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Darren Waters

Bright future predicted for Apple

  • Darren Waters
  • 22 May 08, 10:30 GMT

Analysts like to make waves. After all, if what they say lacks impact, then no-one pays attention.

So how about this prediction from : "Apple Inc. will become the hub of the digital home by 2013."

Forrester says Apple will evolve an "integrated digital experience" based on eight pillars.

Four of them you will probably recognise:

The Mac, Apple TV, the Apple store (the physical shop), iTunes.

Four of them are, ahem, guesswork from Forrester:

Apple home server product, AppleSound universal music controller, network-enabled gadgets (ie music, digital photo frame and alarm clock devices) and in-home installation services.

Apple TVNow, I can certainly believe that Apple is working on a home server product, that's not really a big prediction. It's merely an extension of Apple TV and the Time Capsule wireless storage device it already ships.

But an AppleSound universal music controller? Do they mean a remote control? I'm not even sure why this is needed.

And can anyone else envisage Apple selling digital photo frames or alarm clocks? Nope, me neither.

And Apple offering in-home installation services? Erm, isn't the whole point of Apple's products that you don't need professional installation help? And what would people be installing exactly?

These predictions strike me as off key for a number of reasons:

1. I don't see Apple displacing satellite and cable firms so radically. In fact, I see more disruption of Apple's business by set-top box providers than the other way around.

2. Apple TV remains a work in progress and hasn't proved its potential.

3. Content providers are now very wary of doing deals with iTunes that leave them at the mercy of Steve Jobs. The music industry is doing everything in its power to break iTunes' hold. The film and TV industry won't make the same mistake

4. Open standards will triumph. I don't believe that "lock in" systems will ever work as the glue between our devices.

5. I don't think one company will ever be the hub. Interoperability will mean that we can cherry pick our devices and our content will run between them all.

Rory Cellan-Jones

Digital Britain - are we there yet?

  • Rory Cellan-Jones
  • 22 May 08, 06:43 GMT

Want to know just about anything about how your area performs in the race to go digital?

Well head over to the website and have a look at the . There's one for , , and , and they are full of fascinating facts about our digital skills and our media habits.

Who would have thought that Sunderland would be Britain's most connected city, with 66% of households using broadband? Or that the countryside had overtaken the towns when it comes to having a broadband connection? Did you realise how low broadband take-up was in Glasgow - 32% - but how quickly Dundee and Aberdeen were moving in the digital race, with their citizens surfing the mobile internet and watching video online with the best of them? And did you know that contained 14,000 articles in Welsh and 2,000 in Ulster Scots with the latter apparently some of the keenest Wikipedians around?

The overall picture is a very positive one, with just about everyone able to get broadband if they want it and a high proportion of British households choosing to use the technology. But what Ofcom does not tell us is how fast our broadband is and what happens next. While the regulator is proclaiming that the geographical digital divide has been closed, that applies to reach, not to speed. If you live deep in the countryside, miles from the nearest exchange, and far from any cable you will be in the slow lane compared to city dwellers.

Then there is the problem of copper. The twisted pair copper cabling which brings broadband into most homes has performed miracles over the last decade, providing much higher speeds than most engineers imagined possible, but we are now reaching the limits of its capabilities. So pretty much everyone agrees that the next generation of broadband will depend on fibre - putting fibre-optic cabling right into the home.

It is already pretty common in Japan and South Korea, and it is starting in France, where fibre is being laid through the sewers. But here in the UK, everyone is scratching their heads over who will pay for it. BT is the obvious answer - but says its shareholders wouldn't approve the giant sums needed, and in any case it is not yet convinced that there is the demand for speeds of up to 100Mbps.

The debate about how we get to the next level in this digital race is now raging, with the government and Ofcom holding inquiries, and we want to play our part. So, at the beginning of June, I will be setting off on a journey across Broadband Britain - from a remote village on the west coast of Scotland down to a new development in Kent - to try to assess how far we've got and what new technologies may promise. We'll be inviting you to contribute, measuring your own broadband speeds, so watch this space.

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