Conflict: consumers don't want to download movies if they can't watch them on their TV sets, but movie studios will not allow downloaded content to be burned to DVD, the common digital movie medium. What to do?
If you're Amazon (http://tinyurl.com/klggu), you offer movie downloads and hope people won't care about viewing them on TV. But if you're Apple (http://tinyurl.com/hmxq6), you offer a hardware solution. Sure enough, that's what they did to day when they announced their movie download service.
Sure, there are other ways to play computer or iPod content on your TV, but your average consumer doesn't want to deal with third party equipment for what will be seen as a primary use. Plus, they want something as simple to use as, well, an iPod (http://www.apple.com/itunes/). Odds are that Apple's new iTV (http://tinyurl.com/ku5c4) device will deliver that same ease of use.
But more to the point, Apple's announcement today is the first demonstration of Steve Jobs' new power. The iPod commands its market space because Apple controls its hardware, software and delivery of content. In any one of those areas, other companies can match and even surpass Apple. But no one can match them in all three, much less match their ability to make all three work together.
and now that Steve Jobs is the largest individual shareholder of Disney (http://tinyurl.com/epocs), he now has a hand in the core element of any media system: content. Forget everyone else, Jobs brings assurance that Disney will be on board for any future Apple offerings. Apple now offers the total package, and they offer it beautifully. The Zune (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Zune)'s going to need a lot more than wifi to make a dent in this system, especially since the iTV unit will use wifi. Any doubt that the next iPod will too? | 
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