What's it all about, Apple, Downloads?

By Stan Beer
Tuesday, 12 September 2006 17:56

Opinion and Analysis

Apple's media event titled Showtime is fast approaching and the whole industry is abuzz with rumours, speculation and supposedly inside information. However, nobody outside of the inner circle really knows whether come September 12, we'll get a movie downloads service, a new iPod video device, an Apple TV set-top box, a new portable combo device that can connect to your TV and stereo system or some subset combination of all of these things.

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Because of the design of the invitation to the media and the event's title, the prevailing view is that we're going to see the launch of an iTunes movie downloads service. If so, then unless Apple does something unusual like come up with a one low price fits all, like the US$0.99 price of music tracks, then it will be somewhat of a disappointment because Apple will just be entering an increasingly crowded market.

Still assuming a movie downloads announcement, some say that even though Apple is late on the scene it will still grab a dominant share of the market because of its iTunes market share. It is true that although there are plenty of players in the market, Amazon being the latest, no-one has yet done movie downloads well.

At present the Windows media Player DRM used by all the movie downloads services preclude burning the downloads to DVD. Presumably the same will be the case for Apple's DRM unless Steve Jobs' powers of persuasion have entered the realm of the supernatural.

Given the absence of DVD burning, the options offered by the current video download services are pretty ordinary. For their money, consumers can download videos to their PCs and ridiculously small screened portable video players. And if they want to watch the videos on the living room TV, they can hook their PCs or portable players to the TV and the home stereo system - a pretty clumsy way of doing things. In fact, it seems much simpler to just buy a DVD, unless you live 50 miles from a video store.

Apple, being the widely acknowledged plug and play king of the hill, may well have come up with a far more elegant way of doing things. Like the iTunes and iPod music symbiosis, Apple may well announce a similar symbiosis with movie downloads and a device that can connect seamlessly with the home TV set. What that device is - well that's anyone's guess.

It would be nice to have a universal iPod like device that could connect wirelessly to the TV and the home stereo system and also act as a remote control unit for both. However, perhaps that's technology for the next decade and all we can expect to get from Apple on September 13 is another, abeit superior, movie download service.