Macworld Rumor Round-Up

seamuskrat writes to mention that LoopRumors has a round-up of many of the different Mac rumors making the rounds for the next Macworld. Among the front runners are the ITV, iPhone, and Mobile OSX. From the article: "In an uncharacteristic move, Steve Jobs previewed this new digital lifestyle device and gave us a release timeframe of 'early 2007.' iTV will stream movies, pictures and more from your Mac or PC to your television wirelessly. We expect to see the 'hidden features' of iTV spelled out, and a release date announced, if not immediate availability at the keynote. Apple has said it will not use the name iTV for the product, so we can expect a new moniker for the media device."

Comments

iTV

[TodMinuit]

If they open up the protocols for this, thus allowing other devices to be compatible and streaming software to be created, say goodbye to over-the-air, cable, and satellite TV.

Knowing Apple, that isn't going to happen. A shame.

Re:iTV

[Babbster]

There are already open protocols for what you describe, as well as devices that will do what this Apple product is reported to do (even my modded Xbox has no trouble streaming NTSC/480p TV). Yet, over-the-air, satellite and cable TV have gone nowhere. Okay, it's not so odd because as much as broadband Internet adoption is increasing it doesn't have nearly the level of penetration of those three methods of delivering televised content. Even amongst those who do have broadband, they're unlikely (at best) to have the bandwidth necessary to, for example, instantly change between two live HDTV streams (or, in most cases, even receive one), nor would most be able to have simultaneous, different, high-quality live streams going to two or more TVs - OTA, cable and satellite can do all of those things. In my case, with DishNetwork, I've got hundreds of channels slamming into my dish constantly, requiring just a click to switch instantly between them. OTA, satellite and cable transmission have advantages that the Internet (as it is today, at least) just can't match.

In other words, Internet isn't going to kill the television star anytime soon.

Re:iTV

[R3d M3rcury]

I have a feeling this won't happen, unfortunately.

Take Airport Express. Apple has encrypted all the music that goes from your Mac to the Airport Express so that evil people can't intercept it and steal music, thus making it impossible for anyone other than Apple to take advantage of the audio capabilities of Airport Express in their applications.

It'll work the same here. Some people who have signed the appropriate paperwork may be able to get access to it (eg, El Gato) but I doubt Apple will allow just anybody to work with it.

Re:iTV

[TodMinuit]

Not everyone has HDTV, nor does first-out Internet TV need to be high-quality. Just look at YouTube as an example. Even so, you are completely correct the bandwidth on the user-side simply isn't there -- yet. Most people have DSL, probably provided by the the phone company. Do you not think that the phone would love to put the cable companies out of business? Fiber-to-the-door is coming, slowly but surely.

Second, although there are devices and protocol that can do what is needed, none of the providers of them have the kind of backing and connections that Apple has. With an established, positive relationship with media companies, Apple could (and has) help push true Internet-delivered TV.

In other words, Internet isn't going to kill the television star anytime soon.

Probably true, but I can dream of having literally every episode of every TV show just a remote click away, and still complaining that nothing is on TV. (You heard it here first!)

Some rumors not listed

[PapayaSF]

I've read 'em in the last year, for whatever they're worth:

1. Leopard may have some built-in P2P functionality, allowing Apple to do BitTorrent-like distribution of movies from the iTunes Store. You could earn credit by being a seed.
2. Leopard might be very multi-core aware, taking advantage of multiple cores regardless of whether a specific application is written to do so. More here.

Re:Some rumors not listed

[Anonymous Coward]

Leopard might be very multi-core aware, taking advantage of multiple cores regardless of whether a specific application is written to do so. More here.

Wow, no way. There's been work toward language extensions to "hint" to the compiler what can be parallelized - Sun's done some of this work as well - and fancier compilers, for C and for higher-level languages. But it's not an OS thing. The kernel won't just magically make your already-installed copy of Photoshop go four times as fast - Adobe would need to recompile, at the very least. More realistically, they'd have to do a bunch of profiling, add hints around the bottlenecks, possibly reorganize some algorithms and data structures to avoid mutating data structures all processors will be accessing. The best Apple can really do - short of an incredibly complicated JIT-like machine code translation thing that would be a Herculean effort to produce - is give the vendors better tools.

Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the site is being /.'d. Here you all go.

As promised, LoopRumors is posting a round-up of all the rumors we expect to become a reality at this year's Macworld Expo. Please take into consideration that the following article is purely speculation, and nothing is concrete until Steve Jobs says it is. This is our best hypothesis as to what we might expect at Macworld based on the information we've been given. If you have any comments or questions regarding this round-up, or the Macworld keynote, you may address them here. So here's what we have:

iTV:
In an uncharacteristic move, Steve Jobs previewed this new digital lifestyle device and gave us a release timeframe of 'early 2007.' iTV will stream movies, pictures and more from your Mac or PC to your television wirelessly. We expect to see the 'hidden features' of iTV spelled out, and a release date announced, if not immediate availability at the keynote. Apple has said it will not use the name iTV for the product, so we can expect a new moniker for the media device.

Leopard:
Steve Jobs has been touting Apple's next generation operating system, Leopard, for quite some time. He promised to hold back on unveiling some 'Top Secret' features so Microsoft wouldn't be able to copy them prior to their Vista release. We initially thought Steve might surprise the crowd with an early release of the new OS at Macworld, but that seems to be more unlikely as the time draws near. New information targets a release date of Saturday, March 24th, exactly 6 years to the day of the initial OS X release.

Mobile OS X:
LoopRumors told you first that Apple is developing a mobile, 'lite' version of its OS to be used in smaller devices. It's possible this OS may make its debut at Macworld. Some of Leopard's hidden features may have tie-ins to this mobile OS. One possible 'Top Secret' feature of Leopard may be the ability to sync with the scaled down version of itself.

New Macs:
After all, this is Macworld. We expect Apple to introduce new Macs at the Expo. Signs point to new Mac Pros, with Core 2 Quad processors by Intel. Apple's flagship models have been lagging since there is no native Intel version of Adobe's creative Suite software available yet.

New Displays:
Apple recently discontinued its iSight camera which enables iChat video conferencing for computers without built-in displays. Since updating to Intel processors, all of its computers with the exception of the Mac Pros have included built-in iSight cameras. Information suggests that Apple will include iSight cameras in its new displays which are expected to be unveiled at Macworld. Some reports have expected the new displays to come in sizes up to 50-inches. The new displays are said be even thinner, with a lighter design and have more mobility.

Partnerships:
We've heard a lot of rumblings about Apple making partnerships with other companies such as Google and Disney. Expect more partnerships, possibly a collaboration with Google. Also, we expect more movie studios to make their films available on iTunes. Apple has worked very hard to ensure its iTunes Store stays up-to-date and offers a wide variety of media. Currently, only Disney movies are available for download on iTunes, but we expect that to change in the very near future. This won't happen over night, but the information we gathered suggests Apple will offer new films from other movie studios with the launch of iTV.

One more thing...

iPhone?
Notice the question mark. We are skeptical about this one. So much speculation about an Apple Phone has been made all over the internet and television, that we are going to remain conservative on this one. So-called authorities in the tech business have claimed unabashedly, that Apple will deliver a new iPhone at Macworld. At this point, the possibility of an iPhone at Macworld may be more wishful thinking than actual concrete evidence. We do believe that Apple is developing an iPhone, and there is information to support that. But Apple is

Re:Article

[kripkenstein]

TFA: "We've heard a lot of rumblings about Apple making partnerships with other companies such as Google and Disney. Expect more partnerships, possibly a collaboration with Google."

This comment might be true and accurate. Additionally, it might be true.

Site been /.-ed but here's the overview:

[guruevi]

iTV, the $299 TV device showed last time
Leopard, the new OS
New displays, some rumors about that going around
iLife '07, new year, new iLife, new iWorks
video iPod, new full video iPod's? Maybe
Apple Phone, lots of vibe about that
Mac Pro with 8 processors. Intel got the chips, did Apple implement them?

12" Macbook Pro?

[carbona]

That's what I'm hoping for anyway. Dedicated graphics, matte screen option, and under 4 lbs. would seal the deal so I can finally upgrade my aging 12" Powerbook.

Re:ITV?

[Stephen Samuel]

yeah. ITV in Britain, and CITV in Canada (which pushes itself as ITV).

SUN Microsystems got bit by this sort of thing when they labeled their online directory service Yellow Pages. British telecom's lawyers got all over it, and SUN ended up renaming it NIS, but they never bothered to renaim the scripts which continue to these days with names like YP, YPCAT, YPWHICH, /var/YP/ ....

And, of course, Apple also got into trouble with Apple Records back in the '70s ... and then again when they released the I-POD (they had promised Apple records that they wouldn't go into music distribution).

As such I can see them being really itchy about releasing a TV oriented product who'se name would start dead in the sights of ITV's tradmark lawyers in both Canada and Britain (not to mention any number of other venues).

agreed, completely.

[adam]

let's look at Colbert Report and The Daily Show. These run on one of the smaller cable-only networks (Comedy Central), and many /. readers should be familiar with them. Daily show has a team of 40+ writers (iirc) and Jon Stewart (the "face" of The Daily Show) makes $1.5M+/yr (last I heard). Now, surely by doing a weekly show instead of a daily one, you could probably operate with substantially less writers (maybe three or four, if they are quite good), and maybe the face of your podcast is even going to be as comedically talented as Stewart (which is very doubtful, the guy is a genius). But there are still so many other elements to the production. Assuming you're broadcasting in standard def or below (320x240), you could get away with having simple DV cameras ($3k/each), of which you'll need at *LEAST* two for coverage, and probably would want three. Lighting will mean several thousand watts of very hot incandescent lights, or more expensive fluorescents. Cameramen. Production staff (cue card/teleprompter guy, boom operators, etc). Editing (equipment, trained editor, etc). A set. It gets expensive very quickly.

The bottom line is, shows like The Daily Show and Colbert Report have millions of dollars of budget per year, and even their day to day production values are pretty crappy. Comedy Central may run a lot of teaser compositing done by Interspectacular, but for the most part the graphics in the shows we're talking about are pretty low in quality (and this is coming from productions who have millions of dollars to play with.. if they have trouble coming up with slick graphics on a show-to-show basis, imagine the hurdles you will face).

Even if you're lucky and you already own a lot of the equipment and posess many of the skills needed, you will still be several orders of magnitude below anything produced for TV nowadays. The only place where video podcasts may excel is in giving people *SUBSTANCE* that they can't find on tv-- a different opinion or commentary from what you normally hear from broadcast media, access to interviews and coverage of subjects that would never make it on tv (because they are too specialized, or too tabboo or whatever the case). For instance, a Vegan Cooking Podcast may be able to draw many viewers simply because even the most specialized shows (on the cooking channel) don't ever cover vegan foods (let alone regularly devote a timeslot to it).

Video podcasts can definitely outperform traditional broadcast media in some ways, but to even imagine that they will supplant/usurp regaulr television is naive. (I know one post mentioned "goodbye to regular tv" and another mentioned this would be a "good opportunity" for new media.. so I want to make it clear I am not combining those posts inside my head.. re: post #2, this could indeed be a good opporunity for new media.. but even under the best circumstances, it won't even draw a fraction of a percent of users away from watching American Idol [which is what i am trying to say by agreeing with my parent post])

However, let me temper my analysis by saying that obviously some videos on YouTube, with low production values, have garnered hundreds of thousands or even (in a few cases) millions of views. It would be unlikely that all but a handful of video podcasts could regularly do this themselves (other than LonelyGirl15 and a few select others, most of these videographers don't have repeat success), but some might see this type of success.. which, when measured against the daily viewing of even reruns of Alton Brown or MythBusters, may not shatter any records, but it's still pretty impressive.

As someone who has done a lot of independent videography.. (spending one to two years shooting and traveling just to put together a film wit