Apple announcements overview
Marshall Kirkpatrick
27 comments »
The Apple Showtime event is over and here are the highlights:
- 75 movies are available to download now from iTunes, at an initial cost of $12.99 for the first week and $14.99 after that. Preordered titles will be $12.99 and older movies will be $9.99.
- Future releases will be available the same day that DVDs are released.
- Dowloads will take about 30 minutes but can be watched during file transfer.
- Image resolution is 640 x 480.
- The movies will be available only in the US until 2007.
- DRM for movies is the same as it has been for iTunes TV shows.
- A wireless set top box for TV, tentatively called iTV, will launch in the first quarter of 2007. It will be half the size of a Mac Mini, it will include USB, ethernet, 802.11b/g, component video, optical audio and HDMI. It will be controlled by the Apple remote.
- iPod announcements included $4 games for the iPod, longer battery life and brighter screens and an 80GB model with prices starting at $249.
- The new Nanos will come in 5 new colors, have a 24 hour battery life and up to 8GB capacity.
- The Shuffle has been completely redesigned, now comes with an aluminum case and costs $79.
For more details check out CrunchGear’s live coverage of the event. Will Apple be able to add more movies to its iTunes store or will the studios continue to wrestle over the details? That’s one of the biggest questions that remains. The early history of video on demand is being formed as we speak.
Update: Michael Arrington’s photos from the event are here.
keep pimping that dead link
Completely boring news. Thought they were gonna announce something big. The important announcements were only future releases anyways (iTV).
Very dissapointing…
I wanted widescreen video on the ipod….. rest was dissapointing
way to fail Apple…
“… and here’s the highlights:”
What you want to say:
“.. and here are the highlights.”
Subject and verb must agree in number.
iTV is going to be the Viiv-killer. Poor Intel, never had a chance.
iTV is awfully interesting. If they take the next logical step — cable and video inputs — they’d have a PVR on their hands. I’d love to see what kind of improvements Apple’s interface shop could bring to that field, given the high bar that TiVo’s UI people have set.
Hmm, imagine that! People get all super hyped up before an Appl event and then are completely disappointed! Gee, never seen THAT before!
Come on… I think the announcements were awesome. The only thing that I don’t like is that they’re still ignoring widescreen. The iPod needs to be 16×9 and the tv/movie downloads need to be 16×9 also. I also think there should be movie rentails, so you could pay say $3 and be able to watch the movie any amount of times within say 48 hours. There arent many movies that I want to own outright, so I wouldnt be using this service.
The iTV was surprising but is very cool, especially the price point. I currently have an HTPC that I would replace in a heartbeat with that thing. I just really hope that it has a DVD drive, I didnt see any details about that.
I think Steve finally made a major product/pricing blunder. Movies are very different from music. Not offering rentals is a major mistake. People watch most movies once. Only a handful of movies are wroth purchasing. Unlike with music where you are getting a near-perfect version of a CD, with movies consumers are getting a far inferior version of a DVD, and for not much of a discount.
The market remains wide open for a Mac/Windows movie rental/buying service.
I was waiting on this annoucement to buy a macbook pro, but Apple failed to update it.
~Cody
http://www.threadbound.com
YAWN. Top 10 exciting releases coming soon from Apple:
10. Apple to offer extension cords free with $5000 desktops.
9. iTunes to add “best of 80s” tunes for 5% off regular download prices.
8. Relaunch of SE: Same size but twice the speed.
7. Dowloadable books for only 25% more than print books
6. New red and green headphones for iPods
5. Round iPods
4. Pong 2.0 to start new generation of Apple games.
3. New virus protection software patches. Actually just an empty zip file but perception is reality.
2. Apple to launch campaign where unshaven teenager kid (who plays the Mac) beats the crap out of the older guy.
1. Apple to return to beige computers to tap retro audiences.
Can someone explain what “The movies will only be available in the US until 2007.” means? What’s the point of releasing a service that you plan to pull in 4 months? I must be missing something…
I was holding out for an FM tuner integrated into an iPod. I love radio and this would be a huge selling feature for me. iTV looks cool though.
This was to be expected. The major interest to me is the iTV system… Introduced very early. Hopefully Apple will have sucess in living room.
– BingeBoy
I want rentals and a monthly subscription service or both movies and TV shows. and I want iTV to be able to play my DVD’s and CD’s so I don’t have a ton of things in the living room.
$12.99/14.99 for 640 x 480? And you can’t burn it to a DVD?
Why bother? I agree with the previous post that I’d be most likely to use an iTunes movie service for rentals, but that would be it….
And Josh’s last post says it best about iTV
Josh, my read is that until 2007, the movies are available only in the U.S. After 2007, the movies will be available in other countries as well as in the U.S.
iTV? That is the most pathetic choice of name ever. Not only is it uninventive, but it’s also the name of the main non-BBC TV network in the UK. I’m surprised after the hassle they went through in Apple vs Apple.
I think the UK’s channel 3 might have something to say about this…
http://www.itv.com/
Paul & Rob,
I think Steve did say that iTV was the current “code” name and they’ll come up with a better name when the service is launched…:-)
What will it be..what will it be… iMovies, iView…who cares as long as it works as simply as Mr. Jobs promised.
Been away for a few days and just reading about the new apple news. Has no one else from the UK noticed that the iTV name and logo (same lower case i, upper case TV) has been used for the last 40 years by our second major TV netrwork?
Have apple slipped up here?
For names, I’m torn between iCan’tGetOffTheSofa and iStrain.