Within a week of each other, both Amazon and Apple launch movie download services. And internet consumers yawned. Just what we need, a service where I can pay the same (or more!) to download a lower quality movie.

The Movie industry is just following (slowly) in the footsteps of the Recording industry, trying to not make the same mistakes. I think one of the mistakes that the MPAA is trying to avoid is the pricing issue that the RIAA is having with Apple. Steve Jobs suckered the RIAA when it launched ITMS at $0.99 a sound. The RIAA REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY wants to move to a tiered pricing model, with most tracks costing $1.29. But Apple has the leverage there and isn’t budging. The movie pricing from Apple is already tiered ($14.99 for new releases, $9.99 for older movies) and is already pretty pricey (when compared to purchasing the equivalent DVD).

I wish somebody in the MPAA would take a chance on trying something different, like getting rid of release windows. While you won’t find me paying for over-priced lower-quality movies from either Apple or Amazon, I would consider shelling out $15 to purchase a movie that is currently in the theater. I would probably even pay $10 just to rent the movie, since it is still cheaper (and quite often more enjoyable) than Margaret and I driving to movie theater. Do you hear me Apple and Amazon? Announce something like this and watch the buzz spread.

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The whole “What will Steve Jobs announce tomorrow at MacWorld” has finally gone too far when it gets featured in the comic “Foxtrot”.

But since everyone else is speculating, I mine as well join in the fray. Let’s start with the list of things I don’t think will be announced tomorrow:

1. Anything having to do with PowerPC based Macs. Everyone knows that Apple is moving over to the Intel platform and that they will come out sometime this year. Makes no sense to push one last PowerPC Mac since everyone will just wait for the Intel based ones later on this year.
2. New Powerbook. They just announced ones in October and it is way too soon to announce another update.
3. Plasma Displays. Because re-branding big screen TV’s worked so well for Gateway. Give me a Sony or a Panasonic any day….

Now how about some stuff that I think we may actually hear about tomorrow:

1. the new IBook. I think this is probably going to be one element on the announcement tomorrow. The ibook line hasn’t been updated in a while, and while I think it may still be a little too soon for the new IBook to be Intel based, Steve may just be surprising us tomorrow.
2. New IPod nano. Why not?
3. More video content available through iTunes. With everyone from Yahoo to Google announcing new streaming TV content for download at CES, I think Steve is going to have to make a move to keep up.

Like most of these speculating sites, I am probably 100% wrong. So don’t get your credit card warmed up based on my recommendations. Just tune in tomorrow to see what the announcements are. Even though the Engadget guys are still probably jet lagged and exhausted from covering CES, I would expect them to LiveBlog the announcement tomorrow.

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The big computer news this week was announced earlier by Steve Jobs at WWDC (The worldwide Developers Conference). Jobs announced that Apple Computers will be moving the Macintosh line of computers to use Intel Processors (Pentium Inside!) instead of the PowerPC chips they have been using more recenlty. This announcement brought on a lengthy discussion across the Internet on whether this is a good move or not for Apple. With the exception of a few insightful people, most people have got this completely wrong (IMHO).

What many people think this means is that OSX will run on their newly purchase Dell computer. Apples has for quite a long time been very strict with what hardware their software will run on. This is one of the reasons that Macintosh systems have been so stable. If you now exactly what platform your stuff will run on, you can test the hell out of it to make sure there are no problems. Windows can run on any crappy hardware you run on it. You el-cheapo IDE controller may cause the machine to crash every once in a while, but the computer was really cheap to get.

I don’t see Apple changing this policy any time soon. I am sure their engineers are working around the clock making sure that the Intel version of OSX will NOT run no your white-box PC. And I’m sure that when it comes out, there will be hackers working around the clock trying to get OSX to run on a generic Intel PC. Really, I just think Apple will be looking for any way to not support non-Apple branded hardware.

I’ve also read complaints that putting OSX on Intel will hurt the Open Source Movement, and more specially Linux. To that, I say Bollocks! See my above point. Since people are going to have to shell out money for the nice Apple Hardware, the Mac will still remain more of a premium product. This means less people using it, and therefore less people hacking on it. It is hard to compete with the “Free” cost of Linux to attract people on a budget.

How about existing Mac developers? Won’t they have a really hard time porting all their applications to the new platform? No, they won’t. Most application developers program to the APIs that Apple provides for doing things like disk access, networking, graphics, etc. These APIs have nothing at all to do with what processor things are running on. As long as Apple keeps the same APIs (which they have promised that they will), it should just require a recompile with the new toolchain. The exception is anyone who has done some in-line assembly in their application, which will have to be re-written in x86 assembly (I feel sorry for anyone who has to do this, as x86 assembly sucks!). But in truth, that doesn’t happen that much for application developers. That is more for driver writers and the Operating Systems people themselves.

How will all this effect the end user? I don’t think they will even notice a difference, except for a small drop in price of systems, and maybe a speed improvement.

Why do I say a small drop in price? This is really getting to the heart of this post, which is why this is a good deal for Apple. Volume. Intel sells a metric buttload of Pentium processors each year. IBM (which provided the PowerPC processors today’s Macs run with) doesn’t sell as many each year. So they should be cheaper to obtain.

If I were Apple, I would go out and talk to Dell. I would have Dell OEM the Apple Hardware (to Apple’s Specifications) and have them install OSX and ship it. Focus on your core competencies. Dell knows how to make X86 PCs, and ship them as ordered. Apple knows how to design funky looking computers and really easy to use software. Concentrate on what you are good at, and let other people do what they are good at. But don’t let Dell do your customer support. I’ve had to call Apple for support a few times and they are the best customer support people I’ve ever worked with.

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As you may have heard, Apple shipped their newest version of OS X, codenamed Tiger, this weekend. To help hype the release, Apple held big events at all their stores where they were giving away prizes and stuff and were also opened late (until midnight!). Margaret and I went on Friday evening and got a copy of Tiger.

She installed it herself on Friday night without any help from me at all. She said it was a breeze. And then she played around with some of the features. During the day I had started reading a review of Tiger from Ars Technica, but hadn’t gotten through to the end of it. The first part of that article only covers a lot of the low level details that are interesting to people like me, but aren’t that noticeable most of their users.

Some of the more noticeable features include:

Spotlight

This is the unified search tool available in Tiger. It is quite a bit like Google desktop on the PC (which I strongly recommend all PC users to install so you can actually find things like documents and e-mail on your computer…). One of the cooler features I read about Spotlight is the ability to have “Smart Folders”. Basically, you run a search query and Spotlight gives you the ability to save that query as a Folder. And the best part is that every time you go into that folder, you get the latest results on that query.

Dashboard

Dashboard allows you to have cool, easily accessible widgets at your finger tips. Things like a calculator, your calendar, time, weather, etc. Just push a button and up pops Dashboard with all these useful things. And the API to develop new widgets is also available. Apparently you use HTML and JavaScript to program these things, so it should be pretty easy for people to whip out new Dashboard widgets.

Apple lists over 200 new features in Tiger.

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Ever since Margaret got her iBook, we’ve been following Apple product announcements. And today being Steve Job’s keynote address, we were anticipating what he would have to announce today. And boy did he announce quite a bit today.

Every year the Mac rumor websites try to leak what Job’s will announce during his keynote address at MacWorld. And every year they aren’t even close, except for this year. Makes you wonder where the leak at Apple is, if you ask me.

So, what did Jobs announce today?

• iPod Shuffle: Basically, a cheap flash based IPod (meaning you can run with it). They cut the cost by cutting out the display. Basically means you can’t pick specific songs to listen to, but rather just shuffle through the music you have loaded on it. Since I have an IPod, I’m not really that interested in it. Plus I’m enough of a control freak that I want to have more control of my music player.
• iWork ‘05: Basically a Microsoft Office competitor. Hopefully Apple used their design team to make the UI easier to use rather than just a direct copy of Microsoft’s UI (not to name names StarOffice/OpenOffice).
• iLife ‘05: The old version of iLife comes with all new Mac’s. That’s how we got it. We really don’t use any of those applications on a regular basis, but I would like to use iDvd and iMovie to do some stuff. But I don’t think I’m going to shell out the $80 Apple wants for the upgrade. For some reason it always feels to be that iLife should be a free upgrade to existing customers, or at least upgrade pricing. But Jobs doesn’t seem to agree with me.
• Mac mini: This is just totally sweet. A $500 Mac with no monitor/keyboard/mouse, just a CPU. It is 6×6x2 and virtually silent. Doesn’t take up much desk space. And the price point is great for people who are looking to replace the old PC they have been using for web surfing and are interested in trying a Mac. I want one! (but I’m holding out for a iBook. Sigh…)

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