The Next Great Apple Peripheral: The PSP

Okay. So the Playstation Portable isn’t made by Apple. Technically it is made by a PC manufacturer (although from what I’ve heard about Sony, all the separate departments are separate to the point of close to all-out-war on one another). However, I think the PSP is quickly becoming my favorite Mac peripheral. Here’s why:

Video iPod, anyone?
Steve Jobs says he thinks that video is the wrong way to go in a portable device; yet, every MacWorld sees the release of more software and hardware that focuses on video, video-editing, and making the Mac the video-centric digital hub platform. One of the really great things about the PSP is that I can grab a show off of my ReplayTV using mReplay, compress the video easily to MPEG4, and load it up on a Memory Stick Duo for on the go viewing of my shows. That’s nice. Unfortunately, the 32MB stick included with the PSP doesn’t hold much in the way of video and larger sticks cost money, but still: I already have a very nice 40GB 4G iPod for my music. In the past, I’ve been tempted to go out and spend more money to get a large iPod photo. Now, I’m simply going to funnel that money into a larger memory stick for the PSP. The screen is amazing on this device, and it can handle MPEG4 video, all the photos I want to stick on it, as well as a handful of MP3s. There are several PSP media managers available for Mac already, with Sony promising to release their own Mac solution later this year. Until Sony produces this software, check out iPSP and PSPware for full synching of your Mac media with your PSP, complete with iPhoto and iTunes integration . If you’re just looking for a way to convert video to MPEG4 for the PSP, and want to manually place all the files in the Memory Stick Duo, then you may want to look into using ffmpegX with the PSP.

Mac Gaming
Although the Mac gaming scene has greatly improved over the last several years, it’s still light-years behind the Windows world. As a result, I’ve conditioned myself (with a few exceptions like Warcraft) to be a strictly console gamer. Although I may play around on my Mac, for the most part I work more on my Mac than I ever play games. As a result, the PSP is a good gaming solution for me. It is portable with multiple games, and the entire system with all its components fits nicely inside my laptop bag alongside my 12-inch Powerbook. It’s not really Mac gaming, but it’s better than an X-Box.

As an added bonus, my PSP has built in wireless in the form of 802.11, ostensibly for having on-the-fly LAN parties with other PSP-wielding friends. However, if I take my Powerbook and plug it into the internet via Ethernet, then create a Computer to Computer network via Airport between my Powerbook and my PSP, I can run a few OS X programs to connect to other PSP players around the world via Xlink Kai’s free online gaming service. There’s a tutorial for doing this in the Official Xlink Kai Forums.

Internet capable PDA
This is the area where the PSP is growing the fastest. It is proving itself to be highly hackable. People have already figured out how to wirelessly browse the web on the PSP, how to read RSS feeds on the PSP, how to join IRC chats on the PSP, and how to read ebooks, manga, and webcomics on the PSP. These hacks are very active and growing. PocketMac even has PocketMac for PSP that integrates your PSP with iSync and your Address Book / Entourage address book, converting all your contacts into JPEGS which can be read on the PSP under its photo browser. As you can see, the PSP is not-so-slowly becoming a homebrew PDA.

The Hybrid Sony / Mac Peripheral?
Hopefully, either Sony will soon see all this activity and provide some solutions of their own or some third party will come out with a standalone web-browser that you can download and run off of your memory stick and a USB attachable mini keyboard for the PSP. Ideally, Sony will release a UMD burner / a USB hard drive attachment so that we can get more video on the PSP than the prohibitive cost and availability of the Memory Stick Duo format currently allows. I’m eager to see what Mac-centered solution Sony releases for the PSP, and I think if they play their cards right and open up this platform just enough, a lot of Mac users will be hauling these things around. I realize this isn’t a Mac device. However, if the Mac community continues to tinker and hack away at it the way they already have, and if the larger internet community continues to open up the platform, I really think the PSP could be the next great Mac peripheral. . . . at least, if you really like games. Did I mention that it plays games?