thomas fitzgerald.net

With the recent demise of HD-DVD, the success of Blu-Ray as the next generation successor would seem assured, yet many pundits are wondering if the format has long term success. They quote recent reports that Blu-Ray will be superseded in the near term by high-def download services and that there isn’t really a future for the format. Yet despite these reports, Blu-Ray is starting to show significant traction. Samsung recently announced that they were significantly increasing their forecast for their Blu-Ray business. The argument against Blu-Ray is that with the music industry clearly going towards digital downloads the movie industry must surely follow suit. Yet there are some clear differences as to how both segments of the entertainment market work.

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From the Mac Observer:

Apple’s FY08 Q2 earnings report on Wednesday showed that deferred revenue, the so-called subscription accounting, for Apple TV and iPhone is rising dramatically.

[Read Deferred Revenue for Apple TV and iPhone Climbs Dramatically || The Mac Observer]

Apple TV updated to 2.02. List of changes: “bug fixes”

Available now from the software update section of your AppleTV is an update to 2.01. No one seems to know what it does but one would presume it’s just some (badly needed) bug fixes.

From iLounge…

Apple has released the much-anticipated 2.0 update of the Apple TV software. The update brings a redesigned interface to the set-top box, as well as support for SD and HD movie rentals, iTunes Store browsing and purchasing directly from the device, AirTunes capabilities, flickr photo browsing, and more. For a more complete look at the changes, read our feature article.

[Read News: Apple TV 2.0 update now available [updated]]

Incidentally if you are outside the USA the menus look a bit bare without all the rental options. Full report when I get a chance to put it through it’s paces.

Via iLounge….

Apple has announced that its anticipated Apple TV 2.0 software update, expected to be released this week, will be delayed. In a press release, the company said that the “Apple TV software update, which allows users to rent high definition movies directly from their widescreen TVs, is not quite finished. Apple now plans to make the free software download available to existing Apple TV customers in another week or two.”

[Read News: Apple TV 2.0 update delayed]

A very interesting article from the International Herald Tribune on some of the challenges Apple and others face on bringing the movie rental model to Europe.

Chris Breen staunchly defends the Apple TV and its future Potential….

The number of comments from Doubting Thomases who are either enamored of the Xbox 360 (coupled with Connect360) or simply find the Apple TV’s specs-to-dollars-spent ratio underwhelming compels me to suggest that, in a year’s time, those DTs are going to be as wrong about the Apple TV as their early 21st-century counterparts were about the iPod.

[Read Macworld | Playlist | The future and Apple TV]

I don’t think I would go so far as to label it one of the worst products, but I have to agree with their assessment that…

…Even worse, Apple seems to have lost interest in its home theater “hobby,” with a full six months passing since the last Apple TV software update. Short of a sudden infusion of new features, look for this once-promising box to go the way of iPod Hi-Fi.

[Read 10 Worst Tech Products of 2007 : Ben Patterson : Yahoo! Tech]

According to the Financial Times:

“Apple has signed News Corp’s 20th Century Fox studio to a new online video-on-demand service in a deal that could change the way people pay for online film content.”

This could be very interesting and would certainly add life to the Apple TV. I suspect that this may be part of the Macworld announcements and hopefully a major update to the AppleTV

From iLounge:

Independent filmmaker Scott Dacko recently used an Apple TV to power the New York premiere of his film The Insurgents. “As far as I know, we’re the first people to have ever done this,” Dacko said. “And it looked great.”

[Read News: Indie filmmaker uses Apple TV to screen film]

According to Crunch Gear.com…

you’ll soon be able to purchase a selection of high-definition movies and television shows that’ll work on AppleTV. Finally.

They’re rumor is backed up by Mac OS Rumors, so that is not a good sign, as MOSR is not exactly reliable to be kind. Incidentally, they also think a major revision of the AppleTV is also due soon.

For all those idiots who keep saying that the Apple TV is dead, that it was a failure etc, or more importantly that Apple seems to have forgotten about it, bear in mind that the Apple TV has only been out for 7 months and has already seen at least one update since then. Considering the amount of time between the most recent iPod update and the last one, I think that there is a long way to go yet before you need to get worried that Apple has abandoned it.

Here is a round up of this weeks sensation grabbing ridiculous, poorly researched and inflammatory articles from around the web.

1. From Computerworld: “Apple users frustrated over lack of online backup options”

Em, no we’re not. It starts off by setting up the whole idea that Mac users are frustrated by dismissing anything but online backup based on the testimony of a student who didn’t want to carry a drive around, implying that mac users are missing something totally and completely essential. The article focuses on a couple of online backup solutions who are now releasing beta versions for the mac, which seems to be the real point of the article. It also completely fails to make any reference what so ever to Apple’s .mac backup service.
(Thanks to YML for this one)

2. “iFlop” from Forbes

Subtitled with the sentence “Steve Jobs tried to design –and dictate–the future of television. Here’s how he failed.” the article has already been ridiculed by quite a few blogs. He starts off by suggesting that Apple’s whole strategy has been a failure because Apple TV has “has sold perhaps 250,000 units–far behind the 1 million sold for the iPhone”. Really? What is the source of those figures? Apple has never released sales figures for the Apple TV so that is at best a guess, and based on nothing more than ….well guesswork. How about telling us where you came up with that figure? No, didn’t think so.

He goes on to back up his reasoning as to why Apple’s strategy is a failure by listing the number of other companies that Hollywood has no problem with doing business with. Of course this argument is spurred by NBC’s decision to leave iTunes. Never once does the author even suggest the possibility that this might have more to do with NBC being stubborn and greedy rather than a failure of Apple. It seems his idea of success is based on who the studios are willing to deal with rather than consumer demand, failing to mention that iTunes is the leading supplier of downloadable TV shows by a wide and significant margin. But I suppose consumer choice has never been a top issue for Hollywood, so why should it be for this article either?

3. 6th Gen iPods Don’t work with Linux

Who cares? The two people who use it? Why shouldn’t Apple protect it’s intellectual property, and did it occur to anyone that they might have a legitimate reason for doing this? Could this have anything to do with the record labels insisting on increased levels of security? By the way, they imply that this breaks utilities like Senuti, but apparently it doesn’t. Even funnier is one of the comments on the article…
“What a bunch of customer-hostile crap. I have an iPhone, an iPod, use iTunes, and own some Apple stock, but this really pisses me off.”
So, even though it will never affect you in any way shape or form, it still pisses you off? Move along, nothing to see here.