Stories Dave missed while he was away…
I didn’t find much of interest reading the WWDC keynote today… I’m not a developer and most of the Leopard features are a rehash of what we already knew or not so grand. ZFS has been a no-show so far. And Safari on Windows? Yawn. Now a Windows port of iPhoto – that would have been exciting. Or how about a .Mac photo and video sharing YouTube/Flickr mashup.
However, in the aftermath of the keynote and the apple.com site refresh, at least one interesting nugget has turned up. Front Row, under Leopard, gets a makeover:
When you summon Front Row in Leopard, you’re greeted by an elegant interface much like the one on Apple TV. Finding and enjoying whatever you wish couldn’t be simpler. Just click the Apple Remote (included with most Macs) to step through the options: music, movies, TV shows, and photos. You can even view slideshows of iPhoto albums on other computers in the house.
Makes perfect sense to me. I’d suggest Microsoft do something similar in merging their Media Center experience and Xbox 360 blades… but without the banner ads currently plastered all over my console.
USA Today is out with a movie-ordering comparison of Apple TV versus Amazon Unbox on TiVo. Buried in the article is an interesting nugget:
Amazon and TiVo are expected today to announce direct sales that bypass the PC altogether.
Movies can currently be ordered via Amazon’s website on computer. (Unofficially: Unbox OnDemand) This method generally works out fine given movies can ‘t be watched until the download completes, but it makes sense to provide ordering directly on the TiVo unit – for both service and as a means of advertising the feature. The challenge isn’t really the technology of building the Java HME widget, the challenge is creating a well organized and friendly TV interface for Amazon’s large collection of content. We shall see…
As promised, iTunes and EMI (partially) delivered on their promise of releasing DRM-free music. However, the initial batch of tracks doesn’t include anything in my collection.
The bigger news with the new service seems to be iTunes Plus embedding personally identifiable info, such as name and email, into every file. I don’t have a problem with tagging tracks as a means to limit piracy, though Apple would be taking less heat by being more forthcoming. Like most folks I blew right past the Plus fine print, so I’m not sure what I agreed to. This is all I was able to dredge up from their Terms of Use:
(xii) iTunes Plus Products do not contain security technology that limits y our usage of such Products, and Usage Rules (iii) – (vi) do not apply to iTunes Plus Products. You may copy, store and burn iTunes Plus Products as reasonably necessary for personal, noncommercial use.
Normally, I’d immediately dismiss this as crazy talk… But coming from Peter Rojas of Engadget, we have to consider the possibility:
A well-connected source tells us that AT&T and Apple are working on adding IPTV capabilities to the Apple TV beginning sometime next year.
Even with Apple’s recent hard drive upgrade, the A-TV won’t become a DVR on it’s own… There’s no hidden tuner and no video input. Assuming Apple wants to go down this path (and I’m not convinced that they do), they’d need to either add a USB accessory of some sort or receive video broadcast via the Internet. So if this AT&T rumor has some truth behind it, what does it do to the chances of the Xbox 360 as an AT&T IPTV client?
