Recent iTunes changes appear to indicate a video iPod coming

July 19, 2005

During the past few months, Apple has made several changes to its iTunes software including the introduction of Podcasts, music videos and movie trailers. The Podcast or 'Radio reborn' as Apple describes it, is Apple's way to bring radio broadcasts to the iPod for consumers to listen in their own time as with music. With the addition of movie trailers and music videos to iTunes, it appears that Apple is working on a video iPod, with some media executives predicating Apple to unveil one as early as September.

Currently iTunes offers music videos and movie trailers free of charge, although only as a stream. By offering movie trailers leads industry insiders to think that Apple is working on a movie service for the iPod. Then again, Apple is keen on promoting its QuickTime media player as well as the video features of its Mac computer series.

If Apple does plan on launching a movie service, they will have to work on an improved DRM system, especially due to how many ways its FairPlay DRM has been hacked and circumvented. Even if Apple don't succeed or plan on doing an online movie service, even a music video store would make its store more attractive due to music videos normally adding a premium to many CD albums.

To find clues, however, you need only look as far as the latest versions of the iTunes Music Store. You can't help noticing support for podcasting, or "radio reborn," as Apple puts it.

Look beyond that, and you'll notice that since May, the iTunes software has allowed you to play videos, movie trailers or even home movies. The store itself has begun selling a handful of music videos, with more being added each week.

Record label sources say Apple has been in talks to sell a much wider range of music videos through the store, probably as soon as this fall. The company also has indicated to media executives that an iPod that plays video could be unveiled as early as September. That leads some industry insiders to believe that Apple is working on an online movie store and a video playback device that does for movies what iTunes and the iPod have already done for music.

"Apple was a pioneer in digital music downloads, and Macs are great for audio and video," said Mike Homer, a longtime Silicon Valley executive and well-connected Apple alumnus. "This makes them well-positioned to introduce video on a grand scale."

The full, rather lengthy article can be read here.

In my opinion, the screens on the existing iPod series with a colour display may be too small to comfortably watch a movie on, but then again, many pocket TVs come with a similar sized screen.

If Apple do launch a video iPod series or even offer an update for existing colour screen players to support video (if fast enough), the most successful video based content would likely be music videos. With the low resolution display, a suitable music video would likely take up around 20MB, thus allowing around 1,000 music videos to fit on a 20GB player. Unlike movies, drivers and those who must focus their eyes on something else can still at least listen to the music videos as they would with other music. It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming months.

Source: ZD Net - News