m2cw – my 2 cents worth

food for thought and discussion: if the apple tv is nothing but a stationary ipod (which basically steve jobs said during his keynote), then i wonder where the dock connector is.

well, you might say, it doesn’t need one as it is always connected. correct, i respond, but the ipod’s dock connector is not only used for syncing and connecting it to your computer is primarily used by heards of people to connect the ipod to a myriad of third party tools/gadgets etc.

at the same time the apple tv has a USB interface nobody really understands so far.

so here’s a thought: has anybody ever considered that this usb interface could be a “dock connector” in disguise? if so, it would mean that third party devices could be connected to the apple tv!

just a couple of ideas spring to mind: DVR (digital video recorder), direct camera connection, video conferencing system, karaoke systems (not my favorite), stream music to other stereos in the house, etc. etc. etc.

now that would be COOL! (and i think that’s what it is…)

(remember: my track record with predicting these kind of things hasn’t been all that bad… ;-))

steve jobs essay on DRM and music has stirred up quite some dust in the blogoshpere.

here’s an especially interesting article from someone in the music industry

more to come…

yesterday, steve jobs published a very rare open letter on his “thoughts on music”, which covered the issue of DRM in music.

here are three thoughts/predictions i’m having (incl. links where those have been inspired):

1. apple will start becoming its own label (inspired by this comment on macalope): with the beatles/apple fight out of the way and apple now owning the “apple” brand (and licensing it to the beatles for their apple records) it could really mean that apple will start becoming its own label and as such selling DRM-free music on itunes. this would be huge as it would be in direct competition to the big four (sony/bmg, emi, universal and warner).

2. apple might start selling drm-free indie label music soon: despite becoming its own label apple could start pushing the four big labels by selling unsigned artists (as outlined here. this way jobs would put his money where his mouth is…

3. if the labels follow jobs, he might have just killed podshow’s business case with podsafe music… (i’m really looking forward to adam curry’s thoughts on this)

only time will tell…

update: adam curry’s thoughts are very, very good and right on the money! (listen to DSC #541). he pretty much follows this argument