Mike Coyle’s Weblog

So I guess I’ll jump on the September 12th “Showtime” Event rumor bandwagon. This is pure speculation.

I’ve had a MacBook for several weeks now, and I love it for all the typical reasons (it’s fast, runs Parallels, etc.), but there is one thing that has bugged me since the night I opened the box:

With all of their industrial design and packaging acumen, why would Apple bundle a remote control with a laptop that has a 13″ screen?

Sure, you could run the video out of the laptop to a TV. But when you paint the picture of a laptop sitting on the floor in front of a TV, tethered to both the wall (for power) and to the TV (for video), it comes across as, well, very un-Apple-like.

Tonight, I’m willing to venture a guess regarding the real reason behind the Apple Remote. But first, the backstory.

One of the things that Steve Jobs said years ago regarding phone phreaking was that he was fascinated how something as small as a telephone could control something as large as the Packet Switched Telephone Network.

So for a while now, I’ve been waiting for Apple’s Really Next Big Thing, when Steve would recall the magic of the Homebrew days (sans some phreakin’ details of course), and talk about how Small Thing X can control Large Thing Y, for some consumer-ish values of X and Y.

I am speculating that Apple will be unveiling an AirPort-like wireless router that plugs into your TV. Let’s call it “AirPort Video”.

Wait, before you get ticked off and stop reading, I realize that this type of device has been rumored for a while now. The extra twist that I haven’t come across yet is that the AirPort Video would work with the Apple Remote, by reading the RF signal from the Apple Remote and schlepping the requests over 802.11 to your Mac sitting in the other room.

So the experience of pointing an Apple Remote at a screen and having movies come out is consistent whether you are pointing at an iMac, an AirPort Video-connected TV, or even (cough) some future Apple TV.

Think about it: The smallest device that Apple makes (the Apple Remote) controlling the biggest thing out there: The consumer’s living room.

I think that this is totally congruent with Steve’s early fascination with network-based technology and Apple/Steve’s current role in the entertainment ecosystem.

It would be like a mashup of 1970s hacker Steve Jobs with his 2006 iTunes/Pixar/Disney self. Metaphorically speaking, its Pirates of the Caribbean III, starring Cap’n Crunch.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 7th, 2006 at 1:40 am and is filed under Mac. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.