The Mac Mini: Media hub for iTunes Movie Store?
Robert Cringely is a true tech sleuth. This week he
puts together the puzzle pieces to surmise what the
Mac Mini is truly about. Right now it is about design innovation and a strong pitch to disgruntled Windows users
and potential switchers, but Cringely thinks Jobs has an ace up his sleeve, and the full potential of the Mac Mini has
yet to be unveiled.
What do we know? We know that as much as Steve Jobs reputedly disparages video, he has clearly announced 2005 as
“The Year of HD.” We also know that Apple is in bed
with Sony, as evidenced by Sony President Kunitake Ando’s
appearance at the Macworld Keynote. As Cringely dryly points out: “you don’t get the head of Sony at your event
just to sell camcorders.”
We also know that within two days of reporting the release of
iFlicks, which we dubbed “iTunes for video,” the site
was mysteriously taken down, and nobody can talk
about why. Perhaps they’ve been purchased by a company who is extremely
adamant about locking down information about advance
products?
What is Apple playing at? I think Cringely is onto something hot: Apple will jump-start the HD movie business,
bypassing cable monopolies and offering iTunes-type simplicity for delivering high-quality digital movie content to the
Mac Mini home theater.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
iMatt said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
Cringely is onto something, and yet I believe he is not onto something.
The clues can be assembled nicely: Jobs's announcement that 2005 is the year of HD video; the anticipated Quicktime update in Tiger; the otherwise unusual and inexplicable appearance of the Sony VP at the keynote; the odd disappearance of iFlicks, which to me evokes the memory of iWorks changing its name to iBiz just before the keynote.
They lead to the conclusion that Apple is up to something big in the HD video realm.
BUT what is missing is real evidence linking Apple's big plans for HD video to the Mac mini. The machine is tiny, stylish, and fun, but it lacks the power and storage capacity that it would need to become in effect, a media server.
I'll need more evidence before I'll be ready to believe that the Mac mini is positioned to play a big role in whatever HD master plan our friends in Cupertino are hatching!
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AD said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
Downloadable movies is already here - but it's illegal. Downloading iTunes movies would be well cool. Maybe the media could be time limited or playable three times only or something? The technology must be there. The market is there, I guess...people don't have to leave their house to purchase (just browse the Quicktime movie trailors to see what you want (oh that part already exists, how nice) and Boom! (as someone might say) it's done with one click.
What about buying TV episodes too? With broadband connections downloding a movie takes a few hours - leave your Apple computer on over night to collect your new movie?
This got me thinking - Bill gates wants to make the Tablet PC work...problem is it's too expensive. What about an iRemote...about the size of an iPod with the same wheel navigation which works with the Apple mac and TV wirelessly. What if you don't even have to see OS X you get a micro GUI in the TV instead (kinda iPod-like GUI?) to play music and movies...that would be cheap too.
Just an idea - maybe i'm reinventing the wheel! probably.
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Jack said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
"BUT what is missing is real evidence linking Apple's big plans for HD video to the Mac mini. The machine is tiny, stylish, and fun, but it lacks the power and storage capacity that it would need to become in effect, a media server."
The key is "yet". The first generation iMacs were not the greatest. Neither were the first generation Beige G3s. And the iPod never really took off until the 3G models.
So I don't think the current Mac Mini is the key to the media server concept. But I think a future revision might be fast enough and beefy enough to handle such needs.
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Mark said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
The only thing it really lacks to become a media server is a video-out or a second display connector.
Surely Apple would have included this, if their plan is to start an iFlick Movie Store.
It's like shipping iPod's without a headphone jack plug.
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barb dybwad said 4:41PM on 10-07-2005
iMatt: as to storage, yes, it's not enough internally. But because of the proliferation of digital audio, many households are hip to the idea of having some central storage set up. I think we're coming into an age where we realize that one machine doesn't have to do it all, and more and more households will have multiple machines dedicated to specific tasks. The Mini can be the brain that schedules recording and schedules off-loading of recordings to central storage. In fact, that's what I'm going to do with mine. :)
As for 'power' - the Mini has power plenty. It's not the computer that does the heavy lifting, it's the cable set-top box. You can bet your bippy none of them are running anything close to a 1Ghz processor. Even high end video-conferencing units get by with 400Mhz chips. The computer, via a PVR unit, is only going to suck down a nice MPEG-2 stream from an HD box.
Which leads to Mark's comment: no video out, true. I think Apple is planning some sort of breakout box. Again, we're looking at modular computing here: make the Mini a generic CPU brain that, with add-ons, can become whatever you want it to be. Audiophiles will get the ultra-top-secret Asteroid interface or other audio interface. Videophiles will get a PVR interface like EyeTV or similar. Or, Apple will release a breakout box or several of its own.
AD - downloadable movies are already here legally, but Mac users can't use the service:
http://www.movielink.com/
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