iTV DVR MIA

Yesterday was Apple's big September 12 "Showtime" announcement, and, as expected, Apple added movies to the iTunes Store, and unveiled some new iPods and an accompanying iTunes update. Then, Mr. Mock Turtleneck himself pulled an unlikely rabbit out of his hat, preannouncing a new product. This, even alone, is some kind of news, as Apple doesn't normally like to tip its hand so far in advance to its competitors.

In this case, I think the positives of tipping their hand to the content providers probably outweighed the negatives of tipping their hand to Microsoft, and so they did it. Fair enough; they want all these movie studios who are making insane pricing requests to understand that this is part of a larger strategy to literally deliver every type of content possible and replace Howard Stern as the new King of All Media.

So, will the iTV (which, incidentally, is just a code name, folks) help them achieve their goals of world domination? The first thing I thought when I heard this bit of news was "OMG! Yes!" In fact, if I had written this blog post right at that very moment, this would have been the post, in its entirety: "iTV! OMG! Yes!". (How the Reality Distortion Field can persist all the way through an IRC chat hosted by MacRumors, I don't know, but somehow, it does.)

Anyway, eventually, the orgasmic ecstasy subsided, and I was left with what the iTV really is: a glorified WiFi relay. That's it, in a nutshell. It's a damned elegant one, apparently, but that's basically what it appears to do...take some stream from your Mac, convert it into a digital or analog signal, and send it to a TV or stereo. Now, I don't mean to say that this isn't a Good Thing, because it most certainly is, but maybe if you understand what I really want, you will understand why I'm disappointed.

What do I really want? I want to take my DVR, DVD player, CD player, and all the assorted cables and crap that go along with them, and I want to throw them in a big pile out in the street, spray gasoline on it, light it on fire and then dance around the resultant bonfire in celebration that my living room has space again. Once all that electricity-gobbling, heat-producing crap is out of my life, I want one tiny little device, a flat panel TV, some speakers, and a cleverly concealed amplifier. Minimalism, man.

Much to my (and many other people's) chagrin, I now see that the iTV, at least in its current form as we can understand it from the pictures and descriptions, is not really capable of replacing your DVR or your DVD player. Yes, of course, there could possibly be multiple as-yet-unannounced models, or features that are not yet obvious, but on the face of it we have to assume this thing lacks a hard drive and it quite obviously lacks an optical drive. Presumably, it will be able to stream a DVD from the Mac, but do you want to walk into another room and insert a DVD? I sure as hell don't.

But, what seems to have everyone's panties in a bunch, judging by the discussions I perused, is DVR capability. Everyone (including me) wants to be able to record and archive TV. But that got me thinking...and I'm going to write this in like bold, italic text, for emphasis:

Why would Apple want to make a DVR solution when they are selling TV shows?

I found that I could not provide a satisfactory answer to that question, and that's when I got a bit depressed about my (admittedly bizarre) bonfire fantasy. Apple isn't going to provide us with the all-in-one DVR/DVD/AirPort Express device we so badly want, because their (dys)utopian future appears to revolve around a totally digital solution that is 100% pay-per-view.

The only thing Apple will lack after the iTV comes to market is some kind of streaming solution (like from outside sources...not between devices in your house) for live pay-per-view events. In short, we all want to watch our World Cups and Superbowls and Academy Awards telecasts, and once we can with Apple's solution, people really could tell Comcast and Time Warner to take a hike, and go with an all-digital solution, and Apple would have achieved their Holy Grail of Media Domination.

But if they produce a DVR box, they will only give us an incentive not to entirely jump on their bandwagon, because it adds value to current cable TV setups. So, for the time being, at least, I am convinced that we won't see a DVR from Apple.

I encourage you to prove me wrong...help me answer this central question: why would Apple want to help you download Battlestar Galactica for free when they are trying to sell it to you for $1.99?