Jon Bøhmer just pointed me to this. I can’t let that one go without a comment. But, I’ll make it a short one.
1. Yes, I totally agree that the ugly, noisy, unstable and $1000 PC will not be a success in everyone’s living room
2. But this one can turn into a classic:
“…the vast majority of Americans will never — I will repeat that — never think of the PC as an entertainment device. The PC is for work and the TV is for relaxation. End of story.”
The media center is not about a noisy $1000 PC in your living room. It’s about an architecture that lets you access your media in a user friendly and convenient way. It’s about the fact that young people can not think of music, video and pictures that is stored anywhere else than on a computer or on a network. It’s about a platform that accepts content and services from flexible feeds and different content creators. It’s about the fact that the computer eventually will be more user friendly and convenient than loads of different boxes, cables, remotes and user manuals.
“The PC is for work and the TV is for relaxation.”
That is if you have a time machine that can drag you back to the ninties and let you stay there.
eirikso 
Ah you know:
Macs for productivity
Linux for hacking
Windows for solitaire
So I always had a feeling that Media Center would be a hit.
…and you should always listen carefully to people that have done serious research in a shopping mall and even talked to a hairdresser.
I had been waiting for a Norwegian version of Windows MCE for over a year and was becoming rather frustrated with Bill Gates lack of interests in Norwegian consumers. So when Apple presented the Mini Mac to the world early this year I thought: Bye by Bill. I’m not your friend anymore. I’m going to play with Steve from now on. I bought a Mini Mac with a Superdrive and an EyeTV 200 tuner and it works like a charm. I can record television programs to my Mini Mac and burn them to DVDs. If the phone rings in the middle of a program, I can pause it and catch up from where I left. Through TVTV.co.uk I can also schedule a recording if I am not at home. I can even do this by using my Qtek s100 phone (Windows mobile. I Know). I have all my music stored on a PC in my home office. So I am streaming the music from this PC wireless to my Mini Mac which is hooked up to my Tivoli stereo. I have even streamed movies from my PC. So Steve and I are really getting along. And by the way. I’m collecting my new 12 inch Powerbook today.
Windows Media Center Edition will be released in Norway before christmas.
Anyway, the Mac Mini is one of the most sexy computers ever made and is perfect for use in the living room.
Only two major problems:
– No GUI for convenient use from your couch, navigating with a remote
– Not powerful enough for HD-playback
Apple is the company that could have made the perfect home media center. Both hardware and software. I can not understand why they haven’t made a 10-feet GUI for iTunes, iPhoto etc.
According to this recent study, the assertions made in the article are already proven to be wrong.
“For the week ending August 20, 2005, Media Center PCs accounted for 43% of all desktop personal computers sold in the U.S. retail market, based on data from a sampling of U.S. retailers. ”
How the Norwegian market welcomes Windows XP Media Center Edition, will depend on the pricing of the complete systems.
So far, the few examples of media center pc systems offered in Norway (based on other software or the English MCE version), has been far too expensive.
Yes, the recent numbers from the US are promising. I guess the pricing in Norway will be too high in the beginning… As with all “new” technology 🙂
Still, for those of us that have a mediacenter up and running we know that this is the way to go. I can understand that the price must down, the usability must up, and the boxes must fit better into the living room. But, if you have tried a mediacenter for a while there is no going back!