Switched On: The iPod Photo's slippery slope towards video
posted Oct 27th 2004 2:44PM
We really lucked out. We convinced our good friend Ross Rubin to write a new weekly column for us called Switched On which'll cover everything related to digital convergence, the connected home, and all those other multimedia buzzwords that marketers are tossing out these days. Fortunately, Ross knows how cut through all the marketese and get straight to the heart of the matter, as he does with his inaugural column about the new iPod Photo:There are many good reasons to pre-announce products in the technology industry. You get all the excitement of having something new without the burden of having to actually produce or manufacture it. However, you'd think that in an industry that is famous for such embarrassing pronouncements that 640K ought to be enough for anybody (well, maybe for your camera's firmware) or that there is a world market for about five computers (perhaps in every person's pockets), companies would tread cautiously in announcing that they're not going to create something.
While that's not exactly been the case with Apple and a video-enabled iPod, the company's derision of portable video has certainly signaled that we shouldn't expect such a device before, say, the next major Earth-smashing asteroid threat.
There are two primary reasons for Apple to create a video iPod. The first would be that the company believed that there is real demand for such capability, though Apple has signaled that it sees anything but (the second I'll discuss later). There are a number of strong arguments for this, including the user attention that video requires, the content acquisition dilemma, and the poor experience that a 3.5-inch LCD provides when compared with enjoying the Finding Nemo DVD on the 60-inch plasma in your Gulfstream V.
So why is the iPod�s 2-inch screen too small for video but large enough for photos? And the S-video port on the iPod Photo�s dock for connection to a TV is about the last straw. Sure, video is ridiculous, but how about an iPod that can display 30 photos per second synchronized to sound? Apple has had great success in implementing the iPod�s relatively large scroll wheel; I�m sure the frighteningly clever folks in Cupertino could figure out a way to accommodate a larger screen just as they figured out how to accommodate a smaller one with the iPod Mini.
Even so, Apple thinks that consumers don�t necessarily want portable video. That is likely true for many, or at least a larger group than those who don�t want portable audio. However, this quickly brings us to the second reason to support video, which is a supply-driven value-add and competitive differentiator. These are not necessarily the must-have features that sell products�and piling on distracting clutter can lessen a product�s appeal�but lowering component costs make them a bit of a no-brainer.
Such seems to be the case with the iPod Photo. Were consumers gazing longingly at their beloved music players and asking, �Wouldst that I could navigate thousands of photos on this tiny screen?� They were probably not since (despite Apple�s dancing commercials) a lot of consumers are content to keep their iPods out of sight in their pockets or bags, cell phones are becoming our mobile photo albums, and nobody uses the word �wouldst.� Apple decries the �why not?� school of product design, but surely it�s thinking of ways to fill up a 60 GB hard disk. (Psst, video will do this better than photos.)
Apple need not even stray far from its music mantra in order to justify adding video to the iPod. Like other players with color screens, the iPod Photo supports album art. But iTunes supports music videos; why shouldn�t the iPod? If there are any signs of life in the packaged music industry today, it is the sale of DVD concerts. And then there are the ancillary uses. If Apple is serious about the iPod as an educational tool beyond keeping the RIAA boogeyman away, can it really argue that video lectures or archival material wouldn�t be at least as valuable as audio content? Does anyone remember Apple�s Keynote application that could natively export to QuickTime?
Apple certainly isn�t bound to stay out of the portable video market as the company isn�t above admitting mistakes, such as when it missed having the new �fat panel� iMac G5 ready for back-to-school, or when it neglected to put CD burners in earlier iMacs. In fact, so impressive has been Apple�s turnaround in digital music that it may wind up being the company that ultimately capitalizes on portable video�s potential. But as anyone who�s been as involved with movies as Steve Jobs should know dramas just aren�t as much fun when someone tries to spoil the ending for you. Let us watch.
Ross Rubin is director of industry analysis at NPD Techworld, a division of market research and analysis provider The NPD Group. Views expressed in Switched On, however, are his own. Feedback is welcome at fliptheswitch@gmail.com.
i think Apple is probably waiting for a content delivery channel for video. supporting video on the iPod Photo is probably as simple as a firmware upgrade, but i'll bet the number of people clamoring to put their home movies on the iPod is small - you need some way to get content that people want to watch on the iPod. Your music video idea is great - you could probably do that now using iTMS and its nice value add since you can't watch videos on MTV anymore. I think when Apple gets to the point that they can package & sell video the way they have music you'll see a video iPod. Its an evolution thing, and technology just hasn't evolved quite enough for good video delivery yet.
They forgot a compactflash and/or sd card slot! so no photo downloading on vacation
If ipod could play video then I might be able to replace my PDA. I use my PDA just for keeping address, schedules, music, photos, and video. That would be great ;)
I could be wrong and usualy am. But when I look at the future of portable video I dont see Movies. I see the future in television. Right now Tivo has transformed peoples viewing habbits. We all know how that has happened. And itunes showed us that music will be purchased if the price is right. So why cant we get our favorite TV shows from a service like itunes? How nice would it be to be able to ride the Subway to work and watch The Daily Show. Or sit in the park on your lunch break and watch that Discovery Channel special from last night. Take a show to school to show a classroom on a projector. There are hundreds of channels trying to get us to watch our content but right now the only time we can see it is when we are sitting at home. Cable Television needs an ishow. A pay per play or web based Cable company. A place where we can Download our shows and watch them where ever we like.
bandwidth (broadband) or compression will allow a video to be d/l in under 5 minutes and Apple can make money off it.
There are many uncertainties with mobile video right now. What format do you support? If it's MPEG4, which one?! And you'll still get complaints that Divx isn't supported or whatever format the geeks want (and they're the ones clamoring for a video iPod, not every Tom Dick and Harry walking around NYC). This isn't like digital audio where MP3 support was all you really needed to get a working player.
The "where do you get content from" argument is strong also. I think it makes sense for Apple to work behind the scenes like they did with the iTunes music store for a year and build support from the content providers to start providing mobile video content.
What if in a year, Apple releases the iPod Video and at the same time announces that through partnerships with MTV and the major music labels, you'll be able to download videos through iTunes or the MTV web site. Or if you buy the whole album, you'll also be able to get an exclusive interview with the artist for play on your iPod Video, just like CDs are starting to offer now. That's the real sale, not just being able to say, "Oh yeah, we can play video too." That will really get people to buy from both the iTunes store and the iPod itself. It's a much more compelling business proposition as well.
That will be much more successful than releasing a video iPod now and no one but the geeks really uses it anyway. It'll be deemed a failure for not having any real content or analysts will say they had all these potential avenues for partnerships but didn't fully develop the plan. The geeks will say it's too expensive anyway and it'll be a failure to all.
I would love to have video capability on my iPod. The reasons stated in this article are all valid, I've thought of a few (non-exhaustive) examples of what I think apple could do with this:
- work out a deal with ESPN to offer a version of sports center that could be DLed overnight that I could watch on my way to work (I ride the subway in NYC)
- same model could be applied to CNN for news content, Weather Channel, business news etc.
- i work in broadcast design, would love to show clients my demo reel, works in progress etc.
- i imagine people who use power point or keynote would like to be able to show their presentations without always having to lug their laptop around with them
This all might seem frivolous but I remember the reaction to the announcement of the 1st iPod and the mac community thought that Jobs had gone insane....
Belkin Digital Camera Link for iPod. I don't think it'll be long before they update it to work with the iPod Photo. Then problem solved for everyone saying there's no way to download photos while on vacation.
My guess is Apple's next gen iPod will include a digital camera. From there it'll be interesting to see what path Apple takes to Total Gadget Convergence (tm) ... iPod cell phone perhaps? iPod-Treo?
Great editorial, amusing and informative
I don't believe Steve will itroduce a video iPod (vPod?) anytime soon until copyright issues are worked out and a suitable CODEC is available (w/ Tiger). Once these hurdles were jumped in music the rest fell into place.
I believe it'll be the same for video.
2c
I think video in handheld form is, like many things,
inevitable. However, what about 3GPP, QuickTime, and
cell phones? As these "new school" convergence devices
get beefier (like Nokia's 6600) and the vaporous 3G
network gets better, you WILL be able to see videos.
On-demand, and in your pocket. Didn't I just read
about Apple's sneaky behind-the-scenes entrenchment
campaign for content SERVERS with Verizon and Sprint?
Hm. I knew I shoulda bought APPL at $16/share!
How many people here remember the little mini-TV's? The Sony Watchman, for example? How many people here have actually owned one?
I do have one of them - thank goodness, one I bought at a closeout store, so I didn't waste too much money on it. The 'oooh, cool gadget!' feeling lasted about a week. After that, it basically sat unused on a shelf for months at a time, and the last time I actually used it was this summer during a severe weather-induced blackout.
The pundits down on watching video on a small screen have a very good point; the novelty of a small screen to carry with you is cool for a little bit, but wears off very quickly. From all I've been able to see, the little porta-TVs have flopped miserably in the market; every year or two there's a brief flurry of interest, they show up briefly on store shelves, then vanish without a trace. I certainly can't remember seeing anyone else actually using one. These were gadgets that sold for a fifth the price of a pocket video player. Why do people think this rendition will fare any differently?
Ever since the original Walkman, there's been a huge, obvious demand for portable audio. I have never seen any sign of even remotely comparable demand for portable video in this form factor.
One portable video player design I could see is something the size of one of the portable DVD players; they've had a pretty good penetration into the consumer market, and seem to have had reasonable staying power over the last couple of years. But now we're not talking about a video iPod, are we?
I think the main thing holding back a video iPod is really the lack of authorized content, Jobs made this point many times. It simply isn't out there yet. The fact they are doing photo proves that the issue really isn't about screen size... if you treat it like a pod for carrying content to a TV for viewing instead of VIEWING content on the pod itself... Apple may change its stance if 2 things happen: 1) broadband gets broader and 2) Apple makes a deal with movie and TV content groups. The whole point of the iPod is to keep it small for portability. The other thing to keep in mind is that the buffer on the iPod can handle a music file or an image, but the hard drive would really have to spin like crazy to keep up with video... Cheaper solid state memory might be the deciding factor to keep battery life up...
Gotta come up with another "i" name.
To the girl who wanted to show people her demo reel. for god's sake get an iBook! Are you drunk? You can get a tiny 12" iBook for 999.. why would you want an iPod or a PMC.. at least an iBook you'll get some usage out of 24 hrs a day.. the PMC won't come out more than an hour a day ..
..Having said that.. your lust for PMC is nice, but you are in the vaaaast minority of people that need to show off video for their jobs and, for some reason, dont want to get a laptop computer to do just that.
Talking and walking.
The path.
Difference.
BTW take a look @ this page:
http://www.portalplayer.com/products/platforms_mediaplayer.html
"Copy or move photos from a digital camera via USB On-The-Go"
I don't pretend to be an expert at this but it seems to me that Video would be much more demanding of the harddrive and as such the battery. I mean 'ok' they can do 5 hours of slide-shows but that's utilizing the iPod's cache of 32 megs (I think its 32 correct me if Im wrong). With Video the cache would quickly be used up even if it was expanded to 128 or 256. The cache would still only provide minimal buffering of 'smooth' content before the hard drive again had to again spin up and eat some more battery.
Maybe video iPod will come about when Batteries FINALLY get better, mobile compression become AWESOME (I'm not talking about the streaming stuff cell phones use), and maybe when OLEDs finally show up on our iPods (saving us just that little bit of extra juice).
Yea... small screen's a problem but I'm sure Apple could make the first useful touch screen media player or even move/add a screen to the entire back (sure itd scratch easily there but were not already used to that with the current iPods) for video play back (much bigger screen). No one knows for sure what apple will do for next but I wouldnt say never with a Video iPod.
Im currently 18 looking to major in Industrial Design. Im sure by the time I get out of college and start on my carrier Ill still be marveling at John Ives and his development team thinking damn I wish I helped make that.
Hi
not read all the comments or article but have you people not seen the archos device?
www.archos.com
Has anyone tried playing animated .jpeg of .gif files on the iPod Photo yet? That would be a quick, easy way to watch videos (no sound, unfortunately) without having to use one of those tricky Mpeg-1/2/4 formats.
WOW, you mean I can view my pictures on the ipod!?! and in COLOR?!?! Hipee-do-fking-do-da~
Apple really do make good products, with good design which is ahead of its time and content that is way behind. May be that is the way SJ balance the universe. As all major portable device manufacturer leaping thru the market with "Portable Media Device" Music+Photo+Video; Apple is certainly behind.
What are they waiting for?? Only god will know.
It seems erveryone's overlooking one thing: power consumption. To play video at 30 fps, producing a TV signal would exhaust the current iPod in minutes. iMovies? I don't think so.
Its all a marketting ploy. Those in the know call it George-Lucas-Syndrome.
The symptoms are easy to spot: numerous and continually better versions of a product are released over time; Each time the consumer is expected to believe that the current release is the best thing ever and no future release could ever top it. [Ya, how many updates of the original SW Trilogy are realy required?]
Apple claims there will *never* be a video iPod; Everyone buys iPods. Apple makes video iPods; everyone buys another [newer] iPod. Apple's profits double.
I think cmoney's comment posted on October 27th pretty much sums up Apple's trademark strategy and perhaps future plans.
I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to put this, but my ipod of the future would extend the thing i most love about it now - the hard drive space.
My ipod (of the future) would use the video out port to connect to a TV, and then give me a simple command line or icon interface to turn my ipod into a pda that i could use in anyone's house, at the office or at home without anthing more than the ipod itself and a cable. All my data just there, then i could transfer to another persons ipod, and collaborate on projects, share files etc.
And on the train to work i could make do with the tiny colour screen.
(of course if they want to give me a vga out rather than video...)
I just bought a color screen 20gb iPod. Just judging by the speed of the menu and slideshow, video shouldn't be a problem.
For the people talking about only geeks would be interested in Video iPod, they just don't understand how Apple will work it.
iPods effect on our culture is incredible! People don't ask for Mp3 players when they go to stores, they ask for iPods. The iPod has become the Coke, Xerox & Klennex of Mp3 players. That is an extremely important assest to any product and is one of the man reason's Apple will introduce video to the iPod.
Daryl & CMoney both have some great points about how Apple works and what they will do. If people knew they were coming out with Video iPods now, they'd loose sales of there current units. Apple will probably drop the price of there current units to try to get as sold as possible b4 introducing Video to the iPod.
Just from seeing what my iPod can do(performance wise) I know it can display videos, especially on a 2" screen(low resolution atleast). I'd love to watch Music Videos on my iPod, or even TV Shows(Family guy, Fresh Prince,etc..) That's easy to do for Apple. It's a no brainer that the format would support MOV and MPG just like Quicktime. You can pretty much throw Divx out the window, MPAA wouldn't allow that.
Video on an iPod will happen, probably this holiday season or next. Now, the biggest curveball is Movies on an iPod. It's possible, but if I worked at Apple i'd advise them to focus "primarily" on Music Videos and TV shows b/c movies are just not the same on a little screen and the MPAA is a cry baby.
**FOR THE RECORD: having the discovery or history channel on an iPod would be cool.
**Using the iPod for as portable tutorial player would be great for engineers/students like myself. Rather it be: working on cars or excersise techniques. I hope Apple is thinking about this.
I think the iPod is cooler than a PDA, now it's time for Apple to take over the portable media market like Microsoft did computers. It's already a nice protable Hard drive.
I would love the ability to store video on my 60Gb iPod Photo. I already have the photo connector for connecting my camera.
It wouldn't be too hard to setup - and I'm sure the processor in the Photo would be good enough for fast video playback.
My digital video camera has a firewire socket - so surely all they need to do is release a Apple/Belkin/Something video connector with a firewire socket.
I understand that the iPod Linux contains video playback so might wait for that to be ported across to the iPod photo.
I would love the ability to store video on my 60Gb iPod Photo. I already have the photo connector for connecting my camera.
It wouldn't be too hard to setup - and I'm sure the processor in the Photo would be good enough for fast video playback.
My digital video camera has a firewire socket - so surely all they need to do is release a Apple/Belkin/Something video connector with a firewire socket.
I understand that the iPod Linux contains video playback so might wait for that to be ported across to the iPod photo.
Well, we got iPods with video, but on the topic of predicting, I thought I'd post what I think the true "iPod video" (or movie, or cinema, or whatever) will be like.
* Compact clamshell design with screen on top half and click wheel on bottom. (kind of like a pocket-Powerbook)
* Metallic construction
* 4" 16:9 widescreen display
* Approximately the same length as current models, maybe a centimeter wider, and under .75" thick.
* Small wired remote included for controlling basic music functions without having to open up the unit.
* $499 or less
* Hopefully enough storage for the slogan:
"100 movies in your pocket".
A year from now I'll probably be able to see how close I was to the mark.