Interesting… I am quite excited about that 270-Mbps download speed. That really would be sweet- especially on old equipment.

Great article..

My thought is that with the addition of Front Row, the enhancements made to iTunes, and potential upgrades to iPods, etc, Apple will potentially have a much greater influence on the market.  I think that the Mac mini will play a key role as a ‘Media Hub’ of sorts.  Streaming wireless media, anyone? 

On a semi-unrelated note, I would love to see AM/FM capability on my iPod.  Why was this not intigrated in the first place?  Countless times I have wanted to listen to a radio station instead of my music… Maybe soon!

The CEO of iTunes?

“...but he is creating the market, and signs of its success are already transparent.”

The signs of the market success are see-through? weird!

The trick is going to be figuring out how to get digital movies to the masses...in the short term and the long.  Delivery methods for visual content have been in a perpetual state of evolution since the advent of the magic lantern and the kinetoscope.  For Apple to rule the home video roost, they are going to have to come up with a winning strategy that enables a majority of people to get access to their content...in a reasonable amount of time, with a reasonable amount of effort at a reasonable cost.
In their favor Apple has the iTMS, the video iPod, agreements with several of the big TV networks, a cozy relationship with one major movie studio, the most recognizable, respected and desired brand names in the business and the charisma of Steve Jobs.  They also possess a passionate workforce and userbase, and an ever-growing chain of retails stores that they themselves own.
Broadband internet may be looking at a quantum leap in performance at CES, but I’ll bet most people...for the next few years anyway...are going to be stuck with what they already have.  I suspect that to achieve those blazing speeds it’s going to be necessary to have an all-fiber connection between the content and your Mac.  Or it may involve the deployment of higher bandwidth electronics for the cable and DSL broadband providers.  So hyperband internet isn’t going to be ‘the answer’ in the short term.
So what is?  That, my friends, is the 64 billion dollar question.  Perhaps, Apple could market movies through the Apple Stores...initially...via high-speed movie servers at each store.  You could bring your iPod to the Apple Store and upload one or more movies to the iPods internal drive in a matter of minutes.  Or Apple could open movie kiosks in all of the country’s malls with iPod docks that dispense movies and other video content.  All you need is your iPod and a credit card.  Content selection could be either by keyboard entry or voice recognition, and the whole thing would be automated.  Movies would never be ‘out of stock’.  If the movie you desire hasn’t yet been released, a synthesized voice would tell you so, and, if known, perhaps tell you the impending release date.
Both USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 interfaces could be utilized.  Future iPods could incorporate the ablility to interface via FW800 (or higher?).  This would drive sales of new iPods, because of the presence of this higher speed interface.
Once your iPod has ingested your favorite flicks, you could go home and plug your iPod into your Mini, its dock, or directly into one of your A/V networked devices and watch your content on your HDTV.
Video content could be purchased in two ways: cheap, perishable content with DRM that renders the file unusable after a certain number of viewings, or content that you own permanently...that you may play on any device that you personally own.  Non-perishable, multi-playback-device content would be priced accordingly.
Blu-Ray will still have appeal as an archiving and backup medium.  Hard drives crash.  Having a secondary means of storing your prized high definition and high fidelity content will still have value in a age of multi-terabyte magnetic disk drives.  In this context, to be worthwhile, an optical disk backup solution should have at least 200 GB capacity (per disk).  Assuming each HD movie would take up about 4 GB of space, that would allow 50 movies to be stored per disk.
I don’t have a crystal ball, but I’ve been thinking about all of this a lot, too, and this is just how I happen to see things at the moment.  If all of this should come to pass, more or less how I’ve described it, I’m sure I’ll be kicking myself from then till the end of time for not trademarking any of my ideas.  Merry Christmas.

“...but I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve been thinking about all of this a lot...” uh, no kidding. WHOA Bill !!!!!  You’re making my brain explode! I keep telling you that you’d better get ready to move to Cupertino! When the high muckity-mucks there get wind of your ramblings, they’re going to snatch you up fast. The South Bay area is quite nice, if you haven’t been there. A bit pricey for me, but then I won’t be making the big bucks like you will.
Oh, and about that crystal ball thing, just keep telling them that you really don’t have one. That should hold them off for a few years until the next “Mr. I-Have-A-Bunch-Of-Great-Ideas-To-Keep-Steve Jobs-On-Track-To-Be-Ruler-Of-The-World” comes along with his own “non-existent” crystal ball. Man, why couldn’t I have been born with vision like you guys.
Keep the faith, Brother.
Happy Holidays to all !

My Son came for a visit and brought his “Shuffle” That was it, I had to have one. For Christmas I bought him an i-Pod NANO. Mine is on the way,totally awesome. I am in the process of selling off my 3 desktops, and will replace them with the Mini-Mac Multimedia, (when released) and a new iMac (now)
Best part, no more dire warnings from IE 6.0. (you are not authorized to view this page)
My full circle began with i-Pod. “Take me Lord Steve, for I am in the fold”

Chef David

Anyone have any thoughts as to how VOD (video on demand) figures into all of this?  What percentage of cable operators offer it?  How extensive is the library of offerings available via VOD?  Could an Apple download service compete with it?