Cringely: Apple/Blockbuster Speculation

Hmmmmm.... love the idea of being able to browse and rent/buy movies instantly, but hate the idea of going to BlockBuster to do it. IMHO, Starbucks is a much more convenient location. Add a few ATM-like kiosks at airports, supermarkets, and malls, and you get a complete and totally convenient video distribution system. Who needs BlockBuster anymore?

Does your mom own an iPod?

Why Blockbuster? They own rooms in strip malls, a bunch of DVDS, and a big doofy corporate logo. Apple doesn't need to partner with that.

Apple needs access to the IP--the movies. The studios own that. How exactly is Blockbuster going to participate in a way different than Walgreens or Wal-Mart couldn't?

Nice. Cringely is quality, Blockbuster is crap through-and-through. Totally low-rent: not Apple's ideal mate.

Apple would be better served buying a company like Tivo and partnering with content providers in the same spirit

Think outside the world you know. ( This is actually my job ). I'll lay out the scenario:

If you are reading this, you are a mac fan. Ergo, you follow technology. We can make some assumptions:

You have some aptitude with computers.
You likely have a very fast internet connection into your house.
You understand big files and DRM and why a file downloaded at 4 am will go faster than one at 6PM and all that.

My mom? Not really. I just bought them an iMac for christmas and put in a fat pipe so we can video conference ( we live on opposite sides of the country ). Doesn't know an MP3 from an MP5 rifle. They don't use netflix. They still go to blockbuster, grab a movie based on what they want to see THAT NIGHT. THEY are the market Apple wants. There are millions of people like them.

I live in LA. There are more than 10 apple stores within an hour's drive. 4 within a 15 minute drive. There are easily 100 blockbusters in that same area, probably 3x that many.

I have a vacation cabin in mountains. There are only two chain stores in the nearest town. 7-11 and a Blockbuster. Apple gets instant market penetration with a brand that people already associate with movies.

That's why'd they partner with blockbuster. Hell, they partnered with HP(!) to get market penetration.

As to why a kiosk makes more sense than online -

1 - security. A closed system is less vulerable to hackers.

2 - bandwidth. bandwidth is never free. What sounds cheaper to you - downloading a 12 GB once to a central distribution node and making hundreds of copies from there to an iPod, or hundreds of people all trying to get a connection at the same time? Do you remember what the iTunes store was like the day they added video? It kept erroring out on connections. How about the speed of the apple.com site the day of the keynote? Bandwisth is limited. And we are talking potentially HUGE files. I don't think ANYONE has ever tried massive online distribution of petabytes of data.

3 - Mom and Pop friendly. online scares some people. especially sending your credit card info.

4 - guaranteed delivery. How mad would you be if you got 98 percent done on a 12 GB file and lost your connection? It may not be your fault that you did. Maybe your microwave disrupted the wifi. Maybe your ISP had a burp. Maybe your computer crashed ( remember - this service will have to run on windows too! ). Maybe your son/wife/cousin fred didn't know you were downloading something and rebooted or closed iTunes Media Store. SO many ways. I'd rather drive spend 5 minutes at the kisok syncing and go. Hell, put it in a vestibule and like an ATM it could be open 24 hours a day.

This is one of those ideas that the more I think about it the smarter it seems.

Why would this be better than downloading to your computer? Try this:

Once you download, how / where are you going to watch it? How big is your computer's monitor? 17, 19, 21 inches? How big is the TV in your living room? Mine's 31 inches. I'd much rather watch a movie on my nice comfy couch, on my larger TV with surround sound, than in my office, on my 17 inch monitor with cheap PC speakers.

Not everyone has a DVD burner. Even if they have one, most people don't have the technical skills to burn a DVD.

All apple needs to do is provide a docking system that will connect the iPod to your TV or VCR & you're good to go.

Check out the two-year trend on Blockbuster's stock price and tell me this is a company Apple wants to associate its brand to.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=BBI&t=2y

I'm going for no.

Blockbuster is going to have to find a new business plan, buy another company to morph into, or die on the vine.

Great idea. Could imagine atm-style kiosks connected to fat data-pipes all over town. Would like to see blockbuster stores disappear forever...to many bad associations to late fees, phony-friendliness at the door, and out-of-stock titles. Could transform the blockbuster brand, though I don't really understand why apple couldn't do this themselves. Who needs all those bricks-and-mortar assets.

It is a great idea - if you can get a movie on to an iPod in around 2 minutes. Regardless of Blockbuster -- it could be a local device/kiosk, in a cofee shop, gas station, air port, dr. office, etc. - a Mac with a large drive, lets say holds the top 200 movies. A modified version of iTunes to preview and pay for the movie.
Once a day the device will sync the moview with a centralized server.

I doubt it.

It may be faster to download the movie once you're at a blockbuster, but what about driving there just for a movie? I know it takes ~15 (as Damien said) to download a TV show, but I'd rather download a movie overnight than go to blockbuster, wait in line for a "ipod station", wait for it to load on the ipod, and drive back home. I mean, seriously.

This isn't even close to Apple's content delivery model. As they say "Apple makes the whole widget." I think Apple would rather burn in hell rather than rely on Blockbuster, of all companies, to deliver the token "Apple expirience". Apple likes to be in control of everything they can so they can keep the quality and design up to standards.

People these days are making either 1) obvious speculation (intel iBooks, new iPod, intel Mac minis) or 2) just plain stupid speculation (apple buying palm, partnering with blockbuster). I mean, c'mon! As Mac users we should know Apple better! They wouldn't team up with Blockbuster, that's as crazy as Guam teaming up with Canada to lauch a spaceship.

Geez.

Dvorak gets no spam, but obviously Cringely has regular deliveries of hallucinogenic mushrooms...

Am I the only one who checked Dashboard for a date of April 1?

Apple would never want such a messy, convoluted experience, and to suggest aligning themselves with Blockbuster (a fading dinosaur to Netflix's mammal) is "grounded in reality" makes me think Damien has been at the mushrooms too...!