There's More to the Apple/Intel Deal Than Even Bob Thought At First
By Robert X. CringelyIt will be interesting to see which consumer electronics giant is the first to lock up rights to Microvision's new LED-based architecture for HDTV wearable devices. Apple is as good a guess as any...!
There's this expression, "Waiting for the second shoe to drop." It means that a first clue is often followed by a second clue that gives more information about what's happening. Lots of us use the expression, but where does it come from?
Shoes are dropping all over, in this case concerning a story I thought we had finished with: Apple and Intel. You see, IBM announced its new dual-core PowerPC processors a few days ago, and they pretty much contradict much of what Steve Jobs was saying about how he'd compared IBM's processor timeline with Intel's, and frankly, they simply didn't compare. IBM's G5 dual cores look easily comparable to Intel's Pentium Ds, both in terms of computing power and electrical power consumption. So what's really up?
Another shoe fell recently with the announcement of Intel's investment in actor Morgan Freeman's online movie distribution startup, ClickStar. Here is the most important part of that announcement: "The company's strategy is to provide the marketing and distribution expertise required to enable the release of first-run films before they're released on DVD and delivered directly to Intel's digital home entertainment devices."
What digital home entertainment devices would these be?
I've looked and can't find any. Sure, Intel has plenty of information on its Digital Home web site about digital home entertainment products from its many hardware OEMs, but there is very little you can buy right now under the Intel brand name.
Apple of course has said it isn't doing a Video iPod. To suddenly change their mind is nothing new: They'd describe it as the technology finally coming along to the point where it can finally support a video device that meet's Apple's high quality standards. But I don't think that's clever enough for Apple.
This week, France Telecom's wireless unit Orange SA announced that it was buying 230,000 video headsets so customers could look like Levar Burton and watch movies on their 3G mobile phones. The stereo headsets plug in to the mobile phones. Video quality isn't very good at 320-by-240 (hey, that's precisely NerdTV quality!), but what about a higher resolution display, possibly a retinal scan display, for the Video iPod? It's the only way to extend Apple's "Year of HD" to its tiniest platform.
Nearly all of the retinal scan patents are held by Bothell, Washington-based Microvision, a company I have written about in the past. And from the look of the SEC filings, a lot is happening up there in Bothell. As always I have no insider information at all, but it wouldn't surprise me if Apple introduced a super-high-capacity iPod and a separate retinal-scan display. It will be aimed at the very high end of the price scale, just like the Apple Cinema Display originally cost $4,000 for what now costs less than $1,000. The retinal scan display won't be cheap, but it will be cool, and it will be some permutation of HD, too.
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