Huibert-Aalbers.com

Everyone expects Apple to announce on Tuesday a new online movie store. People and analysts seem all to be very excited by the prospects of being able to see movies on the go. Everyone also expects Apple to release a “true” video iPod to enjoy these movies at a better resolution than current iPods. Everyone? Not everyone, I couldn’t care less and I am sure that once the fad is over, most will share my point of view.

I consider myself quite a heavy iPod user. I subscribe to many podcasts which I listen to mostly in my car. When I run out of podcasts I listen to my music library. Most of my podcasts are of the audio kind as I cannot (legally) drive while watching my iPod. I could imagine myself watching tv episodes of 24 or Prison Break on a portable device if instead of driving to the office I had to use the bus, but probably not content that exceeds in length the duration of my ride as this really destroys the experience. Since most national flights are relatively short (specially if you remove the periods where you are not allowed to use electronic devices), there aren’t many opportunities to actually see movies. As you can see, even with a larger screen and better battery life than current iPods, a true video iPod isn’t very appealing to me.

There is a scenario in which a video iPod could make a lot of sense. That would be in the car, for the kids in the back. This would allow parents to carry their collection of movies without having to be scared of scratched or broken disks.

The truth is that there already is a true video iPod. It is called the Sony PSP. This is in theory a great portable device that allows users to play games, listen to music and watch movies on a decent screen. However, the device is failing miserably to take the market by storm in any of these categories. I imagine that those who expect the video iPod to be successful think that Apple may be able to develop a better user interface than Sony to make it more attractive. I disagree. I believe that the failure of the PSP has nothing to do with usability or design. We simply do not have enough time to watch movies on the go.

Watching a movie requires a complete immersion for two hours (or more). This is something that I do less and less because all of the alternative entertainment options (sports, family, internet, etc.) that compete for my limited spare time. The same applies to shorter video content. Even though I enjoy Screen Cast Online as well as Leo Laporte‘s Mac break I have much more trouble finding time to watch vodcast episodes than their audio counterparts.

When I choose to see a movie it is usually at home, on a big screen or at the movie theatre, certainly not on a the small screen of a portable device. So, is that future Apple movie store useless to me? Not really. It could save me a trip to Blockbuster or give me access to an immensely large catalog of movies. For example, one of my favorite movies, “The Quiet Man” featuring the late John Wayne is not something that I am sure to get at my local video store (note for the younger, I am not that old, the movie was already old when I first saw it). However, if I decided to buy it, it would need to have at least the same quality I get from a DVD, so that I could enjoy it on my TV, otherwise it would just be useless to me.

Does that mean that I wouldn’t buy a larger screen iPod? Probably not. However it would have to offer additional features. After all, the reason why I bought my iPod with video in the first place was the brighter color screen that allowed me to see the album cover art as well as my contacts with greater detail.