The fun thing about Apple product announcements is that even when most of the rumours turn out to be true, you'll normally get something completely unexpected. So it was a surprise to finally see a video iPod, after years of Steve Jobs saying 'no, we won't do that', and every rumour site insisting at every Apple Event that this time, oh this time, they'll launch it. It's finally here, and it's pretty much what everybody expected it to be; 320x240 video, capable of connecting to NTSC and PAL televisions, and coming in 30Gb and 60Gb versions. While I still can't see the appeal of the system to the majority (if you work in a city and take mass transit into work, then yes, this is great), it seems to have made many people happy.
The iMac G5 is lovely. The inbuilt webcam shows that Apple is serious about all this videoconferencing malarky with iChat (it'd be nice if Microsoft and Yahoo could get their act together and add video support to their applications, though). Possibly another reason why Mr. Ellis has decided to go back into the messageboard business.
The best part of the iMac is probably Front Row, which, from what I can tell, is what resulted after Apple finished laughing at Microsoft's Media Center applications. It's a TIVO module away from achieving everything you've ever dreamed about a media hub, and on the first attempt, too.
But, as all the coverage of the event indicates, the big news was the deal with ABC/Disney, allowing you to download ABC TV shows direct from iTunes (as long as you're American, of course). Again, 320x240, locked to five computers with FairPlay digital rights technology, and costing $1.99 per episode. Oh, and music videos too (UK conversion for the music videos and Pixar shorts is £1.89, which seems a trifle high). Buying a complete series this way is something of a rip-off ($44 versus a DVD set for about $10 extra, at a much higher resolution, bonus features, and hey, if you really want to, you can encode it for iPod viewing as well), but for the occasional purchase, it's not bad. iTunes 6 is a vast improvement over iTunes 5, in that it didn't junk my music library on the upgrade like the latter did, and now you can have video playlists! Even in fullscreen! This feature excites me, even if it's not exactly groundbreaking.
So, lots of shiny new stuff that looks great and I can't afford. Yay Apple!
I think it's a shame that Apple made both the screen, and the resolution, so small. Double it to 480x320, and you'd have far fewer eyesight problems. A suspect a widescreen image letterboxed on the current postage stamp will be nigh-on unwatchable. Another potential trick missed was the introduction of a decent touch-screen, instead sticking with the iPod's wheel.
It could be argued that this was partly to keep storage requirements down, but with a good quality higher resolution DivX only needing 700mb-1gb, and with Apple providing a minimum of 30gb storage here, I doubt this would have been a problem. A full good quality movie in 480x320 can't take much more than 400mb.
Why else, then? I doubt that the cost of increasing the screen's area is prohibitive, particularly given Apple's proven ability to obtain discounts when bulk-buying components - 100,000 TFT screens, anyone?
If someone would put a 50bg HDD in a PSP, I'd take one of those instead (in the strange parallel universe where I actually want to watch tiny tinny films on smelly public transport). It's got a great (large, wide-) screen, the menus and navigation are Sony-ergonomic, it looks fantastic, and you can play PS games on it too!
Or maybe more is to come in a few months, and Apple don't want to put all of their iPods in one basket...
Oooh, you've got spam.
Tempting. No, really. Just let me calculate what it would cost to replicate what I have....
Wow, that was weird. When I opened to comment window to type my comment, Tom's post wasn't there, but some spam for an online poster shop was. I wasn't saying Tom's post was spam, honest....
Spam-Be-Gone! (it was there - but it was flagged by Movable Type and I removed it ;))
I expect a widescreen iPod sometime next year. The PSP looks good, but the screen is apparently very easy to damage and prone to having lots of dead pixels. Also, there are approximately two games worth owning, and while the ergonomics might be good for selecting videos, I'm told that the D-pad is highly annoying.
Nintendo DS 4EVA!
The current iPod can do 480x480 video, so if you have something in 1:1 aspect, you're good to go :)
You can use ffmpeg to transcode your illicit collection, but yes, it's a bit like most people's computer music collections…
My illicit collection is ample, not to say handsome, it's true, but factor in the stuff I've actually bought and it really would cost at least a thousand dollars...