I think I got to the point a while back where I didn’t want to just talk about apple stuff anymore and I’ve hardly mentioned anything Apple related for a while, including the iphone and numerous hardware updates.
I will quickly say though that the iPhone is great but needs improvement, the iPod touch I have and think its amazing, and the new MacBook Air and subsequent MacBook updates are all great, except the MacBook got no multi-touch love which is predictable really.
On the other hand though each update seems to be less and less exciting and I just can’t see a reason for me to update my computer, which is a good thing really in terms of saving money, but its also brought on by my own change in attitude to having a powerful computer to just wanting a laptop that can do what I need, and as far as that goes, this one is going to be fine for a long while to come. Especially when you consider how slowly processor speeds and ram seem to be growing. The only thing that is exciting right now is that flash memory is getting cheaper so SSD drives are going to be commonplace and larger in the next year or two which will be nice.
Moving away from the Apple focus is what this post is about though and so after this Apple catch-up I’m going to talk about whatever comes to mind, from any company, plus whatever else is going on I want to write about.
Yesterday I heard about TV shows from some big networks being put up on iTunes UK but I forgot about it until today. It really went straight over my head as I feel like for them to be giving us this now, so late and hyping it up to be a great thing shows how they have neglected us as usual. I had some excitement when I heard about it but it was overshadowed by a feeling of “meh”. Plus of course the standard higher than the freaking DVD prices for DRM’d downloads really sucks. Whatever show you go into, you will see multiple comments saying along the lines of “why do you give us late stuff that’s more expensive?” (kind of like the PS3). But even still, it is nice to have the option of buying one or two episodes.
What’s really strange to me is that we have TV shows but no movies as of yet. If I were a betting man I would have lost because I was sure that movies would be easier to make available due to the fact that they are launched everywhere and also because I thought there would be some kind of hurdle in the form of the BBC license fee. This has turned out not to be the case and Apple are instead focusing on commercial networks that operate in the US and UK fully. The BBC, which only has a re-run channel in the US is instead focusing on it’s incredibly crap windows and IE loving iPlayer. I’ve played with the beta and I’m not being unfair. Try it yourself if you’re in the UK and you’ll see. You can’t even go to the list of shows to download without opening IE. It’s also a trumendous resource hog. If you have it running in the background like it likes to do by default, the fans in the PC go nuts. Seriously, who made that app. This might be a good time to mention that it is a beta so maybe I should hold back my criticism until the final release. Then again, there’s no way it’s going to change enough to make me like it before the final version. I might make another post on the iPlayer later when they update it.
So in summary, TV shows on iTunes is a mostly cool thing. I will download a couple of episodes of avatar and some south park and see how it goes. I’m not happy about the pricing but it was to be expected really. I am dissapointed that some seasons of shows are more expensive than the DVD box set which is unacceptable but like I said I saw it coming. I think the biggest reason why the price is dissapointing is because for the slight knock in picture quality and lack of a case for the show, the only reason to buy online rather than the DVD other than the convenience is for the price and they haven’t delivered for the most part there.
However, I still think they’ll make some money on this and people will like the ability to buy individual episodes in the same way that some people like to pick and mix itunes tracks.