Mac Mondays: iTunes is Apple’s long-term investment
Some companies plan 5 years ahead for future products or other forms of income but I don’t believe Apple anticipated this kind of moneymaker when they released iTunes just 5 years ago. iTunes, originally a digital music jukebox for Mac OS 9 evolved into the application that interfaced with your iPod and shortly after became the number one digital music store in the world. Apple has made bad investments in the past like the Newton, Pippin and even the G5 because that chip only lasted them a few years before we made the Intel switch. iTunes has been around the longest and made Apple billions.
The only great thing about this success story is we have only began and the birth and development of this application in its first five years is going to become the preface to the real story of Apple and iTunes because digital content is going to explode in the next 10 years. Bill Gates was quoted as saying, “Today’s competing movie disk standards (HD DVD and Blu Ray) will be the last physical formats your movies are delivered on.� That’s a bold statement but very true and when consumers choose to get their music, TV, movies and other content to their media center PCs via the internet a dozen companies will spring up in an effort to win your business but none of them will have the backbone of iTunes to pull this off.
Apple holds patents for many of its inventions and iTunes’ interface patents are ready for film and music videos are only the beginning. We are seeing the end of the iTunes Music Store and the start of an Apple Media Store where users can buy everything that QuickTime can play and put that footage on their computer, television or iPod seamlessly. 2015 may seem like years away but is planning for that year because in 2010 they would already be delivering most content via iTunes or whatever the store is called and when new standards arrive that make Blu Ray or HD DVD obsolete our fiber channel internet lines of tomorrow will be perfect for purchasing the latest Jason film or renting Seinfeld season 2 for a few days until it expires.
How wills all of this work? I think the Airport Express will soon be receiving RCA cables in all three colors to interface with your television and with Front Row on every Mac; you’ll have the ability to stream your iLife and movies to your television from 30 feet away with a Front Row interface being displayed on your TV. Even Microsoft can’t top that currently. This won’t happen tomorrow because consumers are simply not ready for it but I await the day when I can come home and on my remote hit shuffle songs and my entire house fills with music or I want to play a DVD in my living room and nursery rhymes for my sister in her room and finally play a photo slideshow streamed to one of those fancy picture frames in the bedroom all at the same time and all I’ll need it the latest Mac mini, three Airport wiMax base stations and a single Apple remote.
