Finally
January 15th, 2008 | Published in Uncategorized
This goes slightly off-topic for my blog, but the things that Apple announced today at Macworld are worthy of a note.
The ultrathin MacBook Air is pretty cool, though, in order to save space, it does not have a CD or DVD drive. If I would’ve known that Time Capsule was coming, I’d waited before I bought an Airport Extreme and another USB hard drive for backups.
But it’s the launch of online film rentals for iTunes that really caught everybody’s attention. It’s the obvious service that everybody has been waiting for, and, though some regional solutions had come up earlier, like SF Anytime in Finland and other Nordic countries, no major players had opened a fully functional online movie service before. Now Apple’s rolling out movie rentals from all the key Hollywood studios. Hopefully independent movies will soon be available too.
So iTunes got ahead of Microsoft and others again. How did they do it? Is Apple just better at signing contracts with studios than anybody else, or did the studios just not want to go with anybody than the market leader at this point?
About the author
I’m an interaction designer, information architect, strategist and creative lead, multi-skilled and versed in creative, strategy and technology. I’m also known as an electronic musician who has traveled the world from Tampere to Tokyo. I earned my experience as art director, concept designer and creative director in Scandinavia, praised for its award-hoarding digital agencies, then went on to work in the Middle East, the United States, and Canada. Currently, I work as Interaction Design Director at R/GA as well as a freelance interaction designer and information architect. My work has been awarded with national and international awards.
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