cringely posted an interesting speculation about how apple and blockbuster could get together and make some money with an ipod video player that you could take to a kiosk in-store and load up with movies, then return home and plug into the tv. i am tempted to throw some money at BBI (look at that ugly chart). it wouldn’t really be investing at this point, more like a turnaround gamble. looking at that chart you think, well how much lower can it go? and the answer there is … to zero.
still, it’s a compelling idea…and the product and service would obviate the need for most people to adopt HD-DVD or blu-ray. why buy an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player when you could have a sexier ipod variant that does the same thing, and is rewritable?
while the future is inevitably going to be movie downloads, there is a need for an interim delivery system. not enough households have ripping fast internet connections. the frontrunners are the physical disc formats, but if things play out the way cringely is suggesting, i bet i know which way the consumer will go…. and yes, apple could possibly do this on their own, but doing it with blockbuster would be the fastest and easiest way to “walmart” the tech.
[some more coverage / opining over on slashdot]
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