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Apple: From iPod to couch potato? - May 22, 2008

Apple shareholders have had a pretty good ride lately, with hot products like the iPod and iPhone bringing in record earnings. But according to a new report from Forrester Research, shareholders eagerly anticipating the next hot product out of Cupertino could die of boredom first. The Wall Street Journal's Nick Wingfield writes up ($$) the new report this morning, which takes a crack at predicting Apple's products in 2013. Forrester's conclusion? Hit the snooze button.

Among the products Forrester foresees: wall-mounted digital picture frames featuring high-definition displays that can wireless display media stored on computer. It might even have an iPhone-like touch screen, so users can scroll through their photos with a stroke of their finger.

Also on the horizon: some kind of clock radio that streams music around a home network.

Can't wait for those. Apple, of course, declined comment.

John Seely Brown, a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California and the former director of Xerox's PARC, the Palo Alto, Calif., research center that inspired some of the innovations of the original Macintosh, told the Journal, "I see everything Steve is doing as positioning himself to take over completely the living room."

As does Media Wonk. But it won't be nearly as easy as taking over the portable music business--essentially virgin territory with a few stupefied record executives standing around waiting for someone to save them from Napster.

For one thing, everyone is trying to take over the digital living room. It's no longer virgin territory. More importantly, groups like the Digital Living Network Alliance, the Universal Plug and Play Forum, Coral and others are already well advanced in developing standards-based protocols for home networking and DRM interoperability. Apple's successes, on the other hand, have historically been based on its adherence to proprietary standards and formats and an aversion to sharing.

So far, Apple has declined to participate in any of the groups seeking to define standards for interoperability among devices and DRMs, suggesting that once again Steve Jobs is betting that Apple's design chops and uncanny ability to simplify complex technical processes will win out over the design-by-committee process.

Maybe so, but the committee is wiser to the game this time, too.
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