January 10, 2005: Year of HD

Steve Jobs is fond of dubbing the rhythmic cycle of four seasons "years of ..." Mac loyalists were treated to the "year of the laptop" and undoubtedly fellow Gap board members were treated to exhortations that every year should be the "year of the turtleneck." Mr. Jobs' penchant noted, it must also be said that the year of the laptop did prove to be, well, the year of the laptop. The portable wonders accounted for almost half of the Macs sold in 2003.

More puzzling was Steve's assertion that 2005 would be the year of high definition video. When Steve Jobs uttered the prediction he backed it up with Final Cut HD and iMovie HD, so he was clearly on board. Yet Steve seemed to be the only passenger on the train to the land of high definition. Camcorder companies weren't quite as prepared as Apple. At the time of the announcement no HD camcorders retailed for less than $3,000 and by the end of the year the price had only dropped marginally.

Mac users to expected that Apple would be releasing a killer HD app sometime in 2005, but this proved not to be the case. The biggest news of 2005 was the switch to Intel and the addition of select TV shows to the iTunes music store in a decidedly unHD format of 320x240. HD junkies first got their hopes up this week in 2005.