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Some quick notes on why I think the new iPhone will have HD video downloading over both WiFi and 3G, and will probably shoot 720p video too.

Video Downloads to iPhones and iPods Over WiFi

There’s most likely some renegotiation required with content owners for Apple / iTunes to do delivery to mobile devices. Apple is all about a consistent user experience and wants its entire video library available from day one. Fortunately, content owners are now realizing how little they’re making from Netflix and Hulu streaming (I heard that the “Crawford” documentary only made around $1100 from Hulu). This realization should speed negotiations along — particularly for rentals, which some content owners seem to have been reluctant to allow.

Video Downloads to iPhones Over 3G

Apple has intentionally made WiFi video downloads a not-very-closely-gaurded secret. Apple then leveraged the resulting speculation to negotiate downloads over 3G with AT&T, who simply wants a cut of the 3G sales. Exactly how much is what’s being negotiated, specifically, Apple doesn’t want to be forced to raise prices for mobile downloads and potentially held out to illustrate to AT&T that consumers will simply use a ton of bandwidth streaming exactly the same content from other video services, from which AT&T will get no cut. Probably the same strategy Apple used when negotiating music sales over 3G.

In response AT&T is semi-publicly discussing the idea of capped rate plans. I’m guessing that AT&T will then exclude the bandwidth used for iTunes music and movie downloads from the capped rate plan limits in exchange for Apple cutting them in for a larger percentage of those sales.

Why Not Sooner?

The iPhone already syncs plays iTunes TV shows and movie rentals and sales. The over-the-air downloading and reverse-sync infrastructure is already there, so why not do this a year ago? Simply, most current iPhones don’t have 1 - 2GB free to download a single movie, let alone multiple movies and TV shows. Apple wants movie downloads to partially drive adoption of larger capacity iPhones so they’re waiting until the larger capacity 32GB iPhone is available.

HD From the Get Go

Apple wants to offer 720p HD downloads to the iPhone out of the gate — especially since Microsoft already announced this feature for the Zune. Like the Zune, this will also require a separate iPhone HD Dock to playback HD to a TV.

A Better HD Solution

Apple’s current two-file HD download system is an inelegant wasteful hack, and while some companies might be okay with that, Apple isn’t.

Apple wants to offer a single video download file (especially on the space-limited iPhones and iPod Touches) for HD content. The current HD + SD two file approach is kludgey. Going forward (and assuming you have the *new* iPhone), you buy SD, you get SD, you buy HD you get HD.

If you have an older iPhone, maybe you can only buy SD on the phone. You buy HD on your computer, you now have the option to download an SD file for older iPods/iPhones, or maybe iTunes just downloads the SD version automatically if (and only if) you try to sync an HD purchase or rental to an older iPod or iPod.

FYI: H.264 is meant to be resolution / complexity-scaleable using the same high-res file. So depending on Apple’s decoding method, it shouldn’t use any more processor power to playback an HD file scaled down to fit the iPhone screen

The Name

The think Apple might go with “iPhone HD” (despite the fact that Microsoft named the new “Zune HD” similarly). “iPhone Video” could work but sounds dated since the “iPod Video” was years ago and the iPhone already has a better implementation of those video features.

If it’s “iPhone HD” it’s be a safe bet that the new camera will shoot 720p video as well.

We’ll soon find out!

June 08, 2009, 12:45pm   Comments and Permalink

My Largely Hypothetical 3rd Generation iPhone Predictions Which Are Not Based on Any Insider Information

I believe this image is pretty accurate, and that well see all of the ‘green’ features’ added to the third generation iPhone shipping this summer (video camera with editing software, improved higher-resolution still camera, etc). Taken the green items as a given, here are my thoughts on some of the others.

PURPLE

Upload to YouTube - YES

Might be added in an update later if it requires Google to implement something server-side.

Wi-Fi Movie / TV downloads - YES

Hulu’s ad-supported model has limited the willingness of consumers to pay a premium for TV show downloads to the desktop. Apple would be smart to focus on extracting that value in the mobile arena, where they have more control (and no Flash-based Hulu to compete with). I have a few ideas about Apple’s strategy for this (and why it’s taken so long) which I’ll post separately.

Background App Support - NO, KIND OF

Allowing this would encourage developers to write apps with features that need to run in the background and break on older iPhones. Lots of reading fine print in the app store. Lots of iPhones seeming slower than they should. Lots of confused customers being mad at Apple. Palm is allowing this with the Pre, and I think it’s a mistake given the present hardware.

However, Apple may choose to work directly (and privately) with “top tier” developers and sanction particular apps to run in the background (just as their own do), but at that point the distinction between an Apple app and a 3rd-party app becomes blurry.

Either way, it’s not something Apple will publicly acknowledge or discuss, and it won’t happen out of the gate if it happens at all. Apple is trying to encourage developers to embrace the push notification APIs, not bombard them with applications for membership in the exclusive “runs in the background” club.

ORANGE

Flash - HELL NO

Flash is the last thing anyone needs on the iPhone. Flash is a competing runtime environment - essentially an OS within the OS. Why would Apple need or want to attract developers that will only to push .swf files with lowest-common denominator UIs out into the world? Flash It would compete directly with Cocoa Touch. It’s slower, it’s not optimized for the hardware, it kills battery life, but most importantly it would unravel everything Apple has done to create the most successful mobile platform to date, rather than just a phone that plays music. It will absolutely not happen.

FM Transmitter- NO

Adding an FM radio would be easy. The technology is tiny, cheap, and probably uses a lot less power than streaming audio over 3G. Would people use it? Sure. Will Apple do it? No. Because in 2009 an FM radio just seems lame — like something you’d find in a Zune.

OLED screen - MAYBE

Does it matter? Does it not already have one? Will anyone notice?

802.11n Wi-Fi - YES

Apple has been selling 802.11n Airport Extremes and Expresses at a premium and the lack of n on the iPhone and iPod Touch is becoming a collective annoyance. This one is partially wishful thinking on my part. If it’s not feasible for this generation, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it added as a mid-lifespan bump closer to the holidays. One caveat: Apple recently added a feature to the new Airport Extreme that allows it to create both an n network and a b/g network simultaneously. If that’s Apple’s workaround then it doesn’t bode well for n support in the iPhone / iPod Touch.

June 08, 2009, 10:30am  Comments and Permalink