces not one, but two new Intel based Macs: MacBook Pro portable and iMac core duo. The iMac looks like they just swapped out the motherboard...there's no apparent physical design differences. The MacBook Pro looks like a 15inch Powerbook G4 at first glance. The neatest feature on the MacBook Pro: The power supply cable is plugged in with a magnet. If you trip over it it lets go rather than flinging your laptop across the room like the old days. I bet Steve and Co. got this idea from Zojirushi that uses this on their water pot. I should know since I am a Zojirushi junkie.

But the question of the hour (at least in my mind) is if/when can I install windows on it and how easily can I switch back and forth?

I wouldn't want to do this all of the time mind you, but let's say I get a copy of the latest and greatest game that only runs on a PC, I'm going to want to have Windows. If I need to do some stuff for work, I'm going to want to have Windows. Apple can prempt the need for curious minds hacking their systems by doing something ingeneous (which I doubt they will do). If they can figure out a way to get Windows apps to install on their OS via some gremlin-in-a-box trickery, we could see the end of Windows as we know it. This would mean that almost every Windows application would be Mac OS compatible and obviate the need to switch between Windows and Mac OS. Imagine that. I know we'll probably have to keep imagining far into the future unless Apple or someone else creates a way to emulate the Windows registry and other parts of Windows to trick installer software.

So let's see what rumors didn't pan out...no new Mac Mini, no new iPod Shuffles, no Apple plasmas (that would have been stupid), no full on Mac Media Center (that would have been really cool...maybe soon).

Anyway, here's a little roundup of the related articles flying around the web:

MacRumors MacBook Pro summary
Engadget: keynote blow by blow
Gizmodo has a photo of the new iPod FM tuner remote

Oh TV, I love thee

Oh TV, how can I watch thee...let me count the ways:

1. Live TV in the living room (so 1983)
2. Tivo'd shows in the living room (goodbye commercials)
3. Media Center PC in the living room (Tivo + $1000 - $13/mo.)
4. Tivo'd or Media Center'd shows on the Portable Media Center or Windows Mobile device (slow transcoding sucks)
5. Tivo'd or Media Center'd shows on the PSP (via some series of
decryptng and transcoding)
6. Video Ipod ($1.99/show is mighty pricey and they look ugly on any screen bigger than credit card)
7. Some off brand portable running Linux or BSD straight out of Taiwan or Korea (LOTS of formats supported, but usually bad UI, and bad PC software)
8. Windows Media Center Online Spotlight - Comedy Central Motherload from your sofa with a remote control...'nuff said (man we need some folks to fix the naming of our products)
and so on and so forth, forever and ever

You get the point...there are a LOT of ways to get your daily fill of Days of our Lives and guess what, there are going to be a LOT more ways coming up.

Yahoo Go! links Web services to phones, TVs - Wireless World - MSNBC.com
Microsoft partners with Murdoch in video pact (I guess no one remembers how DirecTV screwed Microsoft in the heyday of UltimateTV...here we go again)
Google sets up the Video Lemonade Stand

And soooo much more. Yes folks, TV 2.0 is finally upon us. I, like you, have been waiting for this for a long time. Man, I'm kicking myself for missing CES this year...CES TV junkies, I envy you.

Imagine the Square Footage

It's only a matter of time now....Apple lands another big fish in the small pond of commercial content. NBC lends 12 of their shows including hits like Monk, Law & Order, Conan, Leno and others to the iTunes Music Store. Would I buy each episode for $1.99? Hell no. Would I buy every
Conan episode with Triumph in it? Probably...

Now lets delve a little deeper here...in the beforetime:

People bought giant TVs that filled their living rooms (ie Projection TVs) just so they could get a large screen, theater like experience. This behemoth took about 20 to 30 sq ft of living space in your home. Not to mention dwarfed everything around it making everything feel like it was going to be eaten by the TV (don't believe me? you should see my dad's living room).

in the hereafter:

You can buy something that barely qualifies as a bump off of your wall to watch TV on. DVD players are flat just like your TV. Game consoles are flat (Xbox 360 almost gets it right, PS3 may). Tivos are flat...everything is flat. Everything comes in a vertical case that can be mounted to your wall. Better yet, they can be mounted BEHIND your flat TV so that it only extends about 2 inches more into your living space. Now you have extra space in your house.

Now take into account that TV will shift from big wall hanging thing to pocket thing and we'll need to start thinking about larger seats on the bus to accomodate our gear rather than bigger living rooms.

Maybe it will be the end fo the McMansions...but knowing America, probably not.

Tivo Going Mobile

In yet another bid to stay relevant to the TV 2.0 space, Tivo starts testing a service that will allow folks to download their shows from their Tivo to their iPod Videos and PSPs. I'm all for gradiose plans for mobile video, but if Tivo's desktop software execution is any indicator, we're in for a bumpy ride ladies and gentlemen...fasten your seatbelts.

See For Yourself.

TV 2.0 catch up

So it's been a while since my last real post and here's a recap of transgressions in the TV world since then:

• Apple drops the bomb with iPod Video and iTunes with Pay Per Download Video (PPDV?). By the way, if you want a FREE IPOD VIDEO, just click. These are the same guys that had the freebie deal before, but now they're giving away the latest and greatest iPod nanos and videos. The best part is that some of the deals are quite good. For example, the Citi Dividend card is AWESOME. Hongyun and I have one and we use it for our groceries and gas purchases. It gives us 5% back (up to $300 per year) on these kinds of purchases and since gas and groceries are always getting more expensive, it really does work out nicely...consider it a $300 bonus at the end of the year to buy some Xbox 360 games to go with the new Xbox 360 dropping next week (you did preorder one didn't you? If not, good luck explaining it to your kid).
• Steve Jobs uses Pixar's rock and hard place relationship with Disney to finagle episodes of LOST for the iTunes Store.
• Netflix drops the ball and gives up on trying to fulfill rental requests through streaming video. Reason: movie studios are bone heads and prefer people pirating their content than makign a few bucks through rentals each time the content is viewed. Imagine this: a movie distributed via P2P, but is wrapped in a special file format that locks it for certain folks or randomly unlocks it (have Windows Media Player check a server to unlock the content, the server will randomly handout freeviews to 1 in 10 folks...the others have to pay $2 to watch the movie). Talk about viral....maybe they'll figure it out before it's too late...maybe not.
• NBC and CBS announce plans to give people shows without commercials on demand for 99 cents. So lame. Let me count the reasons why:
  1. Bitter that they couldn't pull a deal with Apple to get into iTunes
  2. Can I download them to a portable device or laptop to watch them on the go? No.
  3. Why wouldn't I just pay for a Tivo for $13/month and get all the shows I want commercial free? Sure I have to push buttons, but it's easy. Also Tivo lets me transfer them to my laptop (although I loathe the Tivo Desktop software...that's some scary piece of code they released-Mac users, considers yourselves lucky for not having to deal with the crap fest).
• AOL and Time Warner FINALLY figured out what to do with their alliance. Took them long enough. When they first merged 5 years ago, the idea that went through my brain was wow-that's a natural fit. AOL's got the eyeballs, TW's got the content AND the broadband. It took them 5 whole years to get their heads out of their asses and figure it out. Anyway, it looks like it's going to be too late for them to make a big splash since Microsoft may buy AOL. The dialup Internet Acess business is definitely the slow boat to nowhere in the tech world. We haven't heard anything official on the inside so who knows what's going on.

NetFlix close to launching online movie downloads

It seems that the whole movie download scene is about to explode. CinemaNow and MovieLink are the front runners in this space, but so far no one's made it easy to watch their downloaded movies on the TV without the PC whirring away. MSN TV has been working with CinemaNow for most of the year on getting the service ready. But still, the market is a small one...for now. I think what is keeping CinemaNow and MovieLink from exploding is that they're not making much use of the long tail theory which has kept iTunes humming along. A good example is the foreign movies (one of my favorite genres because most of the movies made in the US are pretty much cater to the day worker set these days). CinemaNow lists 74 movies in this category while Netflix has a whopping 6,700! So you can see the dilemma. And don't get me wrong, it's not CinemaNow's or MovieLink's fault. It's the (you guessed it) movie studios who continually do stupid things (like make movies like The Dukes of Hazzard). But I digress...

The online movie space is going to heat up very soon as Netflix is close to offering online movie downloads and Apple is rumored to be getting into the video download business as well. I personally can't wait and hope that MSN TV 2 works with Netflix's interpretation of the content delivery over the net, but we'll have to wait and see for that one.

Apple to sell video downloads

While my time with the Creative Zen was short and sweet, I realized that a technically great device was hampered by the lack of a great content acquisition model. It was damned near impossible to get a DVD that I owned onto the device; I had to use a few illegal products to break the encryption of the DVD and then wait hours for it to encode the file properly. Also, the content available from MovieLink and CinemaNow offer an array of mind-boggling license terms that were difficult to keep straight (some were downloadable, some weren't; some were active for 3 days, some were active for 24 hours after beginning to watch it; etc etc). Not only that, these companies rarely provided any really good movie choices.

I know the idea of the Portable Media Center was to acquire content from your Windows Media Center PC, but you still had to wait a major amount of time for the video to transcode to the proper format for the PMC. There really was no concept of instant portable gratification like that found with the iTunes Music Store. While Microsoft is planning on a second coming of the Portable Media Center, unless the content model is hashed out, I think it may be another extremely niche product, catering to a subset of those Windows Media Center users with money to burn and TV on their minds just about everywhere they go.

Enter Apple. The company that, dare I say, perfected the music download model (while others have tried to immitate, none have gained the adoption of the masses that Apple as thus far garnered) is planning to bring music videos to your hand. It's an obvious leap to see that Apple will be offering movie and TV show downloads (assuming their lawyers can play nice with the TV and movie industry lawyers) in the near future. Why will this win too? Because Apple knows how to create a viable content model. They'll make it work right. I'm hoping for native Xvid, Divx, MPEG-2, OGM, everything-and-the-kitchen-sink support, but will settle for some sort of super speedy conversion or wrapping technology that obviates the need for the Windows Media Player model of hours-long transcode sessions.

Hannibal of ArsTechnica speculates on Apple's upcoming video download service (quite an interesting if not most-likely accurate portrayal of things to be):

The iTMS video section will initially be limited to music videos in QuickTime format, as well as some Pixar content (shorts, and maybe a few films). All downloadable video will come wrapped in proprietary Apple DRM, and (as is the case with AAC) this QT + DRM format will be the only DRM-enabled video format that the video iPod will be capable of playing. Video iPod owners will be able to use the device to play a few non-DRM types of video, like MP4, DIVX, etc., and they may be able to rip DVDs and play them on the iPod, but they won't be able to play DRM'd video downloaded from competing online video services. In this respect, Apple will attempt to replicate in the video download space the successful business model that they innovated in the music download space. They'll also be going into direct competition with Microsoft's Windows Media format.

Link.