Apple and Video: They�re holding back
For a year now, Steve has been denying an iPod with video capabilities but last week (October 12th, 2005) he took the stage and showed the world what he called, an iPod with some video capability thrown in. Jobs was quoted saying, �We�re going to sell millions of these to people who want to play their music, and video is going to come along for the ride.� Jobs still doubts the video capabilities personally but due to pressure from stockholders and the tech savvy iPod users he was kind of forced to release this product but showcasing the screen as being able to see more of your music and better looking slideshows and video coming along for the ride is the best way to present this to the general public and seeing how it goes.
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If video on the new iPod does not quite make the grade, he is not in a place to throw out an entire product and risk losing millions in R&D;, production or marketing but instead can slowly stop talking about video on an iPod and continue pushing the music until a later date when video is ready for mainstream. This said, the video capabilities on Apple�s fifth generation iPod are few and in my opinion, lacking in every aspect of its capabilities. This is the same kind of product Apple presented last year with the iPod photo and calling an iPod a different name like �photo� and charging a premium upwards of 600 dollars created a product that sold horribly and pushed people into sticking the with 299 20gb model or opting for an iPod mini, which they did that holiday season. Apple finally added a color screen to all iPods and made photos merely a feature you got by not getting a shuffle. They took off the photo tagline, took away the A/V cable for presenting your photos to a Television set and brought the iPod down to the 299 / 399 price point more affordable to those that just wanted to play music and see album art (a feature only available on a color screen).
With the history lesson over, Apple just calls this iPod and had learned from the past by saying that video is just a feature that is there if you want it. They also did not devote too much payroll into signing on tons of studios and distributors but instead got the two most popular TV shows, 2,000 of the most popular music videos and added �Export to iPod� as part of the video export functionality to QT Pro 7 so podcasters can make shows for the new iPod as well. If at the end of the holiday season they don�t see people buying this iPod for the video capabilities and see tons of content in the form of video going out the door of their online store, I have a feeling video will take a backseat until consumers are truly ready for a device like this. The next 3 months are going to be a little awkward because right now, all video podcasts are formatted too large for the new iPod so many vloggers will post a show for iTunes users and a show that is smaller for iPod pod listeners. Also the iTMS has a weird name since iTunes �music� store is not the case with video being for sale as well.
If things do go well, I guarantee we will see a dedicated store with its own name (iTVS anyone?) or possibly an application just for Vlogs and digital video content. Finally, Apple will announce a form of video / movie rental or ownership with partnerships with Warner, Paramount and others as well as day after downloads of primetime network TV shows and Viacom (MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, TV Land, Noggin and more). Apple will bring video into the mainstream and possibly announce 80 and 100Gb iPods making 60Gbs the low end in an iPod family from 299 to 499 with sizes ranging from 60, 80 and 100 gigabytes. All of this space to hold all of your favorite TV shows. It�s also interesting that Apple did not premiere a model for purchasing TV shows like �season pass� that costs 49.99 for all episodes of a season downloaded straight to your computer the day after they premiere and the ability to burn them once to DVD and watch on your television. Apple has more up their sleeve than what they announced last week cause they�re Apple and that�s what they do. The more I speak of things Apple should have done, the more I feel like they are still �testing the waters� to see if this is even worth it to them.
