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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware, Macbook Pro, MacBook

A big bag of Blu-Ray hurt for Apple


Just the other day I was wondering on this very site just where Blu-Ray has been on Macs, and yesterday's big Apple event gave us the answer: Blu-Ray, according to Steve Jobs, is just "a big bag of hurt." Apple says they haven't settled on an HD format yet because no one else has either: "the licensing of the tech is so complex, we're waiting until things settle down and Blu-Ray takes off in the marketplace," said Jobs. He might as well have added an "if it does" on the end of there -- Sony, spurned by the Betamax loss, wants to make sure they get credit when Blu-ray gets popular, and for that very reason it may never be.

In fact, if Apple has their way, there may not be a physical media of choice for high-definition content -- Phil Schiller pointed out that iTunes has plenty of HD TV and movie options without ever tying Apple down to licensing a specific format.

Which is exactly everything we said last week. And I'm drinking the kool-aid, actually -- a while back, I was one who would have said that people need their physical media, but nowadays, I'm not so sure. I haven't bought a DVD, HD or otherwise, in months and months, and yet I've purchased and seen plenty of HD content in iTunes and over my Xbox and cable connection. Blu-Ray may have won the HD disc format wars and claimed the country, but maybe there's nobody living there any more.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPod Family, iTS, Software, iTunes, Software Update

Rumor: iTunes 8 to include Genius recommender, grid view, new visualizer

Kevin Rose is at it again, with a brand new round of rumors about iTunes 8, supposedly premiered next week at the big Apple iPod event. Did I miss the meeting where we all declared him king of iPod rumors? King or not, he's got what he claims is inside information, including a writeup about something called the "Genius" sidebar, which creates recommended playlists for you, a new grid view (like Delicious Library?), and a new music visualizer.

Additionally, Rose's tipster mentions HD TV shows in the iTMS, and reiterates the previous rumors of new IPod nanos and Touches. None of these things are a huge surprise -- while the Genuis system will certainly be interesting to see (and make fun of) if real, HDTV and the new iPods are old news in Rumorville by now.

Is it OK if we hope for some faster and easier iPhone syncing with a new version of iTunes as well? Whatever is coming next week, we'll find out all about it then.

Tip of the Day

Holding the Command key (aka the Apple key) and pressing Tab will cycle through your open applications. It's easier to Cmd-Tab if you are Copy (Cmd-C) and Pasting (Cmd-V) to and from various applications.


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