This article in the NY Times talks about what a mess the digital home is and how Apple/Steve Jobs can possibly be its savior. Well, I don't know about that, but after spending more of my weekend than I like trying out the new download service from Amazon as well as trying to deliver a copy of V for Vendetta downloaded from Movielink to my Xbox 360 over a home network, I agree that things need help.

First off, the new Amazon download service, Unbox, suffers from serious download issues. I'm in Seattle, Amazon-central, and in a couple of attempts I couldn't get more than 90 kilobits per second. Sure, headquarters aren't data centers, and I fully recognize I'm a sample size of one, but I'm also not the only one.

Movielink's download speeds were much better, close to 3 megabit per second, but this was only after I ordered the movie on my Xbox 360 through the Online Spotlight on Xbox Live only to have the software lock up and require me to finish downloading the file to my PC. And now my Xbox 360 can't find the file on the PC.

If tomorrow's announcement from Apple offers not only a movie store but also a way to bridge the TV/PC divide, I'm all for it. Still, as much as Apple's scores of devoted followers think the company can solve any problem in the home, even this one won't be solved in attempt 1.0. Even if Apple, as I expect, pushes their Front Row application as a whole home media hub and ties together iPod and computer hardware together more seamlessly as part of their media distribution platform, the bottom line is someone needs to manage all of that. Putting yourself into the walled garden that is Apple may be an answer for some, but not everyone will have the $2000 or so it would require to put themselves on all-Apple hardware, especially when the old fashioned experience of paying around $40 a month for cable, satellite or IPTV service isn't exactly a model that needs fixing.