So I was thinking, home networking is EXPLODING and Apple says its all over this digital hub thing. Clearly, rendezvous will play a big part in making things 'just work' - but I think there is a HUGE market Apple could easily topple-
People are buying more than 1 computer for their homes, especially for kids. Kids are surfing the internet, stealing music, and looking at pron with or without their parents knowledge. How about:
Next gen apple airport base station:
Wired 4 port router
802.11g wireless
Ability to connect to apple servers and filter content to specific machines based on apple's site filtering - all controllable through a password protected *easy to use* utility with levels of filters, and fully customizeable.
Face it, Apple's hardware is expensive compared to similar 802.11g compatible stuff, but the other stuff, while it works well with macs (some brands), not all do, and many only support winbloze.
If Apple could sell the unit with the built-in ability to filter internet content via the base station interacting with Apple's servers (which could have a constantly updated database) then there would be some product differentiation. As my kids get older I would replace my existing hardware for an easy out of the box solution like this (KidSafe anyone? Wasn't that in iTools?)
Obviously it wouldn't be perfect, but nothing is, and it would be a start for an easy 'plug it in and forget it' constantly updated hardware filter - obviating the need to do software updates, etc.
Thoughts?
Lee
Top
