The Steve Jobs effect — must be in the “Air”

Hey Robert,
I'm a little on my comment here but I don't think Blu-ray is dead either. While the new distribution models for on-line video rentals are starting to take shape, I think about the current competition already in the living room from digital cable, like Comcast here in the SF Bay Area which has movie rentals in full HD 1080i. Since I have that service I won't be purchasing a Blu-Ray player anytime soon, at least until prices come down. But also there's the issue of owning physical media and building personal video libraries. I think there are a lot of people out there like myself who still want the discs on the shelf rather than on a server or hard drive. Not to mention all the special features available only on the discs. Even though most deleted scenes were deleted for good reasons, people still want to see them.

This doesn't put a dent in Blu-Ray for me, and I'm sure I'm not alone. AppleTV is only capable of 720p, and I would rarely settle for that if I had a TV that can do 1080p. (exceptions of course would be "stupid fun" movies, or ones that are not available in 1080p)

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't get the "extras" such as commentaries and deleted scenes with downloaded rentals. I don't mind waiting for Netflix to get the full experience.

Don't get me wrong, it's way cool tech... but when it comes to movies & TV, it caters more to the impatient than to the connoisseur. If you're not the latter, then go for it.

I hate the 24-hour limit... another area where Netflix wins.

Blu-ray is not dead, Universal went total Blu, right behind Warner, you heard right? And it's not always just the 'movies', it's the extras. Have fun downloading 50 gig...

Disappointed that they haven't dropped the price of the Apple TV in the UK, but have in the States. Very disappointed.

Robert, you are just one. Of many I'm sure, but certainly not of all. One doesn't make a crowd.

oops the last two paragraphs shouldn't have been there. Damn PC's ;-)

What a total dissapointment.

1. Time capsule. When Leopard came out Time Machine didn't work with external disks added to the extreme.

They disabled this feature as it was working in the beta versions.

Will it work now? I guess not. I have invested in my own "server"-grade disk, Leopard and an extreme.

When Apple saw that their users were using the extreme as a low-budget NAS, they stepped in and now lock-in the backup method to this new "apple"-graded extreme. This is simply unacceptable.

2. iPhone. it's been a year exactly that the iPhone has been anounced. It's still not available in Belgium. So this SW upgrade means nothing to anyone living outside France/Germany/UK/US

Not relevant for only 188 countries.

3. Apple TV. Same. US release only. You can't do a thing with an apple-tv outside the US that's not hacked.

4. Ok, classy device, expensive. Will appeal to business users and gadget freaks. But definitely nor a mainstream product like the iphone/ipod or imac.


So overall, a huge dissapointment for international users.

Worse, connectivity problems reappeared. Apple saw there were many people using the extreme to have low-budget NAS. Now they totally took that space and locked it in. If Time machine will NOT work with my externally added "server-grade" Iomega disk then why did I buy an extreme and a Iomega disk and Leopard.

Time capsule is not not a missing

Twitter was down for the first 15 minutes of the keynote when accessing from overseas, as I am.

Jacek: funny, the last few movies I've watched haven't been on a disk format. So much for proving me wrong.

Scoble, you're quite a bitter man these days.

Online movies will nevr replace discs. If anything, one will complement each other.

You forget that Apple is also a backer of Bluray, as well as Disney (The 'other' Apple).

Mike: yup, we sold that a week ago. My MacMini still is far better, sorry.

So Robert, did you already get rid of your Apple TV? That product just got a lot more interesting!

MS: what's Gizmodo? Did they turn off any monitors? I guess they aren't "independent" and "edgy" anymore.

Jesus you totally forgot Gizmodo :-)

Jim: why do you need a disk? I hate disks. They get scratched. I lose them. I leave them in the wrong places. Or forget to put them in the case. I can't play them on two TVs at once. I have an old HD-DVD and lots of times NetFlix movies won't play. Storing them is a PITA. And they are expensive. Good riddens.

TranceMist: that'd mean buying a recorder, though. Why wouldn't I just buy a bunch of hard drives and use something like Box.net?

"Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are dead. Thank you Steve Jobs!"

What? I'd still rather buy the disk Scoble.

Blu-Ray good for large backups.
Why pay the RIAA and MPAA for anything?

Good updates with lots of photos:
http://www.macrumorslive.com/

That really is incredibly sweet. I have already been told in no uncertain terms that I'm not allowed to have one :)

Ars technica's coverage is good, too, no timeouts

The AppleTV and Movie Rentals definitely look very nice now. It definitely will hurt the HD DVD and Blu-ray camps.