‘Tis the season for guessing what’s coming at Macworld Expo in January.
Despite the fact that I just bought an iBook (and love it) I’m intrigued by the rumors that Apple will be refreshing the iBooks first with Intel processors. I wouldn’t be the first to jump ship to get one, but it will be interesting to see how things shake out.
Meanwhile, here’s my prediction, not necessarily for Macworld Expo, though.
Looking at the Front Row software and remote that recently came out with the new iMacs I’m struck by how obviously it’s designed for a TV and how obviously it doesn’t seem to do that.
As has been pointed out by many others, (and fully agreed to by me) people don’t generally want their computer desk right next to their main TV, and second, people don’t want to buy a second computer just to do TV stuff.
Surely Apple knows this, and since they have enough difficulty getting the first Mac into a household, initiating a program to try to get non-Mac households to bring in a TV only computer seems folly.
What I’d like to see, and keeping consistent with Apple’s existing products, will be something like their Airport AirTunes/iTunes arrangement.
What if Apple adopted 802.11N (Doesn’t seem too unlikely, does it?) and built an Airport hub device, like the Airtunes hub that connects and shares with Front Row? At 200mbps you could stream the iTunes videos and the iPhoto/iTunes stuff too.
This arrangement would eliminate confusing and unsightly wiring to connect computer and home entertainment system and would be consistent with existing Apple products. it would, of course, also help solve the problem of computer/TV proximity.
Carrying it a step further, what if the Airport station (For want of an official Apple name, I shall call it “Airport Xtreme Turbo”) could accept signals from the Apple remote and relay them back to the originating computer?
Wouldn’t that be cool?
Of course, it wouldn’t be HDTV, but then iTunes videos aren’t anyway.
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