With the shipping of Apple TV imminent, surely the necessary upgrade of the iTunes store will involve the announcement of at least some HD content?
Perhaps the most surprising part of the Apple TV announcements in January was the fact that an HD TV (or at least ED) is a prerequisite for ownership. This is more than a little unusual given that the media that can be purchased from Apple today is at best near DVD quality when in a 4:3 format and lower still when in the HD standard 16:9 format. That makes it look kind of okay on an iMac but is likely to disappoint once viewed in the living room.
In fact the highest quality content you are likely to easily get via iTunes is MacBreak, Leo Laporte’s 1080p video podcast netcast!
FFA believes that Apple will announce the availability of at least some 480p or 720p content simultaneously with the shipping of Apple TV scheduled for February 28th. Although there is little direct evidence of this, support for the notion comes, rather ironically, from the iTunes on Vista debacle. Given the importance of the Windows platform to Apple in terms of sheer number of customers, the very slow solution Apple offers to Vista sufferers (basically wait till we update iTunes soon) doesn’t feel right….unless.
Unless, the update is more significant than simply adding an Apple TV tab so that your Apple TV can be synched to appropriate media just like an iPod. The Apple TV product only really makes sense if it can deliver HD content to your living room in a compelling and easy enough way to begin to suggest that you don’t really need that tedious cable / satellite service. Until that happens, Apple TV is simply the world’s biggest iPod!
