Steve Jobs Reveals 2007 ITV Plans
Posted on September 20, 2006
Engadget reported on Steve Jobs' announcement of the ITV during its liveblog of the press conference. Jobs made the announcement after saying "one last thing" at the end of the conference. The ITV will be a device released in 2007 that plays video and connects wirelessly to the Internet where you can download iTunes movies and videos. Macworld says that ITV looks like a "squat Mac Mini."
Jobs described the forthcoming $299 set-top box as "completing the package" of Apple's multimedia offerings. Users can download music, TV programs, and now movies from the iTunes Store. They can watch those multimedia files on both their Macs and iPods. However, there's no easy way of watching such programming on their television sets-Jobs sees iTV as the key piece of that puzzle.Still missing from Apple's iPod revolution is a phone and gaming console. The ITV looks like an attempt to replace the portable DVD player.Resembling a squat Mac Mini, the iTV will use wireless networking to stream movies and TV shows from iTunes to a television. The power supply is built right in to the unit; it also features USB 2.0, Ethernet, High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) plug, component video, analog audio and optical audio interfaces.
In demonstrating iTV to the press at a Tuesday event in San Francisco, Jobs scrolled through menus for movies, TV shows, photos, and podcasts using an Apple remote. Floating artwork-movie posters for the Movie menu or album art for Music, for example-appears on the left-hand side of the screen while a list of titles appears on the right.
Because iTV connects wireless to the Internet, it can also show movie trailers from Apple's Web site.
