Filed under: iTS, Video, Other Events, The Daily Best
Academy Award Nominated Short Films point to movies to be the announcement of the day

Here's my thinking:
- This morning in the iTMS, along with some Bravo shows, we received some Academy Award Nominated Short Films. Short films? So what? We already have Pixar shorts! you retort. Ah-ha! See! These are non-Pixar films in the iTMS. The first.
- Kevin Rose of Digg fame didn't post "Hey, I got the scoop from my super secret source last night on all the hardware Apple is announcing tomorrow!" as he has for the last several Apple events.
- This CNNMoney.com article makes sense. The announcement is going to be all about movies coming to the iTMS.
The only thing that kind of weighs in favor of there being some hardware announcement is that Ryan Block from Engadget received an invitation to the event and will be there today. Check over at Engadget for the nice orderly news of the announcements. If you prefer fan-driven speculation and frothing-at-the-mouth craziness, check back later today as we have a live chatcast of the event and we try to get Ryan to leak info to us simultaneously with his feeding the info to Engadget, i.e. signal to noise issues; you've been warned ;-)

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
LD said 9:42AM on 2-28-2006
Would be a shame if it's just movies. I don't want to watch movies on an iPod and without a "media center" type of solution I can't really watch on my 50" plasma, not to mention the quality is crap from iTMS.
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Ryan Meyers said 9:44AM on 2-28-2006
Oscars are this week also, a perfect time to roll out some advertisements. I really hope this happens, been waiting for this forever. Instant-cinema.
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Stridey said 9:51AM on 2-28-2006
I agree that this is probably the most likely at this point. It's "fun", and it makes sense to have add a major feature to iTMS right on the tail of the billionth song sold. Also, every other rumor has been proved fake or lame.
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Judson said 9:58AM on 2-28-2006
You are missing that if Apple does not release their iBooks before May of 2006, they are going to lose a lot of their educational sales, a majority of their area.
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Matt Lopez said 10:03AM on 2-28-2006
No point to anounce full length movies without a way to watch them on your home theater. Come on new Airport express with streaming HD video!
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Chris said 10:05AM on 2-28-2006
I would be sad if movies are announced and there's no new Mac Mini. Mainly because I don't want to drag my iMac to the other room to sit on the couch to watch the movie. TV shows are long enough to sit in wooden office chairs... I can't do movies too...
Bring on the Mac Mini with DVR and Front Row and that bad boy won't even leave the TV.
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Joseph Matt said 10:11AM on 2-28-2006
Last time I checked Judson we still have two months till May. I'd say give them til March, then we'll seem them rolled out in a similar press conference.
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Scott said 10:16AM on 2-28-2006
Watching movies on my computer? Wow, that's revolutionary.
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pdh1978 said 10:18AM on 2-28-2006
I pay £9.99 for 6 dvd rentals from Amazon UK each month. Give me a movie at "DVD" quality for £1.50 that I can only watch once and I'll be happy. But I wouldn't fork out for "iPod resolution" movies, no matter how many times I could watch them.
(Btw, that's 17.50 and 2.60 for you Americans with your crazee dollars!)
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Sam said 10:29AM on 2-28-2006
how can you say that onlly movies will be put out, when the announcement says "Come see our fun new PRODUCTS"
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Brad said 10:36AM on 2-28-2006
I personally don't care all that much about what is released today since I won't have the money to purchase it.
Oh, the life of a college student...
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Jacob Varghese said 10:42AM on 2-28-2006
"These are non-Pixar films in the iTMS. The first. "
Wrong.
What about the Disney short films?
Sam's got a good point - "Come see our fun new PRODUCTS"
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Vince Di said 10:44AM on 2-28-2006
Usually before a hardware announcement, ship times on the speculated hardware to be upgrades slip to weeks or days. The mac mini still shows a ship time of less then 24 hours at the apple store online. Sad.
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Dave said 10:51AM on 2-28-2006
C.K. you are wrong on this so rest easy. Apple has *never* had a major Steve Jobs keynote / special presentation for a software only change. These always have the "sexyness" of new hardware, always. So while iTunes movies may very well be the focus, be assured it would be along with a new Mac mini with improved Front Row 2.0 to help show it, or maybe a new video iPod. No matter what happens there will be new hardware, although I doubt the huge range of iBook, Mac mini, and video iPod predicted all at once by some other sites. Pic one of those PLUS the iTunes movies and you likely have what is happening today.
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Wheels said 10:57AM on 2-28-2006
I'd be bummed if no new hardware, or software, or the combination of the two, wasn't announced. Also I think that equating movie shorts with full length movies is drawing broad conclusions from limited facts, and my grandfather always preached against doing that. Besides, Apple probably had easy access to Pixar features, but they never showed up on ITMS. (Is that proper grammar?)
My predictions: New Mac Mini, New iBook, adding "Merry Melodies" shorts to ITMS. Bugs Bunny rulez!
The infrastructure isn't ready for feature length film.
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C.K. Sample, III said 11:18AM on 2-28-2006
Jacob, I think you're splitting hairs by calling me wrong on the Pixar / Disney bit, especially considering that those Disney shorts didn't show up until *after* the most recent Disney/Pixar acquisition.
As for the rest of you, I really hope that there is some hardware announced, but products hasn't always meant hardware, and I've sat through some very long keynotes that featured minor bumps in hardware and focused on things like the iTMS in the past, so I'm a bit concerned that this one will be the same.
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Callum said 11:42AM on 2-28-2006
that's not 'fun', didn't the invite read 'fun'. Bringing downloadable movies would be nice, but they'll have to improve iTunes' handling of movie files - on anything less than a G4 1Ghz preformance is terrible, I can't believe paying for any video content only to have it playback in the sham-of-a video player that is iTunes 6 (today).
and then the big-bag video iPod... fellas, look at the battery issues that stand today... the 5G iPod's video playback is limited to 3hrs on the battery, that's two films, or one film and an hour or so music- that doesn't do it for me, sorry.
'fun', what could this mean... are we all looking in the wrong direction - or is 'fun' cupertino talk for media?
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