Live Streaming - OMG!

Well that came out of the blue!

Apple will be streaming their special event this evening - who'd have thought it!

It's something we've all been wishing for ages, but not something I thought would actually happen. The amount of buzz generated by the live blogging during an Apple event is considerable and something I thought Apple might wish to continue. In hindsight, the live streaming may well cause even more buzz!

They have to do it right of course.

Many people are commenting on the fact that this may be in reaction to the problems caused at WWDC, where the number of MiFi units in the room caused the WiFi to have problems, upsetting Steve's demo. It's possible of course, but highly unlikely this development would be in response to that minor hiccup. Even with the live stream, there'll still be lot's of people live blogging, to service all those unable to watch the live stream, so plenty of MiFis in the room.

The enabling technology for the streaming is "Apple's industry-leading HTTP Live Streaming, which is based on open standards".

Unfortunately (well, unfortunate for some!), the open standard has not been adopted by all vendors (yet?) so the audience will be slightly limited. Only those with access to a Mac running Snow Leopard or an iPhone or iPod Touch running iOS 3.0 or higher, or an iPad. Interestingly, you won't be able to stream to an existing Apple TV.

So the event is limited to the very group of people who would be most interested in the live keynote and announcements - How very shortsighted of you Apple - NOT!

So why have Apple taken the "risky" decision to live stream the event then?

Well you can bet it's not just to please the Apple fans. No, Apple always do things that are self serving and in their own interests. There are a couple of theories currently:

Bringing the billion dollar datacenter online:
Possibly, perhaps one of the core reasons to build the datacenter in the first place was to provide streaming services. I would have thought they'd need to build a distributed infrastructure to do this though, rather than a huge monolithic datacenter?

Demonstrating Streaming Capabilities:
More likely, they have a product (or suite of products) that feature streaming heavily. In order to demonstrate that streaming video or music to a wide audience is possible, scalable and effective (using their HTTP streaming service), what better way than to actually use it in a live situation. This pre-supposes that they've sized their network capacity correctly and planned intensively with partners to ensure a brilliant user experience. They can't fail tonight or it would be a major PR disaster. But what product might utilise streaming technology...

Launch of iTV:
Up until the streaming announcement, I was pretty sure that we wouldn't see this being launched today. For the uninitiated, this is the fabled low cost ($99), iOS powered device that connects to your TV but has limited local storage. The idea being that the majority of your content is stored in the cloud (let's say in a big assed, billion dollar datacenter) and is pushed down to you on demand. Hopefully, there would also be a way to access local storage as well from say your Mac or an external drive. My original thoughts were that this would be a purely Music related event with the launch of some products you might expect (see below).

It still may be!

But the live streaming certainly adds an extra dimension to the event, something I hope Apple will continue to do for all future events.

We shall see in a few short hours...

Predictions for the Event?
I wasn't going to bother but seeing as the streaming has made me write this blog post, here we go...

iPod shuffle and Nano

• Combining them to a single new form factor based on the square LED unit doing the rounds

iPod Touch

• A4 processor
• 3G Option
• Gyroscope
• No memory bumps - 64GB still the max
• Retina display
• Camera Options - Torn between two scenarios. Either:
• Single FaceTime camera - To keep costs down, They may have just a single backward facing camera for FaceTime. Want two cameras - get an iPhone!
• iPhone Camera configuration - Might be too expensive or not provide enough differentiation between the iPod touch and the iPhone

iPod Classic

• No updates but still available

Apple iTV
OK, completely out on a limb with this one!

• Super Slim
  
• Unibody construction- like a wafer thin Mac Mini
• HDMI Out
• iOS powered
• Full 720p resolution
• Wired or Wireless Ethernet
• No remote - uses iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch
• Can buy a standard Apple Remote as an extra
• 8 or 16GB local storage for Apps and Games
• Games can use mobile iOS devices as controller
• Launch of iTV App store with some apps already available
  
• Huge push towards big screen gaming
  
• Local storage expandable via USB
• Local iTunes Streaming

iPad

• Description of huge sales and major success
• Perhaps a view of iOS 4.1 for iPad plus release date

Comments

[Christian]

I am not sold on the event being that big... But I would love your predictions to be true. :)

I don't know why, but the picture on the invitation points me to a mind-blowing new GarageBand app within a new iLife suite.

I am not so sure, if we will see an iTV yet... After all, wasn't this supposed to be the "little" Music event? :)

[Carl]

I'm ready for Apple TV to transform from Steve's "hobby" to a mainstream content delivery device.

I'm done with traditional "by appointment" broadcast and cable. Cable's "On Demand" is so limited - usually something like the lastest 5 episodes. To me, on demand means your whole content library is available to me for viewing when I want - not just the 5 latest episodes.

Hey, that's what you do, Don! :) Your whole ScreecastOnline library is available for a very modest fee. I can watch any ScreencastOnline episode when I want and when I need to. That's the model network and cable TV need to follow.

In one podcast episode that I did with Rodney Charters (director of photography for Fox TV's 24), he made the comment that went something like this: "by-appointment TV is dead." Well, it may not be completely dead yet, but the business model is rapidly changing.

I'm hoping that the iWhatever from Apple is one more nail in that old business model.

Don, great work with the screencasts and I love checking in on your observations here and the occasional TWiT Cottage appearance.

[Paul Franz]

Here is the one thing about the live streaming. If it is the "One More Thing" and it fails, Apple can decide to drop it from the presentation. If it succeeds they can bring it up. I am sure Apple will be monitoring the 'Net to see if there are complaints (other than the obvious ones that it does not work on their computer). Because everybody knows that if there are problems Twitter will be ablaze, along with other social networks.

[colinc]

Don, how is this streaming of HD movies going to work in the UK with the abysmal broadband service we have here? I know you have a squillion megabit cable connection, but for many folk a 2mb connection is the best they can get. Down here in Devon I am on an 8mb service using a line rated by BT at 6.5mb which during the day usually runs at 2 - 4 mb, with very little likelihood of that ever getting any better.