Revolutionising the DVR?

I will only briefly discuss Apple’s new offerings as there are plenty of other forums with loads of conjecture. I will say that iTv is the key new hardware product that relates to the topics discussed here. Apple has always focused its consumer products on lifestyle, but has been cautious in moving too far away from what it does best: computers. The idea that a computer is an integral part of lifestyle is being publicly adopted more and more. Similarly, Apple is moving to meet the consumer half way by introducing a greater variety of lifestyle products, including phones, stereos and set top boxes. But how much Mac is too much?
There are die hard apple fans who will thoroughly kit themselves out with anything the great Steve releases, but maybe by diversifying their product line as well, they can meet broader demand.
As for the set top box, the key for the success of this product is usability and cross-platform integration. They said that the box will work with all PC’s (A result of the Intel transition) but I wonder how far Apple will go to support multiple formats and how fast they will push for HD over HDMI. Will we be able to play, DIVX, AVI. How will we rip and store DVD’s, Blu-Ray, HDDVD’s? In terms of HD and how networks can deal with Apple stealing viewers, Mark Cuban raises the point that with the limitations of HD content over IP, Networks can win the temporary battle by raising the bar on image quality. “In fact, the best way to beat Apple in this game is for cable and satellite companies to push as much content as possible to HD. The greater the expectation for HD content from consumers, the less value to consumers for downloading movies.” I would include viewing TV shows at sub broadcast resolution. The most important factor for Apple winning the race to facilitating content delivery en mass, is how soon they can provide better quality images and really take advantage of the HDMI port.
There are a lot of questions raised by this uncustomary pre-release announcement of iTv, but Apple were under pressure to let rip with their home invasion plans. Following the less than happy reception of the iPod HiFi and Nano leather cases (Why did this require a special event?), had Apple simply recovered the Nano in aluminium (necessitated by the plastic ones scratching), launched Disney films on iTunes (expected with Steve on the Board), plus other small additions, I think the reception would be underwhelming. Ultimately everything else is about the iPod. So, the inclusion of iTv marks a new era of Apple’s strategy and indeed a significant step forward in user defined content viewing.