Eeny, Meeny, Chili-Beany, the Columnist is about to Speak

First published April 13, 2004

By C. W. Oberleitner

Our guy on the West Coast, C. W. Oberleitner, has been gazing into his crystal ball. Not surprisingly, Chuck has had visions of everything from the future of Apple Computer to the efforts to oust Michael Eisner.

After weeks of chasing Roy Disney, Michael Eisner, and company from coast to coast and back again, I decided it was time to stop and take some time off. I used this time to do my taxes, clean out my office, and wade through the inboxes I use to keep track of newsworthy items from newsgroups around the Net.

I ran across a small item from MacCentral, dated March 10, that said:

Apple Computer Inc. made it known on Wednesday that they have plans for the upcoming National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show being held in Las Vegas, Nevada next month. In an invitation sent to select media, including MacCentral, Apple said they would be having a special event on Sunday, April 18, 2004.

"Moving pictures. Moving sound. Moving the industry," says the invitation Apple sent today. "Please join Apple for a special presentation at NAB 2004 to see the latest Apple technology."

The phrase "select media" caught my attention. I immediately went to my primary inbox to check for my invitation. Much to my surprise, it wasn't there. Must be new hires in Apple public relations, I thought to myself.

Last year, Apple used NAB to rollout the latest versions of its high-end media software, DVD Studio Pro 2, Final Cut Pro 4, and Shake 3. With the possible exception of those readers who work in film and video editing, other than Shake's contribution, via New Zealand's WETA Digital, as the main film compositing system used to manage visual effects for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, there wasn't much there of interest to JHM readers.

Nevertheless, attending this year's Apple NAB announcement would mean a trip to Las Vegas. On behalf of JHM, I dashed off an e-mail to Apple PR asking to cover the event. While waiting for their response, I did a little digging to see what Apple might have behind the current for an event cryptically titled "Moving pictures. Moving sound. Moving the industry."

Signs and Portents

Apple Computer, Inc. is very tightlipped about its plans for future products and services. Ever since Steve Jobs’ return to Apple as CEO, the company has successfully surprised its customers and the media with a string of totally unexpected new products and services. That having been said, Apple media watchers have become very adept at interpreting Apple's actions in the marketplace and making some very good, and some not so good, educated guesses as to what the Cupertino computer maker might be ready to roll out.

The safest bet for what may be coming next from Apple is the latest rev of its advanced digital compositing application Shake. Acquired in February 2002, when Apple purchased Shake's original developer, Nothing Real, Shake has gone on to become an industry standard for digital compositing. According to Apple:

Shake has been used on so many feature films—including the last seven Academy Award winners for Best Visual Effects—and is required courseware at so many major film schools worldwide, that listing its credits would require several pages.

It is expected that sometime during NAB, Apple will release details about Shake 3.5. This next version of Shake, which currently retails for $4,950, is expected to include new "Morpher" and "Warper" nodes and improvements in QuickTime integration, playback caching, and shape drawing.

For a more technical overview of Apple's possible planned announcement of Shake 3.5, check out this story at AppleInsider.

While most Apple watchers seem to agree that Shake 3.5 will debut at this year's NAB show, they remain conflicted about a .5 upgrade meriting a special announcement in the ballroom of the Venetian hotel. Then there is the matter of the event name, "Moving pictures. Moving sound. Moving the industry." It just seems to imply something…well, bigger. Besides that, to get budget approval from Jim for a "working" weekend in Las Vegas, I'm going to need something more than "advanced digital compositing."

A further search of Apple- and Mac-related news and information sites turned up a few facts that Apple watchers managed to spin into more than one fanciful theory.

On March 24, various Apple-centric websites began reporting that Apple had begun warning its reseller channel and dealers to expect a product dry spell around early April. In the past, such warnings usually preceded the introduction of new Macs.

Speculative stories, quoting unnamed sources, soon began to appear around the web saying that Apple would use the April 18 event to announce new, and presumably more powerful, G5 systems, or possibly the rollout of a more powerful G5/Shake 3.5 dedicated workstation. Still others began speculating on a performance boost to Apple's highly successful line of PowerBook and iBook laptop computers. Some disagreed with these ideas, noting that they came on the heels of the close of Apple's fiscal year and, therefore, ran the risk of skewing profits and budgets.

Each of these theories has merit but still lacks the "wow" factor the Apple faithful have come to expect from Cupertino. Among the main stream of Apple centric websites, no one was able to come up with a good, new product theory that really played off well against the event's title.

Desperation setting in, it was now time to consult the somewhat less than mainstream Apple-related newsgroups. Theories about what Apple may or may not have in its R&D vaults, put forward by some of the folks on these lists, make the Lone Gunmen of X-Files fame look like the New York Times editorial board of review. And, once again, they seem to have risen to the occasion.

Just the Facts, Ma'am

Rather than applying a historical perspective to an examination of Apple's recent business practices and coming up with a logical, probable outcome, newsgroup posters seem to prefer to create a theory that fits the circumstances. In this instance, most theorists I read appear to have chosen to plumb the depths of the event's title—Moving pictures. Moving Sound. Moving the industry.—and its timing—the day before the opening of the NAB show—for inspiration when coming up with ideas for what Apple might be about to unveil.

The fascinating thing about these ideas is, regardless of how fanciful they may be, they sound downright plausible and logical.

The first such theory begins by reminding people what Steve Jobs had to say about the iPod and iTunes Music Store's remarkable market share during his keynote address at last January's MacWorld Expo in San Francisco. Unlike the Mac, the iPod and iTunes Music store lead their respective markets by wide margins. According to the Apple faithful, brother Jobs intends to keep it that way, hence the unveiling of the iPod Mini at that show. The iPod Mini was designed to give Apple the same dominance in the low end of the digital media player market that the iPod enjoyed at the high end.

Continuing to follow the breadcrumb trail of logic toward next Sunday's Apple event at the Venetian, this guess of what's to be announced stops for a brief moment to recall a series of mid-March news reports. In a report titled "Microsoft 'iPod killer' to launch this year," Reuters reported that:

The gadgets will run on Microsoft's yet-to-be-unveiled Portable Media Center software in a direct assault on iPod, Apple Computer Inc.'s hot-selling digital music player.

Working with a host of manufacturing partners, Microsoft is introducing a device that plays movies and stores digital photos as well as songs in a bid to grab a share of the fast-growing digital media player market.

The device will be released in Europe first, in time for the all-important fourth quarter sales. Because of higher than expected demand in the U.S., Apple recently curtailed plans to begin selling the new iPod Mini in Europe.

Our theorists coupled Steve Jobs statements about the iPod's market share with an open threat from Microsoft to release an "iPod killer." Next, they wrapped it around the Moving pictures. Moving Sound. Moving the industry. event title and came up with the iPod Media Center.

The iPod Media Center, according to theory, will be slightly larger than the current 20 and 40GB iPods. Its form factor will see its interface turned 45 degrees from horizontal to vertical. The current 2" (diagonal) grayscale LCD with LED backlight screen will be replaced with a full color "mini cinema display" LCD approximately 4" across.

The new device, presumably, will be able to play both music and movies. And, of course, to be able to acquire your own personal movie library, the iTunes Music Store will be expanded to include the new iTunes Video Store. Customers of the iTunes Store will be able to download—hopefully over cable or DSL—high-quality MP4 movies and video programs "on demand." Movies and video would be stored locally on the user’s Mac and replayed anywhere, anytime on the new iPod Media Center.

But wait, there's more! As the theory goes, Apple, better than Microsoft and other purveyors of video on demand, understands that consumers want more than just inexpensive, easy on-line access to movies and video. They want to be able to play movies on their own home theatre systems. So, the iPod Media Center will ship with an S-Video Out dock that will allow users to hook their iPod Media Centers up to televisions and home theatres and enjoy high-quality—maybe even high-def—video complete with surround sound.

A theoretical device like the iPod Media Center would require a lot of bandwidth to get high-quality video and audio off a Mac and on to the iPod. Most video downloads, even over DSL or cable modems, will take hours, and are expected to take place unattended at night. Its not likely users will be willing to wait an additional forty minutes to an hour for their movies to upload to the iPod Media Center.

To that criticism, the progenitors of the iPod Media Center theory have responded by pointing out that for nearly a year now newer Macs have been shipping with very high-speed FireWire 800 ports. FireWire 800 literally has twice the data transfer capacity of FireWire 400 used by the current generation of iPods. The iPod Media Center is expected to be Apple's first FireWire 800 device.

You just have to love the whole iPod Media Center theory. It fits the moving pictures, sound, and industry thing so well that one is almost compelled to expect its arrival this coming Sunday at the Venetian. Of course, this theory is not without its flaws. NAB is a high-end industry show. Unlike the Consumer Electronics Showcase (CES), also held each year in Las Vegas, it's not known for introducing as consumer-oriented a device and service as the iPod Media Center and iTunes Video Store.

This brings us to SWAG theory two, which is a variation on the iPod Media Center, iTunes Video Store theory. It has its roots way back in November 2003, in a column written by PBS.org columnist Robert X. Cringely.

In that column, Mr. Cringely postulates that Apple may be ready to announce a "tablet" Macintosh computer during the January 2004 MacWorld Expo. This did not happen; however, that fact has not deterred Apple theorists from speculating that Apple was and is, in fact, about to announce new products and services based on technology referenced by Mr. Cringely in his column:

What's needed is a (wireless) networking technology optimized for video transport. One has been in the works for sometime, and down at the IEEE, they call it 802.15.3, and this is where I believe Apple sees opportunity…

…802.15.3 looks to be the first Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) networking technology used by folks who aren't spies and secret agents.

For the rest of us, 802.xx.xx technology is the stuff that enables you to use your computer to wirelessly surf the Net at your local coffee house or airport concourse. According to one segment of the Apple theorist community, Apple will use 802.15.3 technology in its popular AirPort Extreme WiFi cards and base stations, the new product, for lack of a better name, to be called Airport Really Extreme (ARE).

Theoretically, the new UWB ARE would replace the iPod Media Center from the previous theory. It would allow users to beam downloaded movies, via an ARE card in their Macs, to an UWB ARE base station connected to the home theatre. To make this practical, UWB ARE would also rely on the expansion of the current iTunes Music Store to include video.

The UWB ARE base station theory also fits in nicely with Apple's moving pictures theme. And, as with the previous theory, suffers from the same drawback of being more consumer-oriented than most products announced at NAB.

All will be revealed sometime next Sunday April 18, when Apple finally takes the wraps off this mysterious event. I did, however, get an indication of just what that announcement may be when I received a response to my request to cover the event. The manager of public relations for Apple's Pro Applications group signed the confirmation welcoming JHM to the event. The Pro Applications group is responsible for developing and promoting Shake.

Epilogue

While completing the final searches for all things Apple, Mac, iPod, and Jobs for this story, a couple of items popped up. First, as Jim reported yesterday, the New York Post is running a story that says Steve Jobs, in his other job as CEO of Pixar Animation, is offering the Disney board of directors a huge carrot in an effort to get them to act on last month’s 43% NO vote on Michael Eisner. Basically, he said he would bring Pixar back into the fold if they dump Mike.

Next, running a search of the web and my local drives for "mini iPod" a link to an instant message from a buddy of mine in the themed entertainment industry popped up. He and a team of friends had won the scavenger hunt at the previous weekend's "mini" GayDay held at the Disneyland Resort (DLR).

In his message, my friend, talked about the sea of red shirts worn by GayDays participants all around the resort that weekend. He went on to say the SaveDisney.com people ought to do the same thing with their blue SaveDisney.com "bring back the magic" t-shirts. In the spirit of full disclosure, earlier that same week I suggested virtually the same thing to Roy Disney and Stanley Gold.

This coming weekend, the Walt Disney Company board of directors is expected to hold a retreat at the DLR. I suggested to Messer's Disney and Gold that they encourage their supporters to visit the DLR, the weekend of April 16 thru 18, wearing their blue SaveDisney.com t-shirts and buttons.

The Board is expected to be staying in the Grand Californian hotel in Downtown Disney. The lobby of the Grand Californian would be an ideal place for SaveDisney.com loyalists to meet up with one another and compare notes.

But hey, what do I know? I'm going to Vegas that weekend!

C’ya real soon!