By Scott Kirsner
Ever since Steve Jobs began prefacing Apple's product names with a lower-case 'i', with the introduction of the turquoise iMac desktop computer in 1998, the company has been on a tear. The iPod upstaged every digital music player that preceded it, and the accompanying iTunes Music Store made it cool to purchase music legally online.
But was Apple's disclosure of iTV last week the first step toward reinventing television? The company's $299 set-top device, designed to wirelessly connect the television with a Mac or PC, won't be available until early next year, but expectations are high that Apple will create a new viewing experience by linking the TV with the digital realm.
Plenty of other companies have tried to forge that link, without much success. Microsoft introduced its Windows Media Center Edition in
2002, a version of its operating system designed to turn a PC sitting next to the television into a DVD player, digital video recorder, music library, and gateway to the Internet. Akimbo Systems of San Mateo, Calif., introduced an Internet-connected set-top box in 2004, and TiVo has made video from the Web available on its devices, in part through a partnership with Brightcove, a Cambridge start-up.But consumers may not feel like there's something lacking on the small screen. Apple is proposing to deliver primarily new and old TV shows and movies like NBC's 'The Office' or Disney's 'The English Patient', but that's content readily available at video stores, via Netflix, recorded on a digital video recorder, or purchased from a cable video-on-demand service.