The new gear

Posted by Pierre Igot in: iTunes, Macintosh
October 12th, 2005 • 5:55 pm

You all know about the new gear and software announced today (new iMac G5 with built-in iSight and Photo Booth software, remote control and Front Row software; iTunes 6 with digital TV downloads, and new iPods with video support).

It’s mostly evolutionary—as opposed to revolutionary—stuff (except maybe for the digital TV downloads; we shall see). I don’t think watching TV on a (relatively) small iMac screen is a realistic option in most living rooms, but I guess that, with the S-Video/Composite adapter, you can probably get a decent TV viewing experience with a standard CRT TV. We’re still far from the “media centre for the rest of us” kind of experience that will eventually have to happen, with built-in PVR software and support for HDTV. Maybe this is a good first step. (And maybe the next generation of the iMac G5 will finally come with a DVI or HDMI port to hook up to a HDTV set.)

But there is at least one piece of very good news that I’d like to mention: unlike the new iTunes 5/6, the new iPod and the new iMac still feature round corners with the proper radius.

I do realize that changing plastic molds is a tiny bit more challenging than changing a window theme in a piece of software, so there’s no guarantee that it won’t happen later on. But for now round corners are still relatively safe, and the Windows-inspired ugliness is still limited to iTunes itself.

And that, in this brutal, angular, ugly world, is good news indeed.


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