confusion

So Apple is going to revolutionize home media (again?) with there upcoming iTV (stand by for rename—that one is owned already.) Basically the iTV is a box to allow you to stream your digital content from your computer to your home entertainment system. But Apple is taking baby steps. I think they need to get up and run.

There are few things that I would like to see Apple do:

1. Think big!
   Apple recently added a 24 inch iMac to the line up but I would like to see them go bigger. How about a 30 inch or even 36?
2. I hord data
   Now that we have a bigger screen on our iMac we have a lot of extra room down below the screen where the guts of the system are. Lets use it! Memory is cheap. Give me more, say 1 or 1.5 terabytes. Yea that’s good. We’ll need it.
3. It’s all about the Connectivity
   While we’re at it lets add a few things to the back of that iMac:
   • 2 HDMI inputs
   • Component video
   • Optical audio
   • Stereo phonos audio
   • Coaxial input
4. Even better I’d put them on the stand of the iMac rather than the back of the screen as the wire hanging down bother me. (Oh yea, put a firewire 800 port or two on the iMac too!)
5. iPause
   Time to add some functionality to Frontrow. Great program but we need to add a TV function so we can use that Coaxial imput to watch TV. And while we’re at it lets add a good DVR function too.
6. Control
   To pull it all together we need to update that dinky little Apple remote we use to control Frontrow. We have a TV and DVR in the system now so we need a full scale TV/DVR remote. Maybe it can still magnetically mount to the side of the system maybe not. Who cares, you’re going to lose it between the sofa cushions anyway.

Now we have a great system. Who needs a TV? If Apple packages the thing with a wireless keyboard and a wireless mighty mouse it’s the first real all-in-wonder digital home entertainment center.

But is the world ready to use a computer as their main entertainment hub in the living room? I don’t know, but I am. I want one. Take note Steve.

Five years on and what have we learned?
Nothing.

Five years on and is anyone any safer?
No.

Five years on and has anything changed?
Everything.
Nothing.

After close to four years since my last move I have changed jobs. Why? I decided it was time to move on, enough said.

My new job is still in Singapore –thats good since I am going to be married here in a few months– and it’s still in the same industry. It’s going to be a real challenge as it’s a move up the responsibility ladder but at least it’s a new challenge. It should be fun too. Anyway. I don’t like to talk too much about work on this site so I’ll leave it at that.

After paying $15 million for the exclusive rights to show the World Cup in Singapore the local cable monopoly screwed it all up. Sure all the games were on but the entire episode was a dismal example of how monopolies screw things up from the outset.

First off Starhub should get it’s various groups together to talk about strategy. With less than a week to go in the World Cup Starhub started advertising it’s Smart TV—a DVR. Whoever thought it was a good idea to wait until now should be fired. Half this football mad country should have pushed, prodded and stampeded to to get a DVR before the World Cup if it had been advertised correctly. “Get your Smart TV from Starhub and pause the game when the delivery guy shows up!” I can’t imagine a better time to sell this kind of thing to people than just before the biggest TV event of all. Fire the moron who made that decision.

Second. Starhub provided four channels to watch the world cup on. But even when there were two games on at the same time they only showed one of them on these special channels and they showed the others on some premium channels that somehow were not included in the pay-per-view price of the special channels. When I got up at 3 AM to watch a US game I ended up watching someone else because I don’t subscribe to the over-priced premium sports channels. This must be the only cable provider since the early ’90’s that does not include ESPN as basic cable—this is what government supported monopolies do. Morons.

Finally. Lets revisit these four special channels. There was also an option for the digital cable subscribers to watch the game in a ‘multi-view’ where the four special channels were shown on the same screen. Now instead of using every inch of screen real estate to make this something worth watching the geniuses at Starhub came up with a layout that made the player look like ants, only using 60% of the screen for the windows showing the four channels and reserving the rest of the screen not for advertising—there was a grateful lack of that except for a small Starhub World Cup logo—but instead for nothing. Just a crappy green background. The guy who designed that should get in trouble for wasting my time.

Talk about three ways to screw up a great opportunity. Show your customers you don’t appreciate them and screw up a marketing bonanza.