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Digital convergence. The buzzphrase has been around for a long time. Steve Jobs is at the cusp of making it real in the entertainment industry, and is starting to make moves that bring his intentions into clearer focus. With the recent revelations about the new iPod interface, the idea of digital convergence suddenly struck me like a bolt of Pixar lightening. Having a clickwheel appear on the touch-sensitive LCD screen of an iPod with a full face display is a great idea. Bigger screen. No need for mechanical input. Brilliant. What next? Here's what's next:
Apple is rumored to be working on an ultra-broadband media delivery system that will use the .Mac iDisk to store and deliver entertainment products to your iPod and Mac as fast as you can bring them in. With Apple's convergence interface Front Row in just its first iteration, we can expect only bigger and better things from Apple in this area. Controlling your discreet video, audio and photo collections through a single interface is great. Remote control of that from the couch is even better with the included traditional remote control. Bid deal, right? Windows Media Centre does this already. Here's where it gets interesting. The next move is to make the iPod the remote control, followed by integrating the different media types into single entertainment offerings. Here's how you do it. First, the iPod needs to communicate to the Mac via BlueTooth and, ultimately, WiFi. This makes the iPod a nascent remote controller. This is already possible with some cell-phones with Sailing Software's products. With your entertainment collection being constantly synched between the iPod and the iMac, the image on the big screen can be the same as the image on the small screen on the iPod. Whatever you are doing on the small screen should translate to what you are doing on the big screen. The virtual click-wheel on the iPod becomes the virtual click-wheel for Front Row. Fast-forwarding through the movie becomes the same gesture on the big screen as it does on the iPod, with the wheel either being displayed or not, depending on your preference. Clearly, it is ideal to be able to operate the virtual click-wheel without it being represented on the screen. The representation of it should simply be a training mechanism. People will learn to operate it without seeing it. This will keep the screen clear. Second, the iPod touch screen should become your portal into a converged media experience. Entertainment is being consumed in different ways now. We are building our own converged media narratives now, based on mood and whim. DVD content, for example, is being consumed in chunks as people surf through the DVD and watch different parts via the chapters interface. The special features are becoming as popular as the main feature. Games are being included. On the Doom DVD, for example, when I inserted it into my XBox to view it (I use an XBox as a DVD player on one of my entertainment centers) the Doom game loaded first, not the movie. A bug, but a prophetic one. The iPod needs to do this as well, and it needs the Web and Games to really complete the set. Apple's potential acquisition of Palm makes sense if you think about the need to converge web content into this universe. Palm devices do this well via tiny 802.11 cards, and increasingly well via newer wide area protocols like GPRS EDGE, 3G and 1X. Also, the iPod should eventually operate like a PSP, with game content developed specifically for it. This, when added to photo, video, audio and Web content makes the iPod a complete device. No cell phone is needed because as IP services get better we switch to VOIP and video messaging instead of cell. The most important aspect of this is that the iPod mirror what you are doing on the larger screen as well. Front Row should eventually operate exactly like your iPod, except much, much bigger and louder. Depending on where you are, the iPod is either your main device, or your remote. If it is your remote, all the functionality is taken over by the Mac and your entertainment/communications experience takes place through your home system with a representation of it on your iPod for remote purposes. This puts the iPod in your hands at all entertainment moments. Talk about brand awareness. Finally, the entertainment product itself converges. Movies become clickable throughout with the ability to use the iPod interface to select a character or object to get background or supplementary content directly from within the movie itself. Subsequent viewings become treasure hunts. Narrative structure becomes split and parallel, like the additional parallel Matrix narrative shot for the Matrix game. Choose which narrative you want to follow. View a photo gallery of a character or object (plane, car, handbag, etc.). Talk about product placement. Freeze a movie and listen to a soundtrack element in isolation. Learn more about that artist. Buy that artist's music thorugh iTunes. Freeze a movie and enter a game at the same point to participate in the action. Hit the web and enter a discussion about the very scene you are watching, or move from the web into a scene in movie being discussed. The possibilities are literally endless. We're talking total digital convergence with the iPod as the ubiquitous object controlling the whole experience. The passport to entertainment in the 21st century. The keystone of fun. That's what Steve Jobs should be doing next. He is our passeur into the next mediaverse. Betcha this is what he is doing. |
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Veteran Member
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ok.
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Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472 Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
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Looks like you've been thinking about this one.
Welcome to AppleNova! |
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BANNED
I am worthless beyond hope. Join Date: May 2004
Location: Inner Swabia. If you have to ask twice, don't.
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Someone needs to spend an equal amount of time coming up with a descriptive thread title...
'The Future' in Rumors and Speculation is about as descriptive as 'Apple Macintosh' in Genius Bar or 'New Game' in Third Party Products or.... You get the picture... I see a lot of references to the ipod in your post -- no, I will not read it, and most people shouldn't assume that someone will read a post that involved -- personally, i think the ipod is more than likely to disappear before it evolves into any of the things you suggest it should... |
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Yarp
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Road Warrior
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Nerds get such a hardon discussing what we can do with media. But yea, I suppose it will be 'neat' when all our shit is converged and compatible and homogenous and easy.
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Passing by
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: London, Europe
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Hi lectric and welcome. Bit long for this time of the morning, I'll have a read later.
Wrao - you really know how to make a guy feel loved. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: San Francisco, CA
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tl;dr
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Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472 Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
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BT is best I would think for something like that. Then again, if you have a WiFi home, that would be cool too. How often would you change the song from across the house? If you have a whole home audio system, or a small house this would be great. Then again, if small house then we go back to BT. Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.” Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it. |
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Passing by
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: London, Europe
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Where Apple don't see convergence is in a single device becoming the main personal electronic accompaniment (ie a single cellphone/camera/MP3 player etc). Rubinstein is on record on a number of occasions saying he believes this isn't what the market wants (and personally I'd agree with that). |
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Member
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: The Warm Glow of Steve's RDF
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Welcome.
As for multiple room remote.... salling clicker. 'nuff said. |
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Fair enough.
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2005
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How many gadgets do you want to carry around with you? |
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Ruling teh World
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Boston, MA
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I think that the best thing for Apple is competition. The more people that push Apple the better and more ingenious the products become. Look at the cellphone industry! You see all types of new designs that pack more features in smaller packages because everyone wants to be the best.
If Apple enters the cellphone industry they may loose some ground because they aren't 100% committed to making just cell phones. They will have to work harder than other companies to stay afloat in that market. I highly doubt that Apple will enter the mobile phone industry. Is there a reason? Are we lacking quality phones that make calls whenever we want? No. Are we deprived of technical "life" just because Apple doesn't make a cell phone? No. The iPod is a gadget that can evolve, true, but I don't see it becoming a phone in the future. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Chicago
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The problem arises when a device becomes too much of too many things and not enough of one thing. It goes back to the "jack of all trades and master of none" concept. When you try to build a digital music player and a PDA and a phone and a video player and a gaming system, you tend to dilute the whole thing. I'm not saying that I want to carry around 12 different things on my belt, but I don't know how well a multifunction device can be done.
I'd love to see an iPhone that is just that, a phone. I already carry a cell phone and my iPod a lot of places and I have no problem with that at all. I also wouldn't mind seeing the iPod go in the direction of PDA/organizer. Although I think the best thing would be to leave the iPod how it is and make an iPhone that's like the Treo or a blackberry. If anyone can do it right, it's Apple. An iPDA (I know, bad name). 4 gigs of storage, organizer (with iCal like functionality), simple apps, phone functionality, WiFi and bluetooth connectivity. Come waste your time with me |
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Member
Join Date: Aug 2005
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I thought the original post was very cool but I can't help but think apple is not thinking this way or else they would not have gone IR on the latest macs, however if the rumour of intergrated wifi pans out then it will not matter much., this would be much better than bluetooth...and also would let you stream from your ipod to a windows machine(provided it has itunes on it lol)
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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For what it's worth, everybody, that original post is a straight copy-and-paste job from a month-old blog entry.
Just FYI. |
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Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472 Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
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Right Honourable Member
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Ruling teh World
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Boston, MA
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Was it the poster's blog??
I was troubled that someone could sit down and type that long of a message as a post, but I guess that lectric didn't. I would like it better if the poster would have named or cited his source.. |
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¡Damned!
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
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Rocket Surgeon
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: The Canadark
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To be fair, until we mentioned it, he didn't link to his blog, so seems ok to me.
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Mile 1
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Please God I do not want my iPod to become a remote control.
My wife always takes out her anger on the poor defenseless remotes. I have to hide them from her and if I see her getting angry I run and grab any that might be around. Please God Please. Mile 1 |
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ಠ_ರೃ
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Minnesota
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