April 10, 2007
Erica Ogg at News.com’s gadgets blog writes that Slingbox support of AppleTV would open the “intriguing new possibility” of streaming music from iTunes on your home computer to your cell phone. I’d recommend that she check out Avvenu’s smartphone client. I have used the desktop version of the Avvenu music service and think it’s the slickest remote PC music experience I’ve seen yet.
Nevertheless, Sling Media’s race to support AppleTV raises questions about how this support will differ from that of its own forthcoming hard drive-equipped television accessory, the SlingCatcher. SlingCatcher stands to be a triple-threat, capable of receiving content from a PC, Slingbox, or the Internet. It’s the third source that might benefit from having a Slingbox and SlingCatcher (or perhaps a future combination of them) connected to the same television. And with an expected street price of $200, available for only two thirds of the price. Of course, Sling won’t have access to Apple’s advertising budget, so perhaps supporting AppleTV is the least they can do to thank Apple for resurrecting the digital media adapter category.
April 7, 2007
At Autoblog, John Neff makes a strong case for Apple TV in the vehicle. John characterizes the AppleTV as a kind of iPod for the car and, indeed, Apple refers to both the iPod and Apple TV as “iTunes accessories.” However, a more accurate if perhaps less flattering analogy would be as a successor to the short-lived Rockford Fosgate OmniFi DMP1. Apple has identified the in-vehicle market as an important one for digital content, but the mobile specialist channel is a difficult one to crack; it doesn’t exactly jibe with Apple’s holism vs. horsepower image marketing. I just can’t picture Apple’s little white set-top box being groped by a bikini-clad model posing next to a pimped-out Scion xB against a lightning matte background.
So, Apple’s main thrust here has been to partner with the automakers themselves for iPod integration, leaving the current car deck market leaders such as Pioneer and Alpine to devise their own aftermarket iPod integration products. These have made good strides in the past two years. My own fringe adaptation for Apple TV may be easier to implement. Still, for the enterprising mobile specialist, Apple TV could make a very good — and when compared to the old OmniFi, inexpensive — Wi-Fi-enabled mobile media center.
April 6, 2007
This week’s Switched On, which should be posted later today, discusses HP’s discontinuation of its Digital Entertainment Center living room form factor PCs and Microsoft’s struggles to advance PC form factors. As far as I know, CEPro broke the story. Those who follow the convergence or PC retail space should read Julie Jacobson’s excellent series of articles about HP’s experience with the DEC in the custom installer channel. Part II looks at HP’s experience with the custom install channel earlier in the article, but the third part of the article, which I believe was posted today, delves deeper into why HP is leaning toward its MediaSmart TVs.
I akso had to chuckle as Julie found this way to sidestep an “off the record” comment:
Although HP spokesperson Pat Kinley did not want me to quote her as saying that the HP product and interface is simpler to use than the MCE solution, PC World did quote her: “We have other products on the market now and future products that I can’t talk about that perform essentially the same function in a way that’s easier for the consumer [to use].”
The article concludes with HP trying to position more as competition for AppleTV vs. Media Center Extenders, but you can’t compete with one without competing against the other, as Microsoft has been driving home with its comparisons between the Xbox 360 and AppleTV. In any case, building well-implemented DMR capabilities into the TV is a good differentiator for now, and most consumers would likely prefer no external box to even a small one like AppleTV, but with Pioneer, Sharp and surely others to follow, how long will it be before this falls too far below the consumer purchase criteria list to matter?
March 22, 2007
AppleTV adopts something I’ve been calling for for a long time in the digital media adapter market — a “sync and store” architecture. Yet, it also supports streaming, which is particularly good for ad hoc content sharing. When I wrote about Brookstone’s SongCube for Engadget last September, the same month in which AppleTV (then iTV) was announced, I noted “The inclusion of networking capability so that the SongCube could be loaded and ideally synchronized over a home network would greatly benefit the product.” (Even though the column was posted after the Apple event, it was written before it and certainly before I knew that AppleTV would have a hard drive.) I also was relativley lenient on the product’s user interface — advanced for a stereo but primitive compared to most modern portable digital audio players.
AppleTV, which costs the same as the SongCube but lacks speakers, addresses both of these issues. However, there’s another catch — you need a screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio. So, I’m thinking there’s room in the market for one of those companies that did the add-on flip-up LCD screens for the GameCube and Xbox like Pelican Accessories (or perhaps a Mac peripherals maker like Griffin?) to do a similar product for the AppleTV. Add a pair of powered multimedia speakers and — voila — you have the slickest shelf system ever.
Years ago, I tried matching up Apple’s PowerCD with Apple’s old gray powered speakers for a different-looking bedroom CD player, but could never get it to work for some reason.
January 18, 2007
For years, Apple resisted adding video features to the iPod, noting that the device was primarily about the music. Even when it introduced a video-capable iPod, it did so in the context of a better music device, offering higher capacity, greater battery life and a larger screen “for free.” With its recent rush to complete its three-screen strategy, though, it seems like music has become a bit lost in the Shuffle, so to speak.
Take AppleTV, for example. As I note in this week’s Switched On, its business model is practically the reverse of the iPod’s as digital video purchases from the iTunes store drives digital media adapter sales. If Apple were more focused on extending its music franchise, it would follow to release an audio-only device more along the lines of Slim Devices’ Squeezebox, now owned by Logitech. Of course, the Squeezebox is but one of the several remote audio devices that can interoperate with the iPod or unprotected tracks in iTunes.
AppleTV’s user interface looks good and polished as one might expect, but also a bit stark when compared to Windows Media Center’s, and who wants to turn on their television just to listen to some music?
It could be that Apple now feels that its lead is so far ahead in the digital music space that it can devote more attention to video.
November 17, 2006
In the days before Internet ubiquity, I remember a conversation with a friend of mine and an executive from one of the major consumer online services of the day about interoperability and musing how wonderful it would be if there were just one network. There was only one network, he huffed, and that was his. Well, unfortunately for those of us not using CompuServe, there’s no way for us to send e-mail or obtain online information these days.
The latest “One-Net” hails from semiconductor concern Threshold. It’s a low-cost, low-power, medium-range control scheme that will compete with ZigBee and Insteon, but for some reason ignores Z-Wave, which seems to be the market leader in terms of vendor support. Even though these standards are wireless and therefore by definition require less of an installation burden than some competing technologies, the home controls market remains something that requires way too much consumer navigation. The cost of infrastructure components — especially for basics such as lighting — is negligible compared to the cost of labor, and there doesn’t seem to be any way around that.
How long has this market been on the cusp of the mainstream? Well, at a dinner event around DigitalLife that included Michael Miller, editor-in-chief of PC Magazine, he noted that the first article he ever wrote was on home automation. That was in 1979!
November 16, 2006
From TechBlog via Gizmodo comes news of what was apparently once called the “Widget Clock Infobot” but is now the Emtrace WidgetStation, a “Station” that may be even harder to find than another this holiday season. It joins the embryonic category of the push-based Internet appliance, joining products such as those from Ambient, such as the Google Calendar clock concept, and Chumby. I suspect we’ll see major names drop into this space in 2008. While the product doesn’t seem far beyond the concept stage at this point, one thing I already like about it is that it can retrieve information from a PC over a home network. That said, I’m not necessarily sold on the need for two screens, particularly a monochrome one.
October 26, 2006
I just moderated my panel at Digital Hollywood on entertainment in the digital home and was struck by how different the tenor of the mood was than on the panel with the same title that I moderated a few months ago at Building Blocks in San Jose. Whereas that event was starry-eyed over the promise of 802.11n — an optimism that carried through to DigitalLife — at least one panelist today asserted that consumers will not create home networks to move media around the home. There was also discussion of the pain vs. the gain of home networking and the level of technical knowledge stil required.
This led me to pose to the panel what the need is for the networked home, the future of which we often take for granted. If service providers can get you all the video and music you need, the missing link is only your own content. And many consumers would be satisfied with a simple wireless link from their digital cameras for that. This all runs counter to the conventional wisdom that photos — without any DRM — are the “easy” stuff, and music and Hollywood video content is the “hard” stuff.
After my panel, I caught up with a charming friend and former colleague who wondered aloud whether we have finally reached “convergence” as defined as a marriage of the PC and television (not the definition I’m using these days, incidentally). For the most part, I think we have. Certainly from a hardware perspective, devices such as TiVo, HD-DVD players and advanced set-top boxes are essentially PCs inside. We’re also seeing TV shows streamed or sold to the PC. Television programming itself has not become interactive (yet), but modern-day EPG and input-switching interfaces — to say nothing of network interfaces such as those in HP’s MediaSmart televisions — exemplify computing.
October 19, 2006
Today’s announcement that Logitech has acquired Slim Devices (about which I’ve written a post and column) serves as a reminder of how well the PC peripherals giant with the eclectic product portfolio has done at conquering markets from the high end (mice, speakers and remote controls) and staving off Microsoft, which, in addition to its raw market power, produces excellent keyboards and mice.
In my talks with Sonos, which today produces the gold standard for wirelessly networked digital music systems, the company has dismissed competition from traditional consumer electronics companies, but Logitech is not a company that rests on its laurels (or even its keyboards’ wrist rests). The portfolio of home media ingredients it now has is impressive, including its sleek DRM-sidestepping Wireless DJ Music System, its premium PC speaker line, Harmony remote controls, and now Slim Devices product. The top two portable digital players are produced by companies that no one would have speculated would lead the category; Logitech is looking like a stronger bet to bring multi-room digital music to the (moderately affluent, PC-savvy) masses.
September 27, 2006
Today Intel announced that it will offer a $1 million bounty for coming up with a sexy box to drive living room acceptance of the PC. The chip developer should save its money. Are cable set-top boxes sexy? Are most DVD players? They’ve found acceptance because they have compelling functionality, something that living room PCs currently lack. Intel would do better to use its prize money for a developer that can come up with a killer application for home theater PCs. If consumers want that functionality, the likes of Sony are up to the task of putting it in a good-looking case. Shuttle is already creating some nice form factors for the living room.
This misplaced focus on hardware reminds me of the sharing functionality Microsoft is pushing with Zune. If you think its system of trial sharing has any merit, hardware is the wrong place to do it It will take a long time before the Zune installed base is large enough so that such sharing is commonplace (think of kids playing Game Boy games against each other). Why not do this with software? Software is so much easier to distribute virally and Napster.com has shown that the labels will agree to a couple of free listens online. Once the songs were zipping among copies of the Zune companion program, then Microsoft could use the hardware to extend that sharing.
