One More Thing Dissected

If you happen to have a bi-weekly column on AppleMatters you don’t exactly have a plethora of topic options the day after and invitation only Apple Media event. So with the subject matter thrust upon us an examination of Wednesday’s announcements is clearly in order. Taking the announcements in reverse chronological order:

Video content:
For his one more thing announcement Steve Jobs revealed that you can now buy television shows via the iTunes store. Well not just any TV show, only a few choice selections from ABC (Lost, Desperate Housewives, Night Stalker, That’s So Raven, The Suite Life). The price? A mere $1.99. Which seems like a pretty square deal for the amount of content you get. The selection doesn’t seem like much at first glance and the resolution is 320x240 (so long year of HD). All told it isn’t exactly the full-blown movie store a lot of people envisioned. Here we should remember the predation strategy of the Komodo dragon. Instead of poisoning, asphyxiating, or manually chomping their dinner to death Komodos rely on a filthy toxic bacterial stew that festers constantly in their cesspool of a mouth to do the dirty work. Supposedly the Komodo lightly wounds the victim, waits for the bacterial frappe to do its thing (according to one of those educational programs) and then leisurely dines on its prey under beautiful Indonesian skies. The video store does to paid online video content what the Komodo does to its prey. It instantly infects the market with the idea that Apple now rules the paid video content category and squashes the chances of any competitor making a viable online video store. In short the itunes store with video may not be the most electrifying thing Apple has ever revealed but, long term, it is probably the canniest move by Apple in recent memory.

iTunes 6:
Let us hope iTunes 5 had good life insurance because it didn’t stay around long enough to save up for the wife and kids. Less than two months after version 5 was the latest and greatest it became the most short-lived version ever produced by Apple. Well what does the new iTunes get you? A way to buy music videos (you get to pick from two thousand of the beasties), a ham fisted way to browse video titles, recommendations for your collection based on past purchases, gifting and customer reviews.  The gifting and customer reviews are nice additions but one is left wondering what took so long. The music video addition is far more interesting. Will this addition do anything to placate the record executives?  The skeptical among you are probably correct,  the record execs are no doubt too busy making sure the bacteria between their teeth remains very deadly to notice the new revenue stream.

Video enabled iPod:
Here’s what everyone had been predicting since iPods first showed up with color screens. It falls short of the hopes of many users but does add a marginally larger screen, a slimmer profile, larger capacities and, of course, video playback abilities. Music remains the main function and while the iPod may look out of proportion compared to the earlier generations it is likely something people can get used to looking at. If wondering if your iPod can play video via a firmware update or some such guess what creek you’re on and guess where the paddle is. As of this writing it seems that if you want the video goodness you’re going to have pony up for a new sliver of digital audio player goodness, but hey, it now comes in black.

iMac update:
For some odd reason Steve Jobs was touting the thinness of the revised iMac. It’s a desktop, not a portable and the thing is already absurdly thin so one is befuddled as to why it needed to be even thinner. Though it is worth noting that folks with six-inch deep desks are probably rejoicing. The other changes were a bit more dramatic: The iMac now includes a built-in iSight for use with iChat AV (that’s a $149 value for you folks scoring at home) and a remote control dubbed, inventively, Apple Remote. The software to use the new remote has been dubbed Bob Uecker Front Row. The quickest thought is that the Mac is Apple’s answer to the media PC. If the iMac is Apple’s answer they didn’t understand the question, the iMac still lacks a TV tuner among other essential features to be a true Media Center option. The iMac also now ships with the Mighty Mouse instead of the Apple Pro Mouse. The implications that a now standard Mighty Mouse carries for the future of Mac laptops are very interesting.

Since Halloween is rapidly approaching there’s a need to throw a little scare into you at this point. Note that iTunes now has video fully integrated and the iPod plays video files. Further realize that Apple’s mainstream consumer level computer has a built in iSight camera. Let us reflect on these developments for a moment. An iPod that can play video on the go, a computer that can record video straight into iMovie and an iTunes front end that supports video. Hmmm, what does that all add up to? vCasting (or whatever you want to call it) for the masses, That’s right soon people will be sitting in front of their iMacs making perfectly awful video casts. They’ll be fifty jillion about Apple computers, 500 million about gadgetry in general and the only one anyone will really watch is the one where some girl takes her shirt off. The horror, the horror.