Phoning and the Future of Television

Good piece on Apple's view of TV, and how that links to the IPhone phenomenon. Mentioned was ... In 1990, at the dawn of the digital epoch "...the American futurist George Gilder wrote a prescient little book called Life After Television: The Coming Transformation of Media and American Life ...". I remember the book and will have to skim it again, though I think it's largely forgotten now. Andrew Keen writes:

" ... describing Apple's software plan as the "third great platform" after the PC and the Internet. Think of it as the broadband Web plus a touchscreen TV in your pocket -- powered by the latest mobile TV entertainment software. Add all this to the growing library of professionally produced video content in the iTunes store and you might well have glimpsed a sneak preview of life after television ... "

I don't think that pocket devices, however elegant, will replace big screens, but portability does have advantages. What I would like to see is a portable device that could make use of any large screen nearby.