I [heart] Apple
October 20th, 2005 by JoshI’ll admit it.
I love my Powerbook.
I love my iPod.
I’ve got lots of other computers and electronic devices that I really enjoy using as well, but there is something about Apple’s products that brings out another level of joy and yes, techno-lust. Yeah, a Dell laptop or a Creative Zen may do the job, but a 12″ Powerbook is just so darn purty. Whether it’s the attention to the little details, like the the LED on the laptop charger that lets you instantaneously see the status of the battery, or the organic touches of the pulsing lid latch and that smooth fade-in/fade-out on the iPod, Apple in the past 5 years has upped the bar on consumer design and really left everyone else in the dust.
So while trying to not be too much of a fanboy, last week’s announcement of the new ever-sleeker iPod – now with video playback – and the announcement of new G5s and Powerbooks, totally got me excited. But try as I might, I couldn’t really figure out Steve Jobs’ “angle” with this new device. It still seemed a bit half-baked considering the screen is only 2.5″ and the battery life for watching video is only a few hours. Well Sam Sugar, over at SugarBank, an adult industry blog, seems to have hit the nail on the head IMHO:
Apple is selling cheap (just about) video capable iPods, for exactly the same price as its old audio only players, to lock-in market domination of video players. People who just want an iPod, now have to buy an iPod with video. Apple don’t have to sell the machines any differently and they don’t need video content to be a huge success – sales of iPods with video playback are guaranteed.
Then, when their lead is established, Apple will release a ‘true’ iPod video with a bigger screen, sell consumers on a ‘widescreen’ experience and use the extra bulk to hide a bigger hard drive and a lot more battery. That device will appear at the same time as a full-blown downloadable movie service. The studios will have been sold on the idea of ‘Eleventy Billion video capable iPods in circulation’ and Apple will make a lot of money from people upgrading the iPods they already have, because they don’t want to watch Toy Story on a square, two and a half inch screen. That might also be when all those engineers Apple’s hired to work on putting wireless capability into the iPod demonstrate what they’ve come up with.
In a nutshell, Apple’s solved the chicken and egg problem for selling video, by working out how to get people who want to listen to music, to buy video players anyway. They’re going to force old (clueless, greedy) industries to negotiate reasonable terms, because soon the iPod will be the majority platform for mobile video, and Apple will have total control of the hardware and online distribution. In doing so they’ve created a format which all companies selling video online (like us pornographers) need to prepare for.
As an interesting sidenote, Tuesday night on the Colbert Report, Leslie Stahl said that this week’s 60 Minutes will be fairly devoid of commercials. There will only be one sponsor and they are making every attempt to keep the commercial time as short as possible. The old broadcast television advertising model is dying. Will video podcasting – vodcasting (naturally built into the new version of iTunes) – replace it?
