This week Macworld saw the launch of the Apple TV (formerly iTV), on the surface it’s a pretty good device allowing wireless transfer of video, music,
podcasts and photos from up to five Macs or PCs to your swanky HDMI compliant TV set all for a relatively reasonable $299. Many people might immediately realise that this is not a new idea, in fact I had a device that performed a similar task about 3 years ago (albeit using SCART) and at the time both wired and wireless versions were available. Actually I don’t see this as a problem, there were MP3 players before the iPod and that didn’t stop Apple
becoming the market leader, Apple have a knack of doing things better than the competition and have got a great reputation when it comes to usability and reliability. Despite all this, I’m not really impressed with the Apple TV and as it stands I doubt it will have the impact that everyone expected. The single biggest drawback of the Apple TV is that it doesn’t play all of the popular video formats, it will play anything that iTunes plays but nothing more. This means that any video you already have in other formats, be it snaffled from bittorrent, downloaded from the web, ripped from DVD or captured from camcorders will not work without going through the laborious process of re-encoding. This is more than most people want to do and the kind of people who really need a device like this probably use multiple formats and probably have stacks of DivX and Xvid movies that they’d love to watch on their
TV and Apple aren’t going to be much help at all.The secondary factor is that due to Apple’s late arrival in this space there are already some pretty good devices out there, though the biggest threat probably comes from their classic rival in the shape of the Xbox 360. For $399 you get a device that can stream video, music and photos from your PC
(though you’re stuck with just WMV for video), allows you to directly purchase and download TV shows and HD Movie rentals without even touching a computer, comes with a free headset allowing free phone calls to other Xbox 360 users, also supports video calls with the webcam accessory, and on top of all that is to date the best selling High-Definition games console on the market with over a hundred titles available.
So the Apple TV has a big hill to climb but if anyone can push it up that hill then surely Apple can. One light at the end of the tunnel which might generate some additional sales is the already mooted prospect of installing Linux on the Apple TV and using a Linux media player distro to do the rest -
now that might just make me buy one.
written by admin
\\ tags: Apple, bittorrent, hd, linux, macworld, xbox, xbox 360
Well, after about 4.5 seconds worth of thought I’ve decided to put my words where my mouth is (doesn’t sound right but you know what I mean) and say what I think is gonna go down in 2007, this time in no particular order…
Print Media Feels The Burn
I may be mildly premature with this one, but I can feel it in my bones – the carcinogenic newsprint will hit the fan sometime soon and I think 2007 will be the beginning. I’m sure print media has already had some reaction to the Internet and most of the UK broadsheets have pretty decent websites these days but for certain classes of publications I can foresee a major decline. For instance, I hardly buy gaming magazines these days for two main reasons, (1) the news is usually 3-6 weeks out of date by the time they go to print, (2) the reviews and articles are so full of marketing bullshit and rubbish games regularly get good reviews because the mag got an exclusive demo/interview/shag and finally (3) the demos are all downloadable now so why bother paying for them? I’m absolutely sure that those points apply to most monthly tech magazines and one other ‘primary factor’ in the decline is that newspapers / magazines are full of writers who write about things they barely understand. Have you read any ‘generic press’ articles about IT, gaming or technology lately? If you’re really interested in something (anything) then you’ll probably find a decent, articulate and well-informed blog / forum / news site on the web that’s 100 times better than some pokey journo trying to meet a deadline.
Nintendo Kick Ass
With the recent launch of the Wii and the massive public interest coming from traditional non-gamers I really think Nintendo are onto a winner (see: I Love My Wii) and Sony have still not really got their act together. I’m still not ready to predict final winner in the battle but by the end of 2007 I would not be surprised if Nintendo are on top.
Watching The Computer
People are going to spend much more time in 2007 pointing their LCD-hungry faces at computers this year than ever before. This includes consoles, high-def video players, IPTV, mobile TV as well as the traditional fare such as YouTube, Google Video and the web.
The Corporate World
After some relative calm I can see things turning bad for a major tech company this year, obvious choices would be people losing their identity such as AOL or Sun but perhaps it won’t be such a good year for people like Dell or Yahoo. I predict that a few more social networking sites will be acquired by media companies this year, possibly bebo or facebook – also predict it won’t do them much good.
Operating Systems
Last year started the war of next-generation consoles, 2007 sees the war between next-generation operating systems. With the release of WIndows Vista and later in the year Leopard (Mac OS 10.5) this does look like an interesting year, I also foresee more manufacturers offering pre-installed (or embedded) Linux than they have in the past. As for the outcome, obviously Vista will win but I’m even more sure that it will be plagued with bugs and security issues throughout the year. I do however still think that Apple will notch-up their market share somewhat in 2007 – from people holding out for Leopard and people who just want something solid, dependable and easy to use and have been slowly wooed by the iPod.
Well, that’s the lot – I wish my predictive mental offspring well as they try and navigate the great wide world, and if you should meet one whilst you’re traveling through 2007 please stop and say hello.
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: aol, Apple, bebo, dell, facebook, journo, nintendo, prediction, print media, sun, vista, wii, windows, yahoo
I finally got around to playing Tetris on my iPod and I was pretty disappointed – the overly sensitive wheel just doesn’t work. I’ve been gaming for many years now and this has all the hallmarks of a ‘stretch’, the iPod’s click wheel is bound to be good for some games and bad for others and this should have never happened. The QA guys should be throwing out anything that doesn’t work well, but Tetris is one of the most popular handheld games ever (if not THE most popular) so of course it made it through
I lost count of how many times I put a block in the wrong place, even though I know where I wanted to put it – the slightest brush of the wheel moved it along by 1 column and the rest is history (a tedious history, given that there’s no ‘restart’ option). At the time of playing, I was sitting still but this “click-wheel-tenderness” must be SO much worse if you’re on a train or bus – exactly the place you’ll probably want to play it. Now I know that people will say “you just have to get used to it” (or “lol, u is teh noob” depending how ill-educated they are) but you know – I really don’t, I have played Tetris on more platforms than I can count so why bother playing an ill-suited version, I’ll just stick to my mobile or DS.
Additionally – iTunes seems to have listed Pixar Short Films on iTunes, I’m not sure when this happened but it doesn’t say NEW next to it so maybe I’m missing out? Anyway, having downloaded one (For The Birds) so when I’ve watched it I’ll post my opinions.
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: Apple, click-wheel-tenderness, disney, ipod, itunes, pixar, tetris
Having had the Mac for a good few weeks now I thought it would be a good time to post my experiences back on the blog. Initially I still found the user interface confusing as OS9 is quite different from Windows, I also had my suspicions confirmed in that there is almost no application support for legacy operating systems. To get round this I decided to take the plunge and get a copy of OSX, this is a decision I do not regret in the slightest – it’s great!
The install for OSX ran like a dream, though I’m not really sure how long it took as I was watching TV in the other room for the bulk of it. Once it was up and running I downloaded all the patches (being a Windows user this made me feel at home) then got hold of the latest version of Firefox so I could start using the Mac in earnest.
So far I’ve found it very enjoyable getting to know OSX, most things seem to be where you’d expect and I love that funny toolbar that pops up at the bottom for launching applications – much nicer than the Start Menu. I decided to make the Mac my primary web-surfing machine and have moved it into the living room, saving my PC for more hard-core use as well as my email (I’m currently tied-in to Outlook).
Every second I use OSX I am mentally comparing it to Windows and it’s obviously way ahead of XP in terms of graphical niceties and general usability. That said, Vista is hot on it’s heels and in honesty the whole Aero/Glass thing beats OSX’s graphical style hands down, MS are clearly taking their cues from Apple and hoping to go one step further.
Of course, Apple will have a chance to bite back with Leopard so I’ll keep watching that space and I’m sure Vista will usher-in a whole new world of security issues and bugs that need fixing – comments I’ve heard from Steve Gibson on the Security Now podcast have been quite alarming and I’ve stopped using my copy of Vista Beta 2 because of security concerns. That said, I will hopefully receive Vista RC1 soon but I’ll try that one inside a virtual machine if I can.
On a final note I had a very helpful and friendly email conversation with a guy from my local Mac user group, if you’re reading this – thanks, I may be in touch again once I’ve gotten to grips with things a bit more. Also, I still find the Mac press to be over-zealous and have resolved not to buy magazines any more (barring useful cover disks) – I’ll get my news from the MacBreak Weekly podcast (yet another great podcast from TWiT.tv).
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: Apple, mac, macintosh, noob, osx, podcast, vista, xp
Until the other day, the last time I used a Mac was circa-1994 when I got my hands on a Macintosh IIsi and some variant of the Macintosh Classic. They belonged to my parent’s employer who needed a bit of help with printing and other IT tasks and I was pretty good at figuring these things out. I enjoyed using the GUI, at the time my only PC was either an IBM XT or AT running DOS and a mouse was an object of desire way beyond the budget my pocket-money would stretch to.
I’m giving you this backgroun because the other day I had the chance to get a much more modern Power Mac G4 that was being thrown out of some offices near where I live. Obviously I jumped at the chance as it had been well over 10 years since I last used one and getting Mac skills back on my CV can only be a good thing. First impressions – I was underwhelmed. I must point out that this thing is running OS9 and not everybody’s darling OSX, this makes it very hard to get software that will run on it – Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, none of them have released browsers compatible with OS9 for quite a while. The main source of my disappointment is that it basically looks the same as it did back in the day, nothing really new or innovative seems to be there and I’m finding it pretty tricky to navigate. As a born-again noob I realise that things aren’t going to be plain sailing and I do need to invest some time to read tutorials and familiarise myself with the OS, what I don’t want to have to do though is go out an buy OSX to get some decent use out of it – from what I’ve seen though, there may be little option.
I also bought a copy of Mac Format magazine and one thing that shines out of it’s pages is the adoration Mac users pour on their systems, something that seems a little odd for a platform whose most recent innovation is that it can run Windows. I’m far from a Windows fanboy (why do you think I want to switch), it’s just that the realities of working in a commercial environment mean it’s the OS I am most familiar with – Mac users seem to be so absurdly protective of their environment that approaching it from an outsiders perspective seems quite tough. My next course of action is to go to the community and see if they can help, I mean websites, user groups, etc. I’ll post back if and when I get any further in my quest, stay tuned…
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: Apple, g4, mac, macintosh, noob, os9, osx, power mac, switch
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