Steve Jobs: Apple TV getting YouTubed
(Credit:
Apple.com)
At D5, Walt Mossberg interviewed Steve Jobs. A lot of interesting talk about the business, but at the end, Jobs dropped some real news on us:
"Wouldn't it be great if you could see YouTube in your living room?" he asked. In mid-June, Apple TV will get a new menu item: YouTube.
Interactivity (search, in particular), uses a TiVo-like letter grid, which is slower than a real keyboard (hey, maybe you'll be able to use your iPhone as a remote?), but when you need to locate the latest robot dances, it does the job.
Other video sources may come later, Jobs allowed.
Last week, word got out that adventurous developers had created their own AppleTV plug-in (among others) for playing YouTube videos; the plug-in is called "A Series of Tubes."
Apple.com has already been updated with a Quicktime demo of the new plug-in.
Rafe Needleman writes about start-ups, new technologies, and Web 2.0 products, as editor of CNET's Webware. E-mail Rafe. 
