Steve Jobs renigged on his statements about Media Centers, just like he did about flash players.  I’m sure Mac zealots will now act like he never said such things or try to make up excuses for why he said them.

I guess Jobs saw the skyrocketing sales of Media Center PC’s, all Vista machines shipping with Media Center, the video capable PSP, and the Xbox 360 coming down the pipe, then decided that he should pull his foot out of his mouth.

I doubt they’ll include a TV tuner anytime soon because they want to sell TV shows to you instead of letting you record them for free.  I mean ABC? WTF? ABC is free over-the-air even in high-definition.

Front Row may be eventually an answer to MCEs, but right now it provides about 1/4 of the funtionality of MS’ full-fledged HTPC.

Further, it only comes on the iMac right now, and that means it is on a computer with a monitor already - you can’t simply hide it away or stack it with your home theater like, say, a Shuttle box with MCE on it.

Apple is moving in the right direction here, but this is far from any kind of competitor in the HTPC market in this incarnation.

If it’s true that Jobs compared the remote to the media center remote, then the RDF is still alive and well…

That’s like comparing a paring knife to a machete.

Boy, you guys seem pissed!

Apple is now on this media center path and will continue to add functionality, no doubt. I wonder if they will put Front Row on the Airport Express in some way.

Front Row looks awesome. I love how the desktop flies off when the main menu comes up. Very cool.

Hey Funk, did you read about how PC gaming sales is down 10.5% in the first half of 2005?

Yeah funk I agree.  This update is a step in the right direction but ultimately lame.  320x240 TV shows for 2 bucks?  That’s more than it costs to get the DVD and a lot more than it costs to do the bittorent thing.

Did I mention it’s 320x240?

I certainly wouldn’t spend $2 for a TV show, but maybe someone who has a new iPod and spends a lot of time on trains would. Apple’s solutions are all about making it convenient and easy and they seem to leave the “power user” features for 3rd parties.

So instead of recording the TV show and then loading up some software to edit out commercials and then export the thing to MPEG4 so my PSP can view it, I just pay $2 through iTunes and then immediately put it on the iPod.

I want to own music, not subscribe. Apple has been successful with that philosophy. But I think I’d subscribe to Apple’s TV service that would let me download all the TV shows I want for a monthly fee. That makes a lot more sense than buying a TV show that you will watch once.

Mac Fan, did you read about how Apple’s desktop sales are down from last quarter?

I was really hoping Apple would break the barrier of the MPAA and get some movie downloads.  That would open the door to getting downloads of movies while they’re still in the theater but what they did was just lame.

I doubt they’ll do the Airport Express thing because they want you to use your iPod as the hookup into your TV (dumb) and the videos are 320x240 which looks like crap on even a SD TV.

I want to own music, not subscribe. Apple has been successful with that philosophy. But I think I’d subscribe to Apple’s TV service that would let me download all the TV shows I want for a monthly fee. That makes a lot more sense than buying a TV show that you will watch once.

I might do it too especially if I could get downloads of sports games.  But the TV subscription thing is already possible with cable tv and some kind of DVR.  Windows Media Player automatically re-encodes videos to fit the screen size of a mobile device (in fact Windows Movie Maker will do it as well).  IIRC there’s a little plug-in automatically cuts out the commercials too.

I think I read somewhere that you can’t burn the iTunes videos to disc, which is dumb.  Even CinemaNow lets you burn movies to disc.

I really though Apple was going to move us forward when they introduced a video ipod and video service but they’ve done no such thing.  Their offering is very poor on so many levels.

Apple desktop sales are up 56% from the same quarter last year.

Airport Express already lets you stream your music and photos, right? It’s always been missing a GUI and video out for your TV and a remote. Rumor has it the next version fixes this. Can WiFi even handle SD or HD video streaming yet? Is anyone doing that? I’m sure that will come at some point.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see full resolution TV shows and even movies on the iTMS at some point in the future. It’s an obvious evolution, IMHO. Look at where it started…

“ But the TV subscription thing is already possible with cable tv and some kind of DVR.  Windows Media Player automatically re-encodes videos to fit the screen size of a mobile device (in fact Windows Movie Maker will do it as well).  IIRC there’s a little plug-in automatically cuts out the commercials too.”

That’s very cool and goes to my comments about Apple making it convenient and easy. Do you have iTunes 6 yet? You get thumbnails of your shows and you just drag them over to your iPod—no re-encoding and selecting special plug-ins to get rid of commercials, etc. You just drag and drop it over, it looks like.

It looks very easy and very convenient.

So if I had one of these new iPods and I commuted a lot (some of my neighbors go 2 hours each direction), I’d love it if Apple had something like their podcast feature in iTunes for TV shows.

Can WiFi even handle SD or HD video streaming yet? Is anyone doing that? I’m sure that will come at some point.

I’m not sure if anyone is doing that yet.  I know my Media Center can send HD video out to other devices but I don’t really have anything else that supports Media Center Extenders HD capabilites so I’ve been unable to test it.  I know the Xbox 360 is capable of getting HD shows over WiFi though.  The Wifi bandwidth is high-enough that WMV or H.264 encoded HD signals have no problem streaming.

I agree it does look easy but it’s still not worth the 2 bucks per episode IMO.  That’s considering that ABC is free in high def, TiVO-to-Go records many more channels and shows for a monthly fee, and that my current system does far more than what Apple released.

Apple desktop sales are up 56% from the same quarter last year.

That’s great but it only serves to show how crappy their lineup was without the Mini and the iMac G5.  I can’t even find the eMac on Apple’s site anymore.

They still sold less desktops this quarter than last quarter and their streak of 3 quarters with increasing marketshare pretty much ended this quarter.  The official numbers come out in a few days but the 3rd and 4th quarters are always huge for PC’s.

On a side note:

This iMac Media thing seems very very rushed.  iTunes 5 was just released like a month ago and now they’ve gotten rid of it because of the addition of videos.  I bet Apple saw the sales of Media Center PC’s skyrocket due to back-to-school sales and decided to join the fray.

If you look at their advertising you see they are pushing the iMac Media Center thing for College Dorm rooms.  Well, the back-to-school computer shoping season ended about a month ago.  If they had this new iMac in mind for any decent amount of time then they would have released it in time for the back-to-school shopping season.  The fact that they didn’t signals a rushed and reactionary product.

I wouldn’t pay $2 either. I’d just use my TiVo. But, again, if I had one of those iPods and I commuted a lot...it’s $35 for a season. Maybe I’d do that if I commuted and had a new iPod. I don’t want to mess with editing files and burning discs. The idea of just downloading it without commercials and then just transferring it to my iPod is appealing, but I have no need for it.

My computer is in my office, my TiVo is connected to the TV. It does everything I want. I watch shows and FF through the commercials and delete them when I’m done. What I want is Front Row on Airport Express on my TV. That’s what I want. I’d pay for that. I’d like access to my office Mac’s music library and photo library on my TV with Front Row’s GUI. As soon as that comes out, I’ll buy it.

If I were a college student in a dorm, one of those new iMacs with Front Row would rock.

I purchased a Lost episode just to see what the process was like and it’s just like music in iTunes. It downloads and then shows up in your Library. It’s very easy.

Clicking on Videos on the left shows you your shows as a thumbnail or list, depending on what view you select in the upper right.

You can watch the show in the bottom left space where album art goes, or in a separate player window with scrub, or full screen. The full screen doesn’t give you the same QT Pro full screen controls that show up on top of your video, which sucks.

I found the file in the Finder and tried to open it in QT and it needed to authorize it again even though it’s on the same syste (bug, I think). Once it did that, it played in QT.

I don’t think that Front Row is “lame”, by any stretch. It looks sharp and has a promising future. I’m just pointing out that it clearly does not offer half the feature set of MCE, and therefore is no competitor to it.

The only thing I’m doing is what I’ve always done on either side of the Mac/PC fence - debunk as much of the hyperbole that folks are sure to spread after all the hype and hoopla of a launch.

And right now, Front Row is far, far, far, far, far away from doing half the things that MCE does now (after today’s nice updates) and then who even knows when Vista arrives… It’s a nice addition to the Apple software lineup, but it is NOT a competitor to MCE, not by any stretch of the imagination.

I do want to play with one of the 2. 1 Ghz iMacs. My 1.8 Ghz G5 is a dog, and I want to see if the upgrade to DDR2 and PCI-E offers any more oomph. Seeing that the system bus is a paltry 533 Mhz and 600 Mhz, I don’t know that this is much of an upgrade at all, to be 100% honest. But I’ll reserve judgment until after I play with one…

Kuaidang,

I think it’s hilarious that you are trying to poop on Apple’s record numbers. Some things never change.

Apple announces a new product. Funktron and Kuaidang say it’s crap.

Apple announces record revenues and profits, Kuaidang says they are losing…

I think the biggest news of the day is that Apple is shipping multi-button mice as standard with the new iMacs.

Welcome to 1995, Apple. Glad you could make it.

PVR, TV tuning, full-TiVo-like scheduling for that PVR, HD output, 5.1 output, a Remote that does everything in your cabinet - you name it.

Right now, Front Row is a 10-foot-interface for your pictures, music videos and recorded TV shows at 480x480.

Further, MCE can go on a small headless unit right now that you can simply stash among your A/V stuff. The iMac only has S-Video (through the Dock) and RCA to TV, and it’s a 20-inch monster that would be great for a dorm or something, but not for the entire family to sit around the living room and watch.

It’s just not looking to do everything MCE does right now - but given the trends and given MCE’s success and growing popularity, I suspect it will eventually try to be that.

Thanks, that’s correct… My point was simply that they are not to the level of the G5, the P4 or the A64, and I can’t figure out why…

“’s a nice addition to the Apple software lineup, but it is NOT a competitor to MCE, not by any stretch of the imagination.”

Nobody claimed it was. Nobody said a thing about MCE.

Like I said…

Another interesting note - Apple is now using PCI Express.

“Welcome to 1995, Apple. Glad you could make it. “

Don’t you hate those Mac trolls who reply to Thurrott’s blogs about Vista about how Vista is finally getting features the Mac OS has had for years? Isn’t that annoying, when zealots do that?

Vista has desktop accessories.

Welcome to 1984. Glad you could make it.

“Apple and Disney herald new media era”
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/3fe6085e-3b43-11da -b7bc-00000e2511c8.html