Is Apple about to take on the video market?

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is famously secretive when it comes to sharing plans for his company's future.

To find clues, however, you need only look as far as the latest versions of the iTunes Music Store. You can't help noticing support for podcasting, or "radio reborn", as Apple puts it.

Look beyond that, and you'll notice that since May, the iTunes software has allowed you to play videos, movie trailers or even home movies. The store itself has begun selling a handful of music videos, with more being added each week.

Record label sources say Apple has been in talks to sell a much wider range of music videos through the store, probably as soon as this fall. The company also has indicated to media executives that an iPod that plays video could be unveiled as early as September. That leads some industry insiders to believe that Apple is working on an online movie store and a video playback device that does for movies what iTunes and the iPod have already done for music.

"Apple was a pioneer in digital music downloads, and Macs are great for audio and video," says Mike Homer, a long-time Silicon Valley executive and well-connected Apple alumnus. "This makes them well-positioned to introduce video on a grand scale."

Homer and others caution, however, that the iTunes phenomenon will be a tough act to follow, and they figure Jobs & Co. will take incremental steps later this year and next rather than diving headfirst into video overnight.

The biggest challenges are on the business side, not in technology.

Apple must strike a deal with Hollywood executives, who worry about copyright protection on the Internet and don't want to jeopardise DVD sales, which outpace sales at the box office. Apple also must compete with cable television giants such as Comcast in the movie download business.

Beyond that, Apple must come up with a plan to make a profit from video, just as it did with music. Apple makes almost all of its music business money selling iPods, not from the iTunes Music Store.

But if anybody can succeed, it will be Jobs, according to many industry executives and analysts. They cite Jobs' leadership in digital music as well as his Hollywood contacts and experience as chief executive of Pixar.