TV à la carte

My predictions for the Apple event were 1) it would be cool, 2) I wouldn’t be able to afford it, and 3) I would be trying not to want it with all my might.

100% accurate, me.

But as much as I want a new iPod Touch, what is exciting (and even almost affordable!) for me was the new AppleTV. And all I’ve seen is grousing about it, or at best some half hearted “at least it’s cheap now” comments.

Movie fans grumble about not being able to purchase, and the HD not comparing with BlueRay. Legitimate points, certainly. But I don’t think the AppleTV is really going after the home theater movie market. It’s the AppleTV, not the AppleHomeTheater.

The AppleTV is going after cable.

Around here, basic cable costs ~$50/month. That’s too expensive, and so we don’t have it, and consequently we don’t watch. Don’t bother mentioning broadcast, the reception is pretty useless. There are shows we would watch, if we had TV, but we don’t, and we don’t care enough about them to drop money on buying the season on DVD.

But that $50 a month is also fifty $0.99 TV show rentals. And I don’t know anyone that follows that many different shows in a month. And I imagine those people who do already have cable. But for me and mine, who might watch fifty TV shows in a year, this is exciting.

This, my friends, is the possibility of à la carte cable.

(I want to take this moment to note that the iTunes store has the last season of Doctor Who, and I think they’re the complete BBC versions, not the shortened ones that are shown here. That noise you just heard was my whole household cheering.)

Imagine the future possibilities. We have TV show rentals. What if you could purchase season packages for sports? Or subscribe to a news or weather service. I do the latter already with the Wii, but it’s a little awkward. And you can always stream things you own from your computer. Imagine if the Food Network started putting shows on iTunes? The idea makes me positively giddy.

I don’t think that streaming will ever be able to compete with the idea of the high definition home theater. But it can take on cable. And I think it can win.

Really??

In my web wanderings, I stumbled across this completely ridiculous graphic, comparing the iPad with the 2003 hp TC 1100. (via Chaos Manor Musings) And it’s completely full of it, it being fecal matter.

I notice they didn’t compare the weight, or the internal radios, or the thickness, or the type of HDD, or any of the other huge improvements present in the iPad. But just omitting the good qualities wasn’t enough. They had to lie about known technical specs too.

Granted there’s more information about the iPad, now that it’s available to order. But that it has some form of video out and a headphone jack have been known since it was announced. A brief perusal of Apple’s website weeks ago would give you knowledge of stereo sound and the camera connection kit containing a Dock to USB adapter and a Dock to SD card reader.

And are you really comparing the fact that the iPad lacks a phone jack?

Is this the best criticism you can come up with? Do you hate this unreleased device so much that you need to fabricate technical specifications? This is what is important to you?

Good grief.

iTunes Genius Fail

Would you like to know what the iTunes Genius is offering me while I’m listening to The Planets, by Gustav Holst?

Songs by Queen, Alice Cooper, Madonna, Black Sabbath, Rush, Billy Idol, Nirvana…

This is not music that “goes together”. It’s not the same genre. It’s not even from the same galaxy of genres. It’s incomprehensible. Ridiculous.

It’s stupid, that’s what it is.

Basically, iTunes wouldn’t know classical music if classical music shot a cannon at it. And you’d better watch it, iTunes. Classical music likes to use cannons.

It was perfect, until they had to go and screw it up…

(Yes, it’s been awhile. No, this is not an excuse as to why.)

I appear to be alone in the world, but I hate Stanza. It has a terrible reading experience. It’s a bundle of UI sins wrapped in the one useful feature of its ability to get pretty much any text file onto your iPod. Reading a book with Stanza was haphazard at best, and infuriating at worst.

And then the Kindle app came out, and reading a book on that was everything reading a book should be. No longer did the text flip to horizontal at random moments if I read while lounging. The brightness stayed at the appropriate level. My child’s wandering fingers no longer turned undesired pages. I could easily adjust the font size without the constant risk of accidentally changing the font size and losing my place. Reading with the Kindle app was perfectly, simply, reading. The reading experience was so good, that I could forget I was using an electronic device. Sometimes I wore my iPod’s battery down twice in a day.

(I will admit, I tried Stanza again after several months and updates had gone by, and when a book I wanted to read wasn’t available on the Kindle store. While it has improved, I annoys me how many things I have to go into the options and turn off just to get just a decent reading experience. And I still can’t adjust the font size easily without digging deep into the settings.)

And then Amazon went and bought Stanza. And I started to worry when people said the Kindle app’s days were numbered.

I made Mike download the Kindle app so I could check out the updated version, I (wisely) wasn’t going to risk losing my book reader app. I’m going to play with it extensively this weekend.

My first impression is not a good one, and I’m tempted to pan it right here and now, but I haven’t played with it for more than 10 minutes, and I’m determined to give it a fair shot.

Just not on my iPod. Some things you just don’t risk.

In Defense of an iPhone Nano

I know that the iPhone Nano is not a real possibility. But I really wish it was.

Right now, I’ve got a crappy little Motorola candy bar that I paid $20 for. It has no camera. It has no keyboard. It is just a phone. And I love it.

It sounds weird to love it, but it’s the easiest cell phone I’ve ever owned. And I have a soft spot for electronics that don’t make me hate my life.

But I still wish it was like my iPod touch. I wish I could sync it with my address book. I would rather have the keyboard for texting than the keypad. I don’t care about using it for internet, for email, for an iPod or a camera.

I just desperately want a phone that will play nice with my address book on my computer and that I can send a text message with in under 5 minutes. And if there’s going to be an iPhone Nano, this is what it should be. Just a phone that does cell phone well.

I’d buy it for $99. I bet a lot of people would.