News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

September 28, 2006

vintage

Everything old is new again: meet the iTV's Mark I, the AITB

Authored by Dan Moren at 10:38 AM
Category | Hardware » Vintage
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Apple Interactive Television DeviceWhen I went looking for a picture of the Pippin, Apple’s ill-fated game console, for my rebuttal to Aaron Ruby’s recent piece of the iTV and games, I came across an Apple product that I’d never heard of. A product that looks strangely familiar.

Meet the Apple Interactive Television Box. Let’s take a look at its specs: composite video and audio, S-video, two coaxial RF jacks, two SCART jacks, an Ethernet jack, a serial port, a SCSI port, and an infrared receiver. The idea behind the Apple Interactive Television Device was that you’d hook it up to your TV, and receive content from a subscription service, including the ability to fast-forward, rewind, and pause said content.

What struck me about this device was that it’s essentially an iTV, but with the then cutting edge technology that was available in 1994-95. S-video and composite video have been succeeded by the one-two punch of component and HDMI and USB has replaced serial/SCSI, but the Ethernet jack and infrared receiver are still present on the iTV. Instead of iTunes, you have a service that Apple was pitching to a variety of cable providers, including British Telecom. The device even looks similar: a flat silver box, albeit with the multi-colored Apple logo on the front.

Of course, the “iTB” was never mass-produced, and all the existing models are merely test versions—plus, without the service, none of them work anyway. You can, however, read the device’s instruction manual, which is quite a trip. To 1995 (I wasn’t a huge fan the first time round, but I think it’s growing on me).

It got me thinking: how many times has Apple tried to get themselves into the living room market? Besides the “iTB,” you’ve also got the Pippin, and then, of course, the Macintosh TV, a black version of the Mac LC550 that could also function as a TV (good lord, I coveted one of those things when they were out). Will the iTV succeed where these devices failed? It’s got at least one factor behind it that all those other projects lacked: Steve Jobs. And, as we all know, that’s no small thing.


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