last100 has an excellent post analyzing comments about the upcoming AppleTV, made by Steve Jobs at yesterday’s D5 event.
ÄúWeÄôre in two businesses today, weÄôll very shortly be in three, and a hobbyÄ?, AppleÄôs CEO Steve Jobs told Walt Mossberg in an on-stage interview at yesterdayÄôs D: conference. The first two are computers and digital music (iPod/iTunes), and the third will be the cell phone market which Apple will enter next month with the launch of the iPhone. And the hobby? The companyÄôs recently released set-top-box, the AppleTV.
Jobs demonstrated AppleTV capabilities like watching YouTube videos streamed directly from the Internet. The company had lots of other ideas for the AppleTV, he said, including pulling in other content from the Internet.
YouTube on AppleTV; pic by whatcounts
Interestingly, RealNetworks also announced today that their users can download YouTube videos onto the RealPlayer. According to Webware, the player allows users to download and organize nearly all embedded internet video content (Flash, WMV, QuickTime) including content from popular video sites like YouTube. However, funnily enough, you won’t be able to export your downloaded video content to an iPod-compatible format.
In conceiving the AppleTV, Jobs said that for a long while the company wanted to produce a set-top-box, but didn’t want to have to deal with the Cable companies, and the different technical standards required to do so. It just didn’t make sense. Then he realized that there were a lot more DVD players in existence than traditional set-top-boxes.
“… we just want to be a new DVD player for the Internet age. And that’s what we can be. So our model for the Apple TV is like a DVD player for the Internet.”
Check out more coverage of D5 on our sister site, last100.
Images by whatcounts
