Offerings Hint At Apple's New Flavor

Magid: With Mac Minis, Company Moves Into Home Entertainment

(CBS) 

The iPod HiFi is a single cabinet amplified speaker system with a slot on top that will accept any iPod with a dock adapter (which is most iPods currently in use). New iPod software provides a speaker icon that lets you control the speakers from the little device. On its Web site, Apple brags that the new device “features three speaker cones custom designed to provide balanced sound across the frequency range.” It includes a 130 mm woofer which, from my listening post, did seem to do a good job reproducing the lower range of sound.

Still, they don’t quite live up to the hype. Jobs said that he is an audiophile who has invested a great deal of money in high-end stereo equipment and that he now plans to get rid of his expensive stereo because he likes the new iPod HiFi better. I don’t have nearly the budget to spend on equipment as Jobs, but as nice as the new speaker system is, it didn’t sound as good as the Kenwood system I’ve had in my living room for years.

Of course, there is nothing unique about a home stereo converter for the iPod. Bose and many other companies have been making them for years, including the $299 Bose SoundDock Digital Music System that includes an iPod dock. Personally I’ve never bothered with any of these devices. I get great sound hooking my iPod up to my stereo with a simple $5 cable. But anyone who follows Apple knows that Steve Jobs is a great showman and a bit of an exaggerator when it comes to the supremacy of his company’s products.

Had this been any other company with these types of products, there would have been a handful of trade press and a few notices, But it’s Apple and it’s Steve Jobs, which is why the parking lot was full of TV trucks and the auditorium jammed with reporters anxious to get the word out.

Well, the word is out and, as least as far as this columnist is concerned, the word is “nice products but no big deal.” Yet this is definitely one of those “watch this space” stories. If Jobs (who is now a big shareholder in Disney after it merged with his Pixar animated movie production company) moves in the direction I think, watch for Apple to announce a lot more home entertainment products. If I were Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer, I’d be keeping a very close eye on Steve Jobs.

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A syndicated technology columnist for more than two decades, Larry Magid serves as on-air Technology Analyst for CBS Radio News. His technology reports can be heard several times a week on the CBS Radio Network. Magid is the author of several books, including "The Little PC Book."