iPhone News Updated

Apple turns its i to television

Apple turns its i to television

At the top of the trending rumours for the next version of the iPad is that it will have retina display. The everyday user of the iPhone 4 probably doesn’t realize how powerful this feature is for the mobile device. It’s a feature that Apple apparently struggled to get into the iPad 2, but simply couldn’t get perfected in time (it’s also important to note that all of these stories are based on hearsay, as Apple never speaks publicly about product development, challenges, upcoming devices, applications or features).

In simple terms, retina display creates a pixel density so tight that the human eye is unable to make out the pixels. In even simpler terms, retina display makes reading on a screen as good as (if not better than) the resolution that the human eye captures when it reads the printed word. Yes, the line between resolution quality of print and screen has happened. On the iPhone 4, everything not only looks crisp at every size, but the resolution quality is as good as print.

While many are still lamenting Steve Jobs’s decision to resign from Apple last week and what effect that will have on the company, one of the most valued in the world, it’s clear its product development roadmap and life cycle is primed for another major disruption of an already established media industry. Beyond personal computers, mobile devices and the music and film industries, it seems clear that television could be the next entertainment industry that Apple looks to reinvent and own.

If retina display is ready for prime time on the iPad 3, the bigger breakthrough will be if it can deliver retina display to any screen size. If so, how difficult will it be for Apple to create a screen that actually looks (and acts) like a very, very large iPad? Much of the initial dissent about the value of Apple’s iPad when it first launched was that it was simply a large version of the iPhone without the phone. Apple proved that there was a huge market for this type of tablet device and you can imagine what a 64-inch version might look like (push that further and imagine using your iPad or iPhone as the remote control to flick content onto the screen). As an interim concept, take a look at the recently updated iMac computers the next time you’re strolling by an Apple store - it’s an impressive and beautiful sight to behold.

I wish I could lay claim to being the first person to talk about the possibility of Apple entering the TV fray, but this has become a burgeoning topic of conversation by technology journalists and media pundits alike. VentureBeat’s news item, “Apple is working on a television for 2012, sources say,” published on Aug. 26 points to multiple indicators that this concept is more than likely already something Apple is tinkering away with in its labs. Pointing to more than five different sources, the article says: “Venture capitalist Stewart Alsop, of Alsop Louie ventures, lent credence to the ‘iTelevision’ theory in an interview with VentureBeat. Alsop sits on the boards of TiVo and Sonos, follows the hardware industry closely, and says he has heard from multiple sources throughout Silicon Valley that the Apple television project is under way.”

Apple has already had Apple TV in the market since 2006, but the second generation (which came out in September 2010) began the true fusion of online content with our television screens. Along with being able to rent or own the latest television shows and movies (although, last week Apple stopped allowing consumers to rent TV episodes), Apple TV - along with competitors like Boxee and even Xbox 360 - also lets consumers watch YouTube on their TVs and stream movies from Netflix. To date, the success of Apple TV has been minor when compared with the computer, iPhone and iPad market, but just imagine a world in which Apple is able to perfect a new kind of television screen and integrate that with the content of Apple TV. If you’re having a hard time with that image, take a look at what the iPod combined with iTunes did to the music industry.

Is TV the future for Apple? It seems like one of many obvious paths, especially when you consider the appetite we all still have for watching content and the lack of true innovation from within the television and broadcasting industry. In looking closer at the technical ability to stream digital content in HD anywhere, the likelihood seems even more obvious. The challenge will be in how Apple deals with both the cable and mobile operators and how those operators change consumers for bandwidth - the issue of both cost and throttling access is already a hot debate.

Stay tuned.

[Thanks: http://www.montrealgazette.com]

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