Yeah. I know. I was just speculating that the iPad has the needs a data connection variant.


Ah okay. I've not got an iPhone so can't tell.


I'm puzzled by the decision of Apple to use the micro SIM. It isn't like the unit is too small that they couldn't fit in a regular SIM. The iPhone can do it for one and thats tiny in comparison.

People have jokingly said that Apple doesn't need to lock these things because nobody will have a micro SIM to put into it anyway. Unless these micro SIMs really become popular, it is going to be a pain to get them on the network of your choice.

I've already read reports that 2 networks in the UK (as an example) already have micro SIMs on order. It's actually a useful form factor for really small phones the same way micro SD is. But how small do you want to make a phone? The micro variety seems to still be the same thickness.

Poor MSI. Not the greatest thing ever to be directly competing with Apple on a new product. Similar sized screen with capacitive touchscreen and apparently a roughly equivalent CPU for roughly the same price as well. The main differences are that it doesn't support multitouch with gestures and that its running Android.

You are doing a ton of arguing about this comment and the iPad. In the context you quoted, it looks like it is referring to the entire Apple line, not just the iPad. Are Apple computers more expensive than comparable PCs or laptops?

Not more (nor much more) than "comparable" notebooks, no. But I took this quote from a comment thread that was decidedly focused on the iPad. It would have been (more) pointless to be referencing only Apple Notebooks or Desktops. Even if they were adamant about applying the comment to all Apple products, it still doesn't change the fact that there's nothing comparable to the iPad at a lower, let alone "far cheaper" price. We can start another discussion (in another thread) about the comment and how it also doesn't apply to anything else Apple makes today, but that's been hashed to death so many times already.

That was my first assumption as well. The wording under the dock however caused some people I was talking to to claim that the dock was needed:

"The rear 30-pin connector lets you connect the iPad Dock to an electrical outlet using the USB Power Adapter, sync to your computer, and use accessories like the Camera Connection Kit."

I hope we are right and they are wrong...

We're right, they're wrong. That wording on the dock is just to let people know that they can still use accessories while using the dock. Otherwise there wouldn't be an easy way to have the device propped up (in portrait orientation) while the SD adapter is connected to it.

It's a feature of the dock, not a requirement of the SD (or other) adapter.

Now that I've had some time to digest this whole iPad announcement, I've got a handful of thoughts. In no particular order:

- I absolutely knew that I wanted an iPhone. I held off until they released the 3G model, I was in the queue (twice... arrgh) to get one, and no other gadget I've ever owned has had such a singular effect in changing the way I do what I do. I can say the same thing about the original empeg. It was a huge step up from the AM/FM/cassette radio that came in my BMW at the time. (Yes, a 2000 Z3 didn't even come standard with a CD player.) I feel no deep compelling need to get an iPad.

- I recently got the cheaper Kindle 2 as a holiday gift. I've so far read one book on it, with several more loaded up. I can see how it's far more convenient than hauling around hard-cover books, and I plan to use it mostly when I'm traveling. It's all about the weight savings. My only complaint about the Kindle is that readability isn't so good in typical indoor evening light -- the sort of light where it's still perfectly comfortable to read a printed book. Yes, I could buy a booklight, but this is one of the areas where some readers, particular older ones, may prefer an iPad.

- I've at various times considered buying a $300 netbook for the sole purpose of leaving it at home for casual web surfing at night. I now have one (an HP mini 110), which I got for work purposes (a cheap way to set up a demo). I haven't taken it home because we never managed to get the Ubuntu WiFi drivers working (ugly details). Even if it did actually work, I generally do casual surfing just fine on my iPhone, so I haven't been motivated to push harder on this. (I'll head upstairs and use my "real" desktop computer to do real work, if I need to work from home.)

My conclusion agrees with an argument I first saw expressed by Matt Welsh on his Facebook page (see his public rantings as well). In essence, Welsh argues that the iPad is the perfect machine for older users who've previously been disengaged from the Internet. Here's a device, that for $629 (with 3G) and $15/month, can offer a serious value proposition to somebody with zero prior training or experience. See the Web. Read books (in nice big text, which is good when your eyesight isn't so good any more). Email your grandkids and see their pictures. And do it all with radically better usability than anything else on the market. Most important, if you give this to one of your older relatives, you don't have to worry about them shooting themselves in the foot. They're not going to accidentally download viruses or other assorted malware. You can set it up, hand it to your grandparents, and you're done. What's that worth?

(The only drawback, in a scenario like this with no PC to tether to the iPad, is that all the data on it can be lost if the device is stolen or broken. Amazon got this right with the Kindle. It will be interesting to see if Apple truly lets you do everything, including over-the-air system software dates, without owning a PC.)

That would be nice. Or even keep it locally, allowing the iPad to sync via WiFi to a Time Capsule for backups/extra storage/updates. The only reason I'm considering one for my grandmother is that they will still have a Mac Mini in the house to sync to from time to time. The Mini will become the video conferencing system, and possibly be where she can print documents from if the iPad lacks an easy way to print.

Even if the consumer is not concerned about a significant monthly bill for the service, you still have to get the iPad with the GSM interface if you want to have the iPad be a replacement for the Kindle.

I did not think the iPhone would fail. I thought it was an excellent idea, mostly because of my experience with previous smartphones' applications, which were theoretically useful, but a pain in the ass from pretty much every aspect. I wanted one from the get-go, but I didn't want to pay $70-$100 a month for service. (As mentioned elsewhere, I got a Nexus One and put my company-provided Blackberry's SIM card in it. That's the first iPhone-generation smartphone I've had.) I think that Apple tends to do a great job with integration, consistency, and just generally making the damn thing work.

As far as the iPhone goes, people already had experience with PDAs, and, in some cases, PDA-phones, and also phones that had applications on them. I think people were generally frustrated with them. The main thing that made the iPhone work was the fact that applications were easy to find, and were, barring bugs, guaranteed to work with your phone and your carrier.

People were happy to replace their existing cell phones and PDAs with a combination device that did both things better. (Okay, the phone itself has had some problems, but half of those were AT&T's fault, and the Apple ones seem to have actually been worked on.)

On the other hand, the iPad combines a number of disparate devices that people aren't clamoring to consolidate, and which already work pretty well on their own. I see two possible markets: a toy for people who already own those devices that they want, and the sole device for people who currently have none of them.

Let me take a step back and try to detail my points without being argumentative.

First, let's detail the bullet points of the iPad.

• Portable, but not so portable as a PDA or smartphone
• Bigger/higher-res screen than a PDA or smartphone
• Runs iPhone apps and iWork, but no other apps
• No physical keyboard
• Not a phone

Let's look at potential consumers:

The person who only has a laptop: The iPad would give him somewhat more portability at the cost of some flexibility. This person would need to feel that the savings of a few pounds is worth limited function (in comparison to his laptop) and $500. Would it replace his laptop? If not, in what situations would one be used over the other? Would he carry both certain places? Why?

The person who only has a PDA: The iPad would probably give him some interface improvement, an eBook reader, and a portable semi-standard office suite, but he wouldn't be able to carry it around in his pocket. It also wouldn't replace his cell phone. It's probably not going to replace his PDA, as he probably has that because he can take it everywhere. If this person got one, it would basically be a limited netbook. Unless he was particularly enamored with the tablet UI, a netbook would be cheaper and have more features. Or he could get a smartphone with similar features and retire his PDA.

The person who only has a smartphone: The iPad would give him an office suite and a usable eBook reader. The outcome here is similar to the person with the PDA.

The person who only has an eBook reader: Gains an office suite and a semi-portable PDA. If they got a smartphone or PDA instead, they wouldn't get the office suite, but they would have a universally portable device.

The person who has a laptop and a PDA/smartphone: People are largely going to carry their pocket device everywhere. If the person takes their laptop, there's no point in taking the iPad. If they forego the laptop for the iPad, they save some in weight, and lose a significant amount of computing flexibility. They don't gain an office suite or eBook reader, because they could have had that with their laptop.

The person who has a laptop and an eBook reader: Gains a semiportable PDA. I guess there's something to be said for people who want to travel light, but want to do some minor computing beyond what their eBook can do.

The person who has an eBook reader and a PDA: Gains an office suite.

The person who has all three: Again, this is toy territory.

The person who has none of those: It might make sense here for a couch-side device. Some web surfing while watching TV or whatever, and go to the desktop computer for serious work. I think the price point is too high for that, though.

Ultimately, the iPad is only more portable than a notebook in situations where small differences in weight are significant. In most situations, that's really not the case. It is when traveling a distance, especially by plane, where bulk can be an issue. (I assume that the iPad charges off of USB current, so its charger is likely to be significantly less bulky than a laptop's brick. Or do you have to have the docking station? Tangentially, what is the Air's charger like?) But imagine you're going down to the coffee house. You can take your iPad or your laptop. What factors would lead you to take one over the other?

The tablet form factor is advantageous in a few instances, like eBook reading and as a remote control, but really not many. Does getting a $500 device for those instances make sense, when it's likely mediocre at those tasks? (I still claim that an actively lit screen for an eBook reader is bad.)

To reiterate, the iPhone made the smartphone non-irritatingly functional. It did everything that previous smartphones could do, and did it better, plus more. The Kindle made ubiquitous reading possible. There was no way before to be at the airport and decide that you wanted to read that book you just heard about, and do it immediately (unless it was one of the three stocked at the weird airport bookstore), or take your whole library with you because you didn't know what you might want to read once you got there.

The iPad, though, has some nice features, but a number of significant drawbacks. It kind of takes a smattering of the ideas from several different products and smashes them together in a way that's, I'm sure, functional, but just doesn't do anything that couldn't already be done better. It's kind of like the Swiss Army knife of electronics. It can do a bunch of stuff, but it doesn't really do any of it particularly well. The difference is that you can't take it everywhere; you have to make a conscious decision to bring it along. It's like a Swiss Army knife that's got a gas station bathroom key fob attached to it. (Actually, maybe this will be a bigger hit than I expect with women who carry those gigantic purses with them everywhere. I don't know what they have in them now. Maybe it would be lighter than that complete printout of the Internet that they could fit in there.)

Phew. I hope I was less argumentative this time.

iPad video mashup - watch it if only for the Goldfrapp soundtrack. The link is for Vimeo and can be played with Flash or H.264/HTML5 on decent browsers.

Here you have a bunch of touch-input devices from various movies mashed together with some video of the iPad being used in the second half of the video.

Yeah. What he said. There's a reason tablet devices haven't done well in the marketplace before this, and those are the reasons.

However: I won't underestimate the power of the Apple marketing machine to invent new market segments to populate. I just don't see myself as a member of that market segment, and the only people I know who I do see as its customers would only be buying it as a toy.

Easily the weakest track off of Black Cherry and 'so' overused.

What was the point in that video?

You were. And for the first time you've put forth some valid concerns. However, these are concerns that, in the past, I've already agreed with for the most part. I've already told you that I agree with most of your thoughts on the general un-marketability of a typical tablet device. You don't have to convince me of these points and it wasn't these points at all that I was trying to diminish nor convince you of otherwise.

Many people made similar points about the iPhone. I will argue that the iPhone was a success well before the app store and availability of any third party apps. That most of its customers did not have any previous smart phone nor PDA. That is last part is more true today than it's ever been.

I do think that in making your use-cases for the iPad you've gone a bit extreme. The points are still valid for the most part, but they are very specific. And I concede that there are other cases out there or within your specific outlines that will garner many customers. If anyone can make this form factor succeed, it's Apple. If Apple can't do it, I don't think anyone else is going to do it within the next 5 years. Within that time, Apple, regardless of how well it sells this device, will do better than anyone else.



It's interesting you've said that because that's generaly been the consensus about tablet PCs. However, this device is not a PC. And Apple's main proposition is exactly the opposite of your statement. They set out to make a device that was better than a smart phone at some things. Better than a notebook at other things. And better than both at some things. I believe they actually said better that both in the keynote and didn't differentiate, but IMO, not every default feature is actually better than the experience on both those other device classes. eMail for instance I believe to be far superior on a notebook.

You don't need anything but the low-end $499 device without any 3G data to be able to do what the Kindle does now. Yes, the stipulation is that you do need another form of connectivity, namely a wifi connection. But this device isn't really something I think everyone will carry around out of their homes. In the home or coffee house situation, or even the airport situation, for the majority of people it completely supplants the need for a dedicated eBook reader and offers the possibility of reading the web, newspapers, magazines and comics. You can't do those things on the Kindle devices, not even the DX which costs the same price.

It's not something I think I could use every day. I barely use my iPod touch frankly. And while I've used an iPhone quite a few times, like you I just can't get over the subsidies and crappy contracts to break down and get one for myself.

You're running into the same problem so many others are. You just can't see this for being the middle device class between a phone and notebook. I can clearly see that and while it's not a class of device I need, I can see how Apple are positioning and molding it like no one else has before. The biggest advantage to this platform is Apple. I'm not arguing for the device class in general and that's an important point. I'm saying Apple's devices are going to make an impact. Everyone else will likely try to offer some catch-up device, but no one has anything of significant value to drop into this space at the moment.

Sure, you could slap Android on that MSI machine. What does that buy you? It doesn't buy you a better OS environment and it certainly doesn't buy you even close to the same number of usable and quality applications. It's going to be interesting how many optimized iPad apps are available at launch - quite a number of developers have already publicly announced they're jumping in with both feet.

The point of the video, at least the reason for posting it here, was for Bitt (or anyone else) to quickly see some of the iPad's default apps in use, rather than still images.

BTW, I don't think Strict Machine is the weakest track from the album, but I'm not going to start a discussion on the merits of one song over another.

But you can see videos of it in action on a bunch of websites without the pointless preamble. There was nothing exclusive there at all.

Yeah, you can. I'm not sure about comics, but definitely newspapers and magazines, and the web, too, though the browser's nothing to write home about. (I think you can still do that. There was some vague indication that that was a feature that might not stay around, and I haven't used it in quite some time.)

Yeah, still unimpressed. It didn't change my opinion in the least.

A touchscreen is a nice interface when physical space is of utmost importance (like when you're going to be putting it in your pocket), and in gross movement of on-screen items, but as the sole text input for a device of that size? Nah. (And as soon as you add the dock and keyboard, it just gets that much less portable.)

What would make sense is a wireless keyboard that clipped to the back of the device. Leave it at home when you know you won't need it; have it at hand and recharging off the tablet when you do. Having a lightweight stand built in would help, too.

Honestly, the one thing that would have made this device awesome is a camera pointed at the user. A configurationless portable video chat device would be a winner, I think.

I haven't read anything to mention it specifically, but you might be able to fit the aluminum apple keyboard into the case. I'd be surprised not to see a third party case with this specific feature though, as well as a glut of third party stands. A built-in stand would have been nice too, but I didn't think that would happen. Apple's not really into appendages. The case does double as a stand though.

Anyway, just to set the record clear and straight and so we have something easily referenced in the future...

Me: Not impressed, but can see the benefit for a number of other people. Think it will do quite well in the market and be the first time this form factor or category does even reasonably well.

Bitt: Not impressed and can't see the benefit for anyone else either in this revision. Doesn't think the product will do well.

Let me know if that's correct.

As a side-note, I've had my MBP for almost a year now. I've used the built-in camera a total of zero times. If I keep the notebook for another 3 to 4 years, I intend to use the camera a total of zero more times. I do think the camera is a valuable addition though, and it would also have been valuable on the iPad (support is in the SDK for it). I don't think it's a tipping-point item that will drastically affect sales one way or the other at this point in time. The exact same which I can say of Flash in the browser, despite so many people on the interwebs screaming loudly the opposite. This dates back almost 3 years and we can see how it's made the iPhone such a poor seller over that period.

I've had mine longer and I've used it about three times, all of which was just me playing with it.

But I know people like the video chat, especially long-distance relatives. I have a friend who's spending about 2 years in Belgium with her (at the time) newborn, and they spend a lot of time doing the video chat with the grandparents.

But there are a lot of grandparents who simply aren't computer-savvy enough to be given a computer by someone who, by definition, won't be able to come over and fix it. An appliance would make a heck of a lot of sense for them.

Close. I'd say "can't see the draw (other than the Apple marketing machine) for any significant number of people."

Yup, I use mine constantly, but almost exclusively for Skype. My brother lived internationally for a number of years. I'm over 2000 miles from any other member of my family and I'm moving internationally myself in a couple weeks. Skype is really the only way my family gets to see each other.

I've also come up with a solution to this whole Flash problem Adobe keeps ranting about. I'm not sure why they haven't thought of it themselves. It's so simple.

If they publish full specifications for all Flash formats and release the source code for the flash plugin/runtime, I'm sure we'd see a lot more flash everywhere. Then it might actually be some kind of standard, with support baked right into browsers, just like JPG images. You know, once people at Google, Apple, and interested members of the public re-wrote the code so it isn't the hog it is now.

That way each party delivering a platform can have complete control of their own source tree without the need for external plugins to support what's supposed to be such a basic part of the web.

I'm giving that solution away for free. Just a small thank-you note and maybe my name in the source code somewhere will be fine.

Can I make a request from people on either side of this argument? We need to wait at least a year to judge its success. All the Apple faithful are going to buy it at first, and I think that hype will drive a lot of sales, but we'll need to be a little more patient before we analyze its success.

Ugh, I'm already dreading the incessant coverage of the lines outside Apple stores.


Oh, and I finally thought of one thing for which I'd like a tablet of some kind: reading "legally obtained" comics. I hate that I do it, but comics are absurdly expensive Anyway, I wish I could read them on something other than my computer monitor or my netbook held sideways. I read all of Preacher on my netbook, and that was an unfortunate way to experience it. Plus, I'd need a CBR reader, and I don't know if the iPhone OS has an app for that. Anyone? Regardless, if I don't have enough money to buy comics, I'm certainly not going to spend $500 for a device just to read them, as I wouldn't use it for anything else.

Anyway, to sum up all my thoughts on the subject: personally I have zero place in my life or in my family's home for the iPad, particularly at that price. As for how well I think it will do, I think it will be a minor hit, but I think Apple is expecting far more than that.

There's a question for those of you who think this will be a success. Would you care to offer a prediction of general sales numbers? I can't know, of course, but I suspect Apple expects to sell at least as many iPads as iPhones. I expect they'll sell as many as Airs. That's a decent number, but I think it would be a failure in Apple's eyes.

It appears that the micro-sim is just a std sim with some of the excess plastic trimmed away.

http://www.itwire.com/blogs/core-dump/the-apple-blog/30800-ipad-needs-a-micro-sim-no-problem

No one expects that, not even Apple. At least not in the first year. Mobile phones (in general) are one of the hottest and highest number, in unit sales, electronic products on the planet. If not THE highest.

I expect a few million by the end of the year. Some analysts are predicting 4 million+. I don't know if I'd go that high at the moment, but it very well could when we see the new landscape of the app store in March and May. I really don't know how many Apple is targeting and unless they make a public announcement, I don't think anyone will ever know or have even a remote chance of guessing (reasonably).

I do think that if 3 or 4 million units were sold, Apple would likely be "satisfied" if not outright happy. This isn't the AppleTV. They seem to actually be putting some effort behind this one. In the past week I've seen people mention three Apple failures: Mac mini (hardly), AppleTV (probably still sells more units than any other media streamer) and the HiFi speaker dock for the iPod (why bother even bringing this one up?)

I haven't heard a single person mention the Mac Mini as being a failure. Most of the people I've heard of bring up the cube.

As for the AppleTV, it's a failure because Apple hardly did anything with it. It should have been much bigger than it was, and had great potential, but they did nothing with it. It was also insanely difficult to get my own video onto it. I kept creating videos that would import into iTunes fine, but then not play on the AppleTV, and that is decidedly not what Apple is known for, or at least what they try to project.

As for the Hi-Fi, oh, I'm so very sorry that nobody is allowed to mention that. Are you seriously saying you're not an Apple apologist? We can't even mention the Hi-Fi? I think people are mentioning it because it was a big focal point of one of these big shows that Apple likes to put on, so if they're calling all the press to come see their products, there had better be something worth mentioning. Yet, he announces the Hi-Fi and iPod socks. Can't believe he touted iPod socks on stage at a press event.


And I do think that they expect this to be a giant success. I never said they'd sell as many iPads as iPhones in the first year (where did I say that?), but I do think they expect it to sell as well in the long run. Why else attempt to create a new category of devices? I do not think they'll be happy with 3-4 million.

An AppleTV currently costs $229. A Sony PS3 is $350. An Xbox 360 Elite is $280. A Nintendo Wii is $200. Windows Media Center Extenders are priced all over the place, and the Boxee Box hasn't been priced yet.

On the high end, the incremental value you get out of the PS3 or the Xbox makes it hard to justify the AppleTV. On the low end, I'd be curious if the various Windows Media Center Extender gizmos have gotten much market traction, and whether the Boxee Box will take off.

One thing's certain: if Apple were to build a brand new AppleTV, they'd probably use similar guts to what's in the iPad. I bet that would get their costs down. It would certainly get their power consumption down. And, who knows, maybe they'd come up with a migration path for all the iPhone apps and they could compete with the Wii for the casual gaming market.

Fair enough, but I have more information than most people on the subject of Apple, especially during the period of the cube, when the company I worked for was providing graphics chips for it. That system wasn't a failure. It didn't meet certain expectations and it had some issues that didn't warrant continuing the line. One thing was they wanted to make a smaller system.



The AppleTV is what I consider their biggest missed opportunity. I just don't think the top brass cares enough yet about TV on an actual TV. When it was released, for me, it was a big "meh" moment. I knew the market wasn't ready for this type of product and that Apple would have had to offer a lot more to try and establish the market themselves. I really have no clue why they released it when they did, without content deals for HD material in place, without the hardware/platform supporting HDCP, based on an NVIDIA chip that can't decode and play back 1080p.



What they "should" have done was wait two more years to release it. Then they could have done something that didn't entail essentially building a cut-down Mac, which is the primary reason keeping its costs high.

It has done and is doing exactly as well as one would expect given the attention Apple gives to it and the effort they expend on it as a platform, including marketing and promotion. It sells, but it will never be stellar because they're not pushing it to be. I don't really think they're that bothered with its sales, or they'd likely have developed something new or canned it entirely. I think they can still do damage in this market segment, but it won't be as easy to capture the "wow" factor as it would have if they hadn't yet released anything.



Handbrake. But yeah, that shouldn't be necessary. Apple just doesn't seem to give a rat's ass about doing video as well as they've done audio. But there's a reason. A very important reason. When they started with audio they wanted to make sure everyone could easily get their existing audio onto their hardware. Now one of their goals is selling you the video. Making it super easy to put other video on their device is somewhat contrary to their service/distribution goals. No one else has done demonstrably better in this hardware market. I do believe that 2010 is the year where this category will start to hit the mainstream however. Many eyes are on Boxee right now.



Mention it all you want, but it's silly and doesn't give any points to anyone who does. It's an accessory. Like the socks. It's not "worth" mentioning, thats why I said what I did. I doubt it lost Apple any money on its development and sales though. It was a stupid thing to release seeing as the accessory market was already quite well stocked. It's similar to BMW coming out with their own tires. Incidentally, it was announced along side the Intel Mac mini. It's hardly a fit comparison to a flag-ship product like the Mac, iPod itself or the iPhone.



We're talking 3-4 million by the end of this year. I can't see it possibly eclipsing iPhone sales in the short term (2-3 years). That device class is just a super high unit class. People will replace their phones yearly, even if those phones cost $500-700. They don't typically do it with a computer and I don't think they're going to be doing it with the tablet class of device either.

While I suspect Apple may do 3 million this year, I don't think anyone else will come even close to 1M. If the JooJoo comes out for instance, I'd be surprised if they sold 5000 units by December 31st.

Also, don't call me an Apple apologist. No one needs to apologize for Apple, including Apple themselves. They've consistently performed better than any tech company in the world quarter after quarter. They've got the highest stock price and highest market cap of any computer company (excluding Microsoft which is a software company). I mean, they're just doing amazingly well, period. They have enough cash to buy Adobe two times over and shove Flash up its collective asses.

The difference though is how fractured the markets are. Audio back when the iPod came out was MP3. One format was clearly working out well, with AAC on the horizon. Apple over time switched to AAC as their preferred format, and the success of the iPod helped carry it. WMA also existed, but hardly anyone used it compared to MP3.

On the video side, you have so many different codecs, and containers. Apple had already settled on MPEG4 based formats, as had many devices including the now current generation of disc based movie formats (BluRay). This ensured that MPEG4 would have support from a vide variety of decoding hardware. If they wanted to support other formats, they would have to start paying quite a bit to cover all the various licenses for Divx, Windows Video, and so on, and doing so would do nothing to solidify the video market behind one format.

Beyond the format issues, you also have bitrate issues. Go slightly too high, and you overwhelm hardware decoders. There are also a variety of resolutions, some that decoders might have trouble with. Audio with MP3 was much simpler.

And lastly, I think if Apple could have pulled off allowing users to import DVDs, they would have. Allowing people to rip their own CDs helped get peoples digital music collections started, but no mass market solution came along to do the same for DVDs, due to the legal threat of being sued out of existence. RealNetworks is facing this right now, with their RealDVD product pissing off the DVD Copy Control Association.

Video is just a mess across the board, and I think Apple is just trying to push forward with the digital only formats, but not gaining enough traction to help much. Just as the PS3/360 lack enough traction in the media side to push it forward, outside their own stores.