11/01/07
11The gadget I'm most excited about
It’s been a good week for the gadget obsessed, what with CES and Macworld. I practically wet my pants about the iPhone, but there are just a few things that hold it back from the “Gadget I’m most excited about right now”. Namely, the fact that we won’t get one until the end of the year, that it won’t allow third-party applications and not knowing what the price/contract tie-in will be in the UK.
Its not Apple TV either, although I was expecting it to be. What does Apple TV give me that my Front-Row equipped Macbook and a video cable doesn’t? 40gb isn’t enough for my music and videos, so presumably the rest has to be streamed, bringing a performance hit with it? Hmm, I hoped for more functionality. Now if they included a CD/DVD drive and integration with EyeTV we’d be talking.
No, the gadget I’m most wooping about is a new bluetooth device announced by Belkin. It’s the Bluetooth Dock Adaptor
I’ve always thought that most remote controls fail the task of navigating and playing iPod music, and that the iPod itself is the best remote you’ll ever get. There have been solutions launched recently even look just like an iPod, with an LCD screen. Why bother recreating the iPod? Why not just use the iPod? Thats where this comes in.
No extra plugs, batteries or wires, just 2, small dock connected devices and you’re away.
It doesn’t stream video, but that’s less of a concern for me. Assuming there isn’t any loss of audio quality (I’ll wait for the iLounge review), the battery life of the iPod is the only real drawback. The Belkin TuneStage II will use a ‘pass through’ connector so that you can use the iPod adaptor while charging it, and I’m hoping this will have the same.
Now imagine this. Connect one of these to the dock connector on an iPhone, and navigate & play your music using the widescreen coverflow view. Now that’s what I’ve always wanted to play my music!
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Andrew said 606 days ago:
I like you don’t really see the point of the Apple TV, it does have an HDMI port which nothing else from Apple has but that’s about it really, no recording of live TV or anything. It just seems like an expensive extension to the Airport express idea – a little half hearted I thought. Besides we in the rest of the world still don’t have any iTunes store movie content yet.
Now I know that DRM is supposed to die or be replaced by something more sinister in the near future but one thing I can’t understand is why Mac users don’t make more fuss about the dire support for DRM in OSX. Sure we don’t want DRM but I’d like the choice of being able to at least watch DRM protected content. Microsoft doesn’t support the Mac with it’s media player and Apple’s fairplay is a closed format. When will I be able to see Channel 4 or 5 on demand? That’s the kind of Apple TV I really want.
Adrian said 606 days ago:
the “iPhone” has bluetooth builtin.
now imagine a bluetooth audio dongle that sits hidden in your hifi/video setup somewhere.
oh we can dream!
hang on, imagine being able to watch videos on your iTV via bluetooth…
Michael Long said 606 days ago:
I think that the Apple TV’s 40GB hard drive is bothering many people but from what I gather, it’s meant only as a buffer – for queuing up media rather than for storing it. You store your media on any of up to five computers (Windows or Mac) around the house and then stream to the Apple TV in the room with the big screen and/or home entertainment centre (or whatever rich people have in place of a telly and a Hi-Fi).
The 40GB allows big files to temporarily reside on the Apple TV so as not to hog your network bandwidth and perhaps to avioid stuttering HD content.
That said, I wish it had Eye TV capabilities and I imagine these will come eventually.
It seems to me that Apple’s strategy may become more split between “work” (X-Serve, Mac Pro, MacBook Pro) wich will continue as we know it today; and “home” which will revolve around:
* a home server (is the new Airport Extreme with network drive capabilities the first step toward a consumer server from Apple?)
* a big screen (and maybe one or two little screens/notebooks)
* the iPhone to control it all
I know I’m not the first to make these suggestions but everything that was announced on Tuesday seemed like “first steps” to a truly connected home
Jon Hicks said 606 days ago:
Good point Adrian. The Belkin blurb says its compatible with other Bluetooth equipment, so this may work without the attachment to the iPod. Or over WiFi even?
Harry Jones said 606 days ago:
The built-in bluetooth is certainly exciting for the idea of streaming audio around.
I guess we’ll just have to hope Apple builds in features like this as it looks like the iPhone won’t be open for third party developers.
James AkaXakA said 606 days ago:
Hmmmm iPhone + AirTunes…
pauldwaite said 605 days ago:
The iPhone would make a very sweet remote. Let’s hope it does. It’d make our old friend Salling Clicker look like fricking Pong.
Yup. That’s why my dream “media centre”-type thingy is a Mac mini with a 500 GB external drive and an EyeTV hooked up to my TV, now that EyeTV integrates with FrontRow. I just can’t quite justify spending around £800 on a fancy PVR at the moment, especially as we don’t have a TV aerial.
By the way, is Text
Ian Adams said 605 days ago:
I have to say that I was pretty underwhelmed by the ?tv, but I can see where it might change after a couple generations to become pretty useful.
The Belkin Bluetooth Dock Adapter is neat, but I doubt it would be the sort of thing I’d ever buy, really. That actually does make me wonder, though, if the iPhone will have AirTunes built-in or not.
stb said 605 days ago:
Too bad Belkin blows though. Every thing I ever bought from them breaks or doesn’t live up to the hype.
Johnnie Walker said 592 days ago:
Assuming you’re working at your Mac all day anyway, what makes this a better or neater solution than using an Airport Express + iTunes?
Jon Hicks said 592 days ago:
Thats just it though, I don’t want to be at a Mac all day. During the day I’m in a work environment where I can only play my music through headphones. In the evenings and weekends, I don’t want to have my laptop open just to play music – I want to get away from all that.
Plus – Airport express requires another plug, and more wires. This doesn’t need anything extra.