So, while Apple has a great track record of including the latest and greatest new technologies and standards, that doesn’t mean that every wave-of-the-future standard that Apple adopts will actually become dominant. USB did, certainly, but there are plenty of standards which Apple adopted that did not take over everywhere at the desktop level, often because of cost concerns. (SCSI, FireWire, etc.) So that doesn’t mean that 802.11n will succeed everywhere just because Apple will adopt it.

Apple likes to run out in front of everybody on standards. But just because you’re in front of the parade doesn’t mean that you’re actually leading it and everyone is following you.

Most digital camcorders, yes, due in no small part to Apple and Sony’s efforts. But did it become a standard for PCs? No. Has it been dropped from the latest iPods? Yes. Has the percentage of USB 2.0-only digital camcorders (especially at the low end) been increasing? Yes.

Luxury? No, I’d say Apple has had the guts (and balls) to make some risky technology leaps. Apple’s luxury is a smaller but dedicated user base that is willing to follow them. 68000 to PowerPC to Intel. MacOS 9 to OS X. USB & Firewire. Drop the Flop, etc, etc.

And by and large, Apple has followed through for their users, making these technology transitions pay off. The same can not be said of Microsoft.

Okay, so it’s not exactly Web 2.0, but I’ve been thinking about Apple’s pre-announced ITV set-top box.
Om Malik over at GigaOM thinks that Apple plans to use 802.11n for ITV, setting it as a standard.
Problem is, for many residential…

Certainly the iMac helped USB, but I must doubt the claim that Apple’s backing was the only thing causing its success. In addition, one can also point to all sorts of connectors and technology that Apple pushed that didn’t become widely adopted, even when they were open standards hailed as the wave of the future. (SCSI, FireWire, etc.) All one can really say is that Apple likes to jump on new hardware and standards, but not necessarily that Apple makes them all successes .”

ARE YOU KIDDING!?!? FireWire (aka IEEE 1394) is on almost every digital camcorder on the market; it’s a standard, due in no small part to Apple. Give credit where it’s due. Don’t be an Apple-hater if you don’t even know that about which you’re writing.

Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewire

Its not worth while waiting until then as Robbie Bach is now driving NW giant’s entertainment division.

So to some degree the iMac came along at the right time for USB.

Keyboards were (and are still fairly) rare, yes, but I certainly had a USB mice when the iMac came out in 1998. Of course, lots of mice were sold with a USB/PS2 converter on the end.

Apple also pushed Firewire quite a bit, but it never caught on.

Certainly the iMac helped USB, but I must doubt the claim that Apple’s backing was the only thing causing its success. In addition, one can also point to all sorts of connectors and technology that Apple pushed that didn’t become widely adopted, even when they were open standards hailed as the wave of the future. (SCSI, FireWire, etc.) All one can really say is that Apple likes to jump on new hardware and standards, but not necessarily that Apple makes them all successes.

“A slight stretch, I’d think. Why did USB take hold but ADB did not earlier?”

Not a slight stretch but simply the truth. The iMac clearly did establish USB because 1) it was the best selling computer model of its time, and 2) it ditched the serial and ADB ports, and the floppy drive, thus forcing USB peripherals to spring up for anything other than hard drives.

Altho Intel had included USB on its motherboards, it languished on PCs, which for several years after the iMac still did not use USB for keyboards or mice. That’s why, even with the Mac mini, there was a chorus of PC users who said that they couldn’t reuse their peripherals.

The inclusion of an 802.11N card inside the iMac would certainly lend credence to the possibility of the iTV supporting it as well, since the higher speeds would improve streaming capabilities.

A slight stretch, I’d think. Why did USB take hold but ADB did not earlier? Why did Apple’s early adoption of SCSI (along with many Unix boxes) not become the standard? USB was clearly helped by being a strongly Intel (and others) supported technology as well.

[A]nd similarly has pushed the envelope in the higher speed(s) Ethernet.

As has Intel and NVidia, particularly by bundling Fast and Gigabit Ethernet with their chipsets.

Also, that post you linked to is terribly confused about GSM and CDMA. First, because the GSM 3G successor standard, WCDMA, is no longer based on a TDMA air interface, but a CDMA one, GSM operators still have to pay nasty Qualcomm royalties, though not as high.

In addition, as discussed before, Japan has completely incompatible phones with everyone else (thanks to using different bands for GSM/WCDMA/CDMA) and South Korea is CDMA dominated, and neither can be said to be behind in mobile applications– something which has a lot more to do with carriers than anything else.