is my living room ready?
People are still after my living room. They want their product hosting all kinds of content in my living room. Folks on the net are talkin about how microsoft should be concerned about Apple’s potential release of the mac mini DVR. To me the idea is big wooop. I don’t see the fear really. They talk as if its an untapped market… umm hello – tivo and cable already has it, why do i need yet another dvr solution. What does the mac mini do for me in my living room that my tivo cant do, proven btw, better? I mean everyone wants my living room, xbox 360, ps3, probably nintendo’s revolution, tivo2.0, a few dozen other boxes out there. I dunno. I think my living room is fine. But I keep getting the message it isn’t.
Some try and use the whole content leverage point of view. Per Jupiter Research…
“A mini with this capability could easily become a core part of the digital hub over time. Think enthusiast market first. Then think what happens when this supports HD with an integrated cable card. The PC is already a repository for music and photos. This could help move the transition to both home made video content as well as commercial stuff. iTunes is already doing well on music. Now add in episodic TV shows and movies. With integrated iPod support, Apple only boosts that device as the de-facto standard for mobile entertainment “
AND? I think its dangerous for Apple to think in global dominating standards like thinking it owns mobile entertainment. People own mobile entertainment. If Apple owns mobile entertainment today, who owned it before the ipod? Well lets see.. Sony and Walkman? I think thats shaky ground to stand on. Apple does well sure, but own it? No. Apple and other manufactures benefit by being available and accessible when users want them, and how well they all play together. A nano does me no good to throw a party with if all I have are headphones, need speakers, and no i dont want to buy more speakers, i have speakers, hell i had radio before apple arrived, intergrate, complement me, my lifestyle.
The other thing that gets me is the notion that because the PC is the keeper of all data, photos, videos, and audio, its the grand master of it. I have 3000 some images on flickr, how often do i really go thru them all? How often do I actually access that content? Sure I have it.. but do I use it. Do I relive it? I think people gravitate more towards the new than the been there done that over and over and over. Our minds are huge sponges for the new. We park it on a PC cause its the pack rat in us to save it, thinking, at somepoint we’ll be back. I mean in sheer entertainment value. I just think its a lame agrument point, basically telling me that a PC in my living room because its the box of all that i am is somehow gonna make me want it more so than my tivo i have now, or my cable on demand.
Apple has rubbed me wrong in recent months with itunes. Mainly due to my inability to find what i want. Its so lack luster, its selection just doesnt work for me, and when i do find something i like its not becuase i found via their system from the front door in, its cause i tore thru the site from the back way, side way, underground and so on.. meaning that their traditional access methods to find songs didint work, i had to find what i wanted from leaping around all over ther app.
I think the idea of watching lost on a video pod is interesting, just like watching lost on my psp is, or archos is, yes. thats neat. Short lived in some ways. An ipod that can record video, thats a bit more interesting, more interested in that really than getting lost on an ipod.
Its funny to think about how microsoft should be concerned, cause from my point of view, a mac mini dvr is basically trying to get 3rd or 4th place in peoples minds, they have nothing on tivo at the moment, i mean if microsoft is to be concerned about apple, then apple better plan to spend some serious cash to sway people off tivo, and can they even do that.
The race for the digital home is on… umm its been on for years. Tivo has it. Next.
I think people get all fuzzy eyed with Apple. Sure they have a knack of innovation, and more so in releasing and informing the public on their innovation. Thats even more key than the ipod itself. The ipod isnt unqiue from a technological point of view its unique in that everything that drove the message of what it was like to have an ipod, use an ipod and i’d even say that its accessorization of the ipod is what made the ipod successful. There were hundreds of mp3 players out there long before apple got in on the scene. I find it really hard to give them something as big as ownership over a realm of something. Its a powerful marketing poly but its not accurate.
If anyone owns the digital home right now its the power companies that keep it on, the manufacturers of LCD screens and the cable companies that provide content.
So microsoft should be concerned? Ok sure, so should Apple.
I still feel like they havent tapped into real usage yet. Do they really know what a day in the life of tv, heck entertainment access from a person is all about? What are the aspirations of that person, the needs, the wants, the desires which are all interconnected with that persons well being, state of mind, stress, time, and so on? Or are we simply trying to make the coolest box possible and then back it up with “you need it” marketing and hope that by some struck of luck it will land in the living room and be used to its fullest potential no matter what the constraints are and thus let own the home…. ha!