6G iPod & Apple's Future 226
belsin_gordon writes "CNET rounds up what we're going to get from the next iPod and where Apple is heading as a company and as a business juggernaut. [They have the] 100GB widescreen video iPods, Wi-Fi-enabled iPods capable of on-the-fly movie downloads over the air, unlimited downloads from iTunes for a flat fee and the UK finally getting its content-hungry hands on movie downloads.
Apple has dropped the 'Computer' from its company name, and is making significant advances into the media-distribution business. It's bringing video to everyone everywhere with iTunes movies and now Apple TV, and the rumours and speculation we've discussed promote the theory that Apple is setting itself up as a major player in the media-distribution industry."
wi-fi hangup (Score:5, Interesting)
Portable Video (Score:4, Interesting)
And the British media don't get it (Score:4, Interesting)
Whoever at the BBC approved it obviously hasn't got a clue about what Jobs and Apple are about (or, probably, Gates). Wildly extrapolating, if a media company like the BBC seems to have few people who know what Apple is about nowadays, how far does the blindness extend? Right up until Jobs and Branson jointly attend the funeral of the conventional media industry, I guess.
Re:Unlimited? (Score:3, Interesting)
iTunes, on the other hand, does not have the same restriction. You are pretty much limited to your hard drive capacity, which gets cheaper by the month. You could theoretically just have your computer download their entire catalogue without some kind of restriction on a monthly flat rate.
MS saw this coming in the 90's when they ordered (Score:5, Interesting)
They knew Apple wasn't going after the bean counter business. Apple was heading to the living rooms, and MS could not compete against the axis of evil: Jobs, Ives, TBWA Chait-Day.
It has been fun watching this unfold. That's is what made me a fan of this company. Sometimes it is how you play the game, and Apple played it well.
* He lost to a dead man.
if sony was smart... (Score:2, Interesting)
i'll probably get modded a troll for this as i was last week for questioning the crazy demand for the wii even though the games are seriously lacking, but i feel it has to be said...for the $, the ipod is currently pretty low on the list of good buys as far as mp3 players go. i believe apple has been lucky to be able ride the ipod wave as long as it has. and unless they open the iphone up, it is going to fail miserably.
my $200 sanyo phone has a gig hdd in it with 8+ hours of play time, a 2 mega pixel camera, unlimited ev-d0 net access, and o yea, i can call people on it too!
imho, apple has got to push a little more than this to maintain their dominance. or just keep charming the masses with their stale commercials...i guess that works too...
Re:Music subscriptions (Score:3, Interesting)
I always thought that Apple stayed out of the subscription model and refused to open their DRM for roughly the same reason: they have no faith in DRM, even their own.
They assume that their DRM will likely be cracked, and will only be cracked sooner if other people know exactly how it works. Further, if you have a subscription model, then it basically means unlimited access to music that you can keep forever for a low monthly fee-- no content holders are going to like that idea.
Re:But who buys Apple computers ? (Score:3, Interesting)
They wouldn't crush Microsoft...lowering the prices on their hardware would put pressure on other PC makers like Dell and Sony.... Microsoft just takes advantage of the monopoly they have over the PC market. MS is the only company that will licence to them and has the OS most people think they have to have to run a computer. A good part of MS's profit is almost guaranteed from the income from licencing XP, Vista or whatever version of Windows that is out. In the long run, selling sub-$1000 machines has hurt PC companies like Dell and Gateway...so why would Apple want to kill its own business?
Re:Totally Random Comment #102903 (Score:2, Interesting)
But I respect your opinion anyway.
Re:Totally Random Comment #102903 (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:But who buys Apple computers ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not understanding the practicality (Score:3, Interesting)
You're almost right.
HD DVD does not have region encoding. This is actually one of the reason some studios chose to support Blu-ray exclusively -- the studio demands region encoding, and HD DVD doesn't allow it.
The lack of region encoding (and less restrictive DRM in general) is why I choose to vote with my wallet for HD DVD instead of Blu-ray.
Re:Why (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:But who buys Apple computers ? (Score:2, Interesting)
For that matter why doesn't Bentley, Ferrari, Porsche, etc release cheap versions of their cars? Because thats not what they are. BMW's aim is to be a (high performance) luxury vehicle. I tend to doubt if they want to enter that segment of the market which is heavily saturated and would be a much tighter competition for smaller profits.
Why doesn't Breitling and Rolex release less expensive watches? Why is there a Lexus and Toyota? etc. It's a debacle across many industries. Gibson has Epiphone, Fender has fender and squire, PRS makes some 'se' models that suck. Maybe you should tell Patron to start making a 10 dollar handle of tequila to compete with .
All aside even if they did enter that segment I don't think there is any evidence to suggest that they would crush toyota, gm or honda. And considerations of adverse impact on the traditional BMW sales would be intriguing.
what it mainly comes down to I think is maintaining brand image and identity.