Yet Another MacWorld 2004 Prediction
At the risk of breaking up a near perfect run of double entandre in the titles of my last three entries, here’s my big prediction—well, not really a prediction, more of a wish, really—for the upcoming MacWorld Expo.
Smaller, snazzier, lower priced iPod’s would certainly be a welcomed announcement. Both my proverbial pocketbook and my pocket have been waiting since the original announcement some two years ago for the prices on those slender, little, white gadgets to drop down to an affordable level.
But what I would really like to see is not necessarily a smaller iPod, an iPhone, an iPod AV, an Apple-branded 8 foot plasma television, nor any other such nonsense. What I’d rather like to see happening on the hardware side of things is something like an Apple TiVo. Think about that one for a moment…
Now that the iTunes Music Store has proven such a bona fide success, it makes sense for Apple (at some point anyway, not necessarily tomorrow) to branch out into the realm of video and home entertainment. But while additional video support for an iPod wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, it’s not really the piece that’s needed to fulfill the digital hub promise. An Apple approved Tivo device (they already have been building an alliance together through Rendevous for some time now), however, could be such a tasty and irresistible device. Hooked up wirelessly over an Airport Extreme network, broadband users could (one day) conceivably download entire movies and play them on their regular home entertainment setup. Add to that the features of a traditonal DVR (TV scheduling, deletion of commercials, etc) and you’ve got yourself one killer digital hub strategy that ups the ante entirely on the words "trojan horse."
Apple’s already proven that they can take a simple hard drive based technology and literally change the music industry with it. Eventually, if they’re able to make the same deals with the entertainment industry as they did the music guys, and if they can make such a device affordable enough, they just might be able to find their way into a few more homes using video in the near future.
