Apple, Inc. (note that they've dropped the word "Computer" from their name) today unveiled two new devices. First was Apple TV, a device that allows you to easily display content from your computer on your television. Formerly called iTV, Apple TV misses for the following two reasons:
1) Price. At $299 it's more than half the price of a basic Mac mini, yet it has only a 40 GB hard drive and it can only output 720p. A bottom-end Mac mini has a 60 GB hard drive and can output 1080p.
2) Functionality: It doesn't support AC3, so there's no surround sound capability. So, that big collection of DVDs you've ripped to your hard drive won't play in anything other than boring two-channel stereo.
No thanks, Apple TV; I'll pay a little extra for a Mac mini to get surround sound at 1080p.
The second device Apple introduced was the iPhone, which takes the power of Apple's operating system (OS X) and combines it with a global phone and an internet communicator to jump far beyond Blackberries and Treos. You have to see the video to appreciate how well Apple executed the integration of the software and hardware to overcome the significant usability issues that every other device on the market suffers from. (And, with around 200 patents covering just this device, I doubt any other manufacturer on the planet will be able to compete for a decade.)
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