February 10, 2005
Just What Is Apple Up To?
A lot of folks have been talking about the consumer electronics applications that might be possible with Apple's new iMac mini. Robert Cringely thinks Apple is about to jump into home distribution of HD movies (which should interest Mark Cuban, as well as a number of cable companies that will suddenly realize that their Internet access business might be inadvertently cannabilizing their pay-per-view revenue stream).
This guy checked with some buddies at Apple, and they confirmed that Cringely has it pretty much right.
But the one piece of equipment that doesn't get mentioned in either piece is the one that knits it all together -- and that's Airport, Apple's implementation of the 802.11b and 802.11g wireless standard that can now transfer data up to 100 mbps.
For the most part, Airport (and its cousins) is seen as the simple solution to bring wireless Internet access to your entire home.
Great, right? But answer this question. How many people on the planet are able to make full use of every last drop of a 100 mbps wireless connection? Maybe a few thousand inside the world's largest corporations that sit on a T1 line.
How about on the consumer side? Well, unless your name is Gates, Jobs, or someone else in that tax bracket, you're probably crusing at 1.5 mbps max at home through a cable modem or DSL line (or like me, somewhere between 75-90% of that, according to this tool). That leaves you with about 90 mbps of transfer power that isn't being used at all.
So what the heck are you going to do with it?
My guess is everyone is going to be streaming digital media all over their homes, that's what.
We've already seen Apple do it with AirTunes, the neat little base station that lets you stream music from your Mac to your home stereo. On the video side, I've seen this work surprisingly well over an 802.11b connection with a ReplayTV, as a friend of mine showed me how he moved a single episode of Beavis and Butthead from a DVR in his living room to another one floor above and then over to his laptop. You can finally do it with a TiVo, as long as it's a Series 2 or above.
One last point: If the above story is true, Apple will be streaming HD movies into homes from anywhere between 700 kbps to 1.5 mbps (actual cable modem and DSL speeds), while Airport moves data from between 10-100 mbps. So, essentially, you'll be able to move those HD movies in between your own computers faster than you could possible download them from Apple.
And since all of this will be embedded in iTunes, there won't be any problem with digital rights management.
Wow. It's really cool to be an adult in the world I hoped it would become while I was a child.
Thanks to The Unofficial Apple Weblog and Instapundit for the pointers.
UPDATE: Please note that I shouldn't be confused with S. Eric McErlain, my father. As a rule, we don't discuss Apple's business prospects.
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That T1 for that business user is also only 1.5 meg, and it's shared by a bunch of other users, so they won't tax the Airport if their only traffic is to the Internet.
But you hit it with the streaming around the house stuff. It's local traffic that needs huge bandwidth, not web surfing.
I'm really surprised that the mini is seen as a platform for this, however. The lack of drive space alone will limit its ability to store HD content, and it's slow processor and video card would kill streaming two or three HD shows to different TVs in a house. The next-gen mini, with a G5, etc., will really open things up.
Posted by:
at February 11, 2005 04:22 AM
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