Steve Jobs may no longer consider Blu-ray "a bag of hurt", with developer versions of iTunes indicating upcoming Blu-ray support.
Apple shipped updated iPhone 3.0 beta software to developers this week, bundling with it pre-release copy of iTunes 8.2. A copyright notice in the About iTunes window now includes a reference to Blu-ray media.
To date Apple has refrained from offering Blu-ray drives with Mac computers, plus refused to add Blu-ray movie compatibility to Mac OS 10. Instead it has introduced high-definition (720p) video content to the iTunes store, for playback in iTunes or on the Apple TV media player. Reports indicate the new NVIDIA-based Apple Macs offer MPEG-4 H.264 hardware acceleration for content downloaded from the iTunes store - although Apple has been reluctant to confirm this.
Last October, Apple head honcho Steve Jobs referred to Blu-ray and its licensing conditions as "a bag of hurt", yet Jobs has a history of downplaying technologies before Apple embraces them. If Blu-ray support is introduced it will most likely be at the upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference, held in San Francisco in June, where Apple is also expected to reveal further details of Mac OS 10.6 "Snow Leopard" and the iPhone 3.0 software update.
