"That's not the point with Google's system. Google's TV gives any disparate source the opportunity register with them and advertise their content without the centralized walled garden approach."
Do you really think that most people care about amateur content outside of YouTube? The major streaming content providers (besides YouTube) at least in the U.S. are NetFlix and Hulu. NetFlix is already available on the AppleTV and their is no reason to believe that Hulu soon won't be seeing that it is already available on Apple's other iOS devices.
And when has this approach ever been successful in the past? In fact, when has Google ever been successful selling directly to consumers? Google Checkout was never competitive with Paypal, Google Video was a failure, as was the Nexus One, even the Google App Market is being outsold by the Apple app store by a 50 to 1 margin according to most sources. Why do you think Google could succeed where Amazon and Walmart couldn't
" And, at the time when iPods were gaining in popularity there was no "integration" offered by the competition. Apple provided that."
Sure there were other integrated approaches -- Plays4Sure, Sansa/Rhapsody/Napster, Zune/Zune Marketplace, etc. Every single "iTunes killer" has died a horrible death over the past decade.
"What we know now is that it can be accomplished in other ways, that's the purpose behind Google TV."
So we know that can be accomplished based on a non-shipping demo?
"It will provide the benefits of the ipod/itunes integration without the lock in that goes with it."
Why is it always other companies "future non-shipping products" that will be better than Apple's shipping products?
"Think this: Google gets their OS installed in TV sets. Those sets have their own storage, wifi, etc. Then Google defines the structure of the data. If a user points his TV to your site the content is presentable and well formatted for the TV (meaning the menus, the structure, the video and sound formats, etc). Google benefits if that same website decides to list itself with Google in which case Google gets to advertise or partner in advertisement through ad sense."
You sure have a lot of faith in the ability of Google to actually ship a good product -- based on what precedence? Besides, it's going to require a keyboard???? You really think people want WebTV 2.0?
"The codecs could be different depending on the source of the media, the aspect ratio could be different due to various devices (and Apple has no control over that)."
You really think that an embedded device is going to take any random downloaded codec? There is a reason that most embedded devices have hardware decoders.
"The model that Apple used is well known and anyone entering this market such as Google with Google TV knows that model well. Google is due to release a music store soon that integrates with Android thus providing the same model. But everyone can produce video content, and in fact we see that everywhere on the web. Video on the web is huge. It will be delivered first and best by the most open system."
Video on the web is huge -- 40% of it comes from Youtube. Most people want to watch professional content on their TV. Right now the majority of that comes from two places -- Hulu and Netflix. YouTube is already available on the AppleTV as well as Netflix. Do you really think that Google is going to be any better at negotiating commercial content on the web than Netflix and Hulu?
The Apple TV is nothing more than an iPod without the screen and other features. Their store is going to be set up as rentals. People weren't renting their music with the iTunes/iPod integration. TV doesn't normally comprise you renting the TV series episodes. Google's retains much of the old model while providing functionality that can still rent/sell if necessary. Apple likely will only release their content in the h.264. Google's will likely support every type of codec available.
Surely it does. Apple looses because of the walled garden.
Yep, that's why the iPod went from an 70%+ market share to the 5% is today, why iTunes isn't the number one music store, and why the vast majority of mobile apps are no longer sold through Apple's app store....
Nobody wants iTunes but yet and still iTunes is the world's largest seller of music, Apple is still on target to sell 50 Million iPods, 35 Million iPhones, and 10 million iPads this year.
So what you're saying is that you want to pay your hard earned money for a PC that the developers will actively seek to prevent you from gaining root access on,
(if those android game devs were deveoping on apple's platform they'd be SOL. On android they're free to set up their own market, distribute without a marketplace app or use one of the other marketplaces that already exists). And I've certainly heard enough horror stories about the review process to turn me off from ever trying to sell anything on the iphone.
You really don't think that an optimized video playback app tailored to the hardware that takes advantage of the built in H.264 decoder isn't better than a cross platform Flash applet with undependable results? BTW, it's Android that has been "left out". Try going to Hulu.com on a Flash enabled Android device and see what happens....
In fact it had many of the limitation people complain of the iPad. I did not allow wireless connection for data. It did not have a memory slot. It was firewire only.
Which MP3 player in 2001 did have wireless? And do you remember the size and prices of memory cards in 2001?
The iPod also didn't use a delicate huge ass 3.5" hard drive and a slow serial port connection or USB 1.
Silly? Yes. But you pointed out that 2.2 added this capability, so you can hardly claim that this was a deliberate restriction, as opposed to the mere lack of a feature.
Yes it was a deliberate restriction and a lame attempt at copy protection. 2.2 only allows it if the developer explicitly allows it.
Yes, they have to be rooted to make some changes -- possibly including removing crapware. They do not have to be rooted simply to install applications of your choice.
But they do have to be rooted (pre 2.2) to do something as simple as actually installing an app on the SD card and since most Android devices come with limited internal memory don't you think that's kind of silly?
Good questions, but I do know that those who weren't buying FLAC-encoded or otherwise DRM-free music were also largely shying away from buying music online at all. My more tech-savvy friends were pirating, my less tech-savvy friends were burned once or twice by iTunes and never bought from it again.
Well the anecdotal experience of "what your friends did" doesn't match up to real world statistics. Of course people were pirating music. But in the context of purchased digital music, since iTunes came on-line its been by far the dominant digital music retailer. So what's your definition of "many" people were buying FLAC encoded music. It definitely wasn't over 10%.
Yeah, let's start with that. And then we can talk about iOS, which still has to be fucking jailbroken before it'll let you install apps of your choice, not of Apple's choice.
As opposed to Android devices that have to be "rooted" to install applications of your choice or to get rid of carrier installed crapware? Try installing any apps that are not on the market place on any Android phone sold by AT&T.
Amazon may have come after Apple and EMI, there have been other services offering DRM-free music well before iTunes and Amazon, services which didn't require special client software just to download a fucking song.
And when piracy was in full swing, and many (including me) were sticking to indie flac files at best, mostly physical media or piracy.
How many places could you buy mainstream music DRM free from the top 4 labels before 2007? You really think "many" people were buying FLAC encoded music? What is your definition of "many"?
Yet they use it on their own devices, for their own software. They have no problem saying it doesn't work for other people's content, but their own is not only going to be DRM'd, but they're not above pulling the DMCA to protect it.
What software does Apple make that has any form of copy protection? The only thing that I can think of are the few apps they sell on the App Store and even that is lenient. I think it's up to five devices.
Except they haven't been, for a long time. I've generally found that if I price out a PC with all the same features that, say, a Macbook has, it's going to cost about as much as that Macbook, unless I start adding RAM.
The main reason people believe this is that you can price out a PC with almost-equivalent specs, which certainly have all the specs you care about (and beat the Mac on a few), for about half the price.
Compare a $999 MacBook to a $999 Core i3 Dell. But that has nothing to do with "openness".
Which keynote?
At the iPod press conference. An iPod is a legitimate candidate for being an appliance. However, it's still not the only mobile music player, and if the general public doesn't prefer "openness", how do you explain the push against DRM, to the point where even Apple has un-DRM'd their music store?
You mean the push that Apple made? This is revisionist history at it's finest. 1. The music industry wanted Apple to license it's DRM to competitors. 2. Apple said that if the music industry wants other companies to be able to sell music for the iPod, just allow Apple and the rest to sell DRM free music. If the industry allows it, Apple would follow suite. 3. Slashdot said that the only reason that Apple said that was because they knew that the industry would never allow them to sell DRM free music 4. EMI allowed DRM free music -- Apple sold DRM free music from EMI 5. The industry wanted variable prices in return for DRM free music from Apple, Amazon complied. Apple wouldn't 6. Finally, Apple gave in mostly because it wanted a license to sell music over the cell phone network. 7. DRM Free iTunes music happened.
This is what Steve Jobs said in 2007 before anyone was selling DRM free mainstream music and after getting pressured to license FairPlay. Please note where Apple said that DRM "doesn't work".
The rub comes from the music Apple sells on its online iTunes Store. Since Apple does not own or control any music itself, it must license the rights to distribute music from others, primarily the "big four" music companies: Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI. These four companies control the distribution of over 70% of the world's music. When Apple approached these companies to license their music to distribute legally over the Internet, they were extremely cautious and required Apple to protect their music from being illegally copied. The solution was to create a DRM system, which envelopes each song purchased from the iTunes store in special and secret software so that it cannot be played on unauthorized devices...... The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.
Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven't worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That's right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.
Google have open sourced many internal developments, not the least of which is Android.
Apple has also open sourced a lot of projects just like Google. However neither have open sourced their crown jewels. Where can I find the source code to Google search algorithm? Google Docs? Gmail? Blogger?
The only reason I tolerate flash on any of my devices is to watch YouTube.
YouTube works fine on my Desire.
Youtube works on almost every phone -- without Flash. There is either a non-Flash based YouTube app (for both Android and iPhone) or most feature phones can go to m.facebook.com.
Hulu wasn't scared by the HTML5 hype, they came right out and said what everybody already knows: even for video, HTML5 cannot replace Flash except for in the simplest of cases.
And you also see that Hulu doesn't support playing video via Flash on mobile but they do have a native, optimized iOS app as does NetFlix. Doesn't that tell you that Apple has the right strategy?
One of the things which killed Mac marketshare was the closedness of things. With the IBM compatible computers you could do anything the hardware could handle, with the Macs you were much more limited in what you could do, and if Apple didn't bless a hardware bit, it probably wasn't going to be available at all. Admittedly there were other mistakes, like the high cost and the terrible clones, but the closedness of things definitely hurt them.
So you think Mac's being "closed" hurt them more then being over 2x as expensive and slower than the equivalent PC?
If the general public prefers "openness" then how do you explain the lack of iPod Killers?
BTW, according to the keynote yesterday, Apple still activates more iOS devices (iPhones +Touches + iPads) then all Android devices combined.
Damn. Was hoping that the new iPod Touch would have a mic/speaker combo (like the iPhone without the monthly cell phone tithe) the that could be used as a VoIP phone. No, I don't want to have to use a wired headset to do this, and I don't want to use the speaker. So close... or am I mistaken about its configuration?
It does have a built in mic and speaker. Every Touch since 2008 has had a speaker and the mic was added for FaceTime support.
Wow... 10 apps (not all free?) to do something 1 browser used to do.
And what difference does it make to the end user whether it is am application or runs in a browser? Do you really not think that a custom built app will be more efficient, and more compliant with the UI guidelines of the target platform?
But the people that always seem afflicted and are the source of all this drama are 3) Trendy Consumers - they don't know WHAT they really want. They follow marketed trends and hardly look at the tech they are buying until they are using it. This often leads to a post-purchase realization that their trendy product may not be as cool as they wanted. Some of these people are still cool with the object trendyness, and some come here on slashdot to produce articles attempting to blame Apple for their own skewed attempt at interacting with life.
If that were the case, then why after almost a decade does Apple still have 70%+ of the mp3 player market, the most popular music store in the world. and almost 80% of iPhone buyers said they would buy another one? Do you think it might be that Slashdot users are out of touch with mainstream users (i.e. Less space than Nomad, No Wireless, Lame)?
Indeed, I still own my iPhone from 2007, which was used up until a few months ago; I had my iPhone before the app store came into existence. Sure there's the youtube app which will most likely have the video you're looking for, but it's not streaming a video on the full youtube.com page that you'd normally see. Not to mention there's a few other video streaming services that don't have apps.
YouTube (43% of all videos on the Internet) -- as mentioned there's an app.
Now let's look at the major content providers.... NBC,ABC,Fox, etc. -- Hulu is available for the iPhone (and Hulu blocks playback on other mobile platforms) CBS -- TV.Com app has been available for ages with CBS content Netflix -- available for the iPad and soon for the iPhone (or it can be hacked now to work) Veoh -- serves standard H.264 to the iPhone Comedy Central -- Daily Show/Colbert Report available from Comedy Central's mobile site. Unfortunately, South Park isn't.
Upcoming....
HBO -- announced a streaming app.
And that doesn't count all of the streaming video podcasts available.
iPhone/iPad/Touch users don't seem to be lacking streaming video.
Slashdot Mirror
He said the same thing in 2007.
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1575743,00.html
I don't think you realize how well the Commodore 64 actually sold....
This is what the first Android prototype looked like.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Android_mobile_phone_platform_early_device.jpg
"That's not the point with Google's system. Google's TV gives any disparate source the opportunity register with them and advertise their content without the centralized walled garden approach."
Do you really think that most people care about amateur content outside of YouTube? The major streaming content providers (besides YouTube) at least in the U.S. are NetFlix and Hulu. NetFlix is already available on the AppleTV and their is no reason to believe that Hulu soon won't be seeing that it is already available on Apple's other iOS devices.
And when has this approach ever been successful in the past? In fact, when has Google ever been successful selling directly to consumers? Google Checkout was never competitive with Paypal, Google Video was a failure, as was the Nexus One, even the Google App Market is being outsold by the Apple app store by a 50 to 1 margin according to most sources. Why do you think Google could succeed where Amazon and Walmart couldn't
" And, at the time when iPods were gaining in popularity there was no "integration" offered by the competition. Apple provided that."
Sure there were other integrated approaches -- Plays4Sure, Sansa/Rhapsody/Napster, Zune/Zune Marketplace, etc. Every single "iTunes killer" has died a horrible death over the past decade.
"What we know now is that it can be accomplished in other ways, that's the purpose behind Google TV."
So we know that can be accomplished based on a non-shipping demo?
"It will provide the benefits of the ipod/itunes integration without the lock in that goes with it."
Why is it always other companies "future non-shipping products" that will be better than Apple's shipping products?
"Think this: Google gets their OS installed in TV sets. Those sets have their own storage, wifi, etc. Then Google defines the structure of the data. If a user points his TV to your site the content is presentable and well formatted for the TV (meaning the menus, the structure, the video and sound formats, etc). Google benefits if that same website decides to list itself with Google in which case Google gets to advertise or partner in advertisement through ad sense."
You sure have a lot of faith in the ability of Google to actually ship a good product -- based on what precedence? Besides, it's going to require a keyboard???? You really think people want WebTV 2.0?
"The codecs could be different depending on the source of the media, the aspect ratio could be different due to various devices (and Apple has no control over that)."
You really think that an embedded device is going to take any random downloaded codec? There is a reason that most embedded devices have hardware decoders.
"The model that Apple used is well known and anyone entering this market such as Google with Google TV knows that model well. Google is due to release a music store soon that integrates with Android thus providing the same model. But everyone can produce video content, and in fact we see that everywhere on the web. Video on the web is huge. It will be delivered first and best by the most open system."
Video on the web is huge -- 40% of it comes from Youtube. Most people want to watch professional content on their TV. Right now the majority of that comes from two places -- Hulu and Netflix. YouTube is already available on the AppleTV as well as Netflix. Do you really think that Google is going to be any better at negotiating commercial content on the web than Netflix and Hulu?
The Apple TV is nothing more than an iPod without the screen and other features. Their store is going to be set up as rentals. People weren't renting their music with the iTunes/iPod integration. TV doesn't normally comprise you renting the TV series episodes. Google's retains much of the old model while providing functionality that can still rent/sell if necessary. Apple likely will only release their content in the h.264. Google's will likely support every type of codec available.
Yep, that's why the iPod went from an 70%+ market share to the 5% is today, why iTunes isn't the number one music store, and why the vast majority of mobile apps are no longer sold through Apple's app store....
Oh wait...
Nobody wants iTunes but yet and still iTunes is the world's largest seller of music, Apple is still on target to sell 50 Million iPods, 35 Million iPhones, and 10 million iPads this year.
http://www.androidguys.com/2010/08/08/google-removes-easy-root-android-market/
http://www.androidguys.com/2010/06/29/att-explains-opt-android-market/
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/apple-responsible-for-994-of-mobile-app-sales-in-2009.ars
http://larvalabs.com/blog/android/android-market-payouts-total-2-of-app-stores-1b/
You really don't think that an optimized video playback app tailored to the hardware that takes advantage of the built in H.264 decoder isn't better than a cross platform Flash applet with undependable results? BTW, it's Android that has been "left out". Try going to Hulu.com on a Flash enabled Android device and see what happens....
Which MP3 player in 2001 did have wireless? And do you remember the size and prices of memory cards in 2001?
The iPod also didn't use a delicate huge ass 3.5" hard drive and a slow serial port connection or USB 1.
Yes it was a deliberate restriction and a lame attempt at copy protection. 2.2 only allows it if the developer explicitly allows it.
You really need proof that iTunes has been the dominant digital music store since basically Day 1?
With DRM Apple had 80% of the digital music download market as of 2008.
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2008/01/rip_drm
But they do have to be rooted (pre 2.2) to do something as simple as actually installing an app on the SD card and since most Android devices come with limited internal memory don't you think that's kind of silly?
Well the anecdotal experience of "what your friends did" doesn't match up to real world statistics. Of course people were pirating music. But in the context of purchased digital music, since iTunes came on-line its been by far the dominant digital music retailer. So what's your definition of "many" people were buying FLAC encoded music. It definitely wasn't over 10%.
As opposed to Android devices that have to be "rooted" to install applications of your choice or to get rid of carrier installed crapware? Try installing any apps that are not on the market place on any Android phone sold by AT&T.
How many places could you buy mainstream music DRM free from the top 4 labels before 2007? You really think "many" people were buying FLAC encoded music? What is your definition of "many"?
What software does Apple make that has any form of copy protection? The only thing that I can think of are the few apps they sell on the App Store and even that is lenient. I think it's up to five devices.
Compare a $999 MacBook to a $999 Core i3 Dell. But that has nothing to do with "openness".
You mean the push that Apple made? This is revisionist history at it's finest.
1. The music industry wanted Apple to license it's DRM to competitors.
2. Apple said that if the music industry wants other companies to be able to sell music for the iPod, just allow Apple and the rest to sell DRM free music. If the industry allows it, Apple would follow suite.
3. Slashdot said that the only reason that Apple said that was because they knew that the industry would never allow them to sell DRM free music
4. EMI allowed DRM free music -- Apple sold DRM free music from EMI
5. The industry wanted variable prices in return for DRM free music from Apple, Amazon complied. Apple wouldn't
6. Finally, Apple gave in mostly because it wanted a license to sell music over the cell phone network.
7. DRM Free iTunes music happened.
This is what Steve Jobs said in 2007 before anyone was selling DRM free mainstream music and after getting pressured to license FairPlay. Please note where Apple said that DRM "doesn't work".
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/
Apple has also open sourced a lot of projects just like Google. However neither have open sourced their crown jewels. Where can I find the source code to Google search algorithm? Google Docs? Gmail? Blogger?
Youtube works on almost every phone -- without Flash. There is either a non-Flash based YouTube app (for both Android and iPhone) or most feature phones can go to m.facebook.com.
And you also see that Hulu doesn't support playing video via Flash on mobile but they do have a native, optimized iOS app as does NetFlix. Doesn't that tell you that Apple has the right strategy?
So you think Mac's being "closed" hurt them more then being over 2x as expensive and slower than the equivalent PC?
If the general public prefers "openness" then how do you explain the lack of iPod Killers?
BTW, according to the keynote yesterday, Apple still activates more iOS devices (iPhones +Touches + iPads) then all Android devices combined.
It does have a built in mic and speaker. Every Touch since 2008 has had a speaker and the mic was added for FaceTime support.
DirecTV has offered on demand TV for over two years. Their HD-DVR can be connected to the Internet for on demand programming.
Do you have a special iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch running the latest OS that doesn't work with BT keyboards?
Wow, a whole sample size of one author.....
And what difference does it make to the end user whether it is am application or runs in a browser? Do you really not think that a custom built app will be more efficient, and more compliant with the UI guidelines of the target platform?
If that were the case, then why after almost a decade does Apple still have 70%+ of the mp3 player market, the most popular music store in the world. and almost 80% of iPhone buyers said they would buy another one? Do you think it might be that Slashdot users are out of touch with mainstream users (i.e. Less space than Nomad, No Wireless, Lame)?
YouTube (43% of all videos on the Internet) -- as mentioned there's an app.
Now let's look at the major content providers....
NBC,ABC,Fox, etc. -- Hulu is available for the iPhone (and Hulu blocks playback on other mobile platforms)
CBS -- TV.Com app has been available for ages with CBS content
Netflix -- available for the iPad and soon for the iPhone (or it can be hacked now to work)
Veoh -- serves standard H.264 to the iPhone
Comedy Central -- Daily Show/Colbert Report available from Comedy Central's mobile site. Unfortunately, South Park isn't.
Upcoming....
HBO -- announced a streaming app.
And that doesn't count all of the streaming video podcasts available.
iPhone/iPad/Touch users don't seem to be lacking streaming video.