I was very interested yesterday to see Boxee roll out its home entertainment software platform to the masses. Now, I am nothing if not a man of the people, and so immediately seized the opportunity to download and to play around with my new toy… Meh… This isn’t the place for a review, and I’m no Walt Mossberg. Boxee, on the other hand, is no Android phone, and I don’t think this product is going to take the market by storm soon. That’s just me, and I could be wrong. I probably am. But even its supporters would (I think) agree that the product is not quite mass market ready. As always, there will be enthusiastic adoption by the web x.0 hipsters, and maybe that’s all that is necessary to call this thing a success. I wouldn’t know, and anyway the service is free of charge, so there will undoubtedly be lots of downloads. But the thought crosses my mind that, when an entertainment product designed optimally for television viewing is rolled out with almost no television content, there has been a rush to market. In order to capture the CES headlines? Possibly. Let’s hold this thought for a moment.
Another interesting piece of news caught my attention yesterday. The popular tech and media journals picked up a real gold nugget of intelligence that Apple has filed a patent for new touch-screen technology. Admittedly, most if not all of these reporters have no understanding at all of what this new technology means or does… but it must be related to the upcoming tablet! Hold the digital presses! Perhaps, with its new slate device, Apple will introduce a super touch-screen system, perhaps a mere glance at the volume button will make the song better! The possibilities are endless… and maybe in 3-D! Earlier in the day, or the day before, there was some discussion around the blogosphere about Apple’s system of controlled leaks to the press. Could this touch-screen patent rigmarole have been one such example? Perhaps. Let’s hold this thought for a moment.
I am beginning to think, more and more, that the Apple tablet fanfare encouraged by Apple’s PR machine is a smokescreen. I have tried very hard, and while my imagination is limited, for the life of me I can’t think of what could possibly be so hugely innovative about a small laptop with an on-screen keyboard, or a big iPod Touch that needs to be rested on a flat surface, depending on how you look at it.
On the other hand, what would be monumentally disruptive, what would shake up the media sector with a vengeance and create a new consumption standard much like the iPod did a few years back and the iPhone a few years after, would be a new Apple television product. I’m having visions of a universal à la carte system much like iTunes in music, or Netflix in movies, but combining both, and adding television programming for good measure. I’m having visions of a subscription service that, delivered via the AppleTV box, will allow consumers to access this content for a fraction of the current cable bill, and in a high-quality Apple-standard design environment. I’m having visions that all the networks and other television programming sources who are not a part of the pending Comcast/NBC alliance will rush headlong to Apple. Eventually, NBC also.
Would this not make us forget the tablet in a hurry? Would this not make Boxee an amusing subplot? Would Boxee not want to insert itself as a standard (usable with AppleTV) before the super-announcement happens? And would it not behoove Apple to turn our collective attention way over to the left if the new thing that is truly disruptive is being readied on the right? Oh, I don’t know, maybe the hype is getting to me too. Let’s hold these thoughts for a moment, and move on.
