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Wednesday, September 13, 2006

iTV - not for me…

Perhaps I’m missing something, but why is iTV even important??

I watched the Apple “Showtime” stream last night and I dropped the channel feeling a bit underwhelmed. Is Steve’s magic just not there anymore or am I getting better at picking through the rubble? My big question - “Why iTV when it’s not a solution to anything?”

iTV is a nice box, don’t get me wrong. I’m a Mac fanboy from the word-“go”. I’ve just spent a major chunk of change over the years with Apple and I’m generally happy with neigh everything I’ve bought. I even spent a cool Franklin on upgrading my Newton MessagePad 2100 recently. I’m a sucker basically, so why didn’t I fall under Steve’s spell?

Easy - it won’t record. You can’t hook it to a iPod. It’s an island.

It’s an Apple lock-in for iTunes, for Macs in general (*if* they can actually move content into it - dvd collection, anyone?) and it’s playback only. I’ve been around long enough to know that any device that only plays-back content is version .5, or maybe 1.0. It’s a half-step. You probably can’t use DVDs (unless you rip them into iTunes - ha ha) and you can’t save downloaded content on external media without iTunes.

To be successful, you need to bridge the content owners protectionist needs with the device owners want of flexibility and functionality. This box needs a dvd slot, or at least a recording function - SOMETHING to help it replace the Tivo or dvd player. Adding to the rat’s nest of wires with it’s own connections to my two, measly video inputs is not going to make it work in my system easily. For it to win, something else has to lose.

But will I even let it come over the threshold? Single-direction, controlled-functionality devices are a user dead-end - even DVD players have to play existing content on CDs. Don’t forget how companies tries to push video CDs and audio DVDs versions. We collectively yawned and kept our existing versions. We’ve all been here before ? we all can see it coming. Why doesn’t Apple?

Has Steve’s jump into Disney shifted his vision to the content-owner’s side? Is this a computer “cable-box” in disguise, ready to lock-in our neighborhood - car, den, living room - and our pocket-books as well?