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I think I know what the WWDC's theme will be

Dekema2

Dekema2

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 27, 2012
856
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WNY or Utica
I think I put 2+2 together. A couple weeks ago MR ran a story about how there would be a "Beats app redesign/integration" for the Spring Forward event. It was postponed presumably until WWDC.

This makes me think that Apple would do this so the WWDC will have an emphasis on "content," not necessarily the ATV in and of itself. Apple wants to make accessing content, be it from iCloud, television producers, music labels, etc., as simple and elegant as possible while fitting their (Apple's) interface standards.

So they will put it into this one box which can do just about anything. Apps, music, movies, television shows...though I think it's unfortunate there won't be a snazzy display to go with it.

They'll let you control it from your iOS device, Mac or Apple Watch and everything will be tied together. And of course it will sell like crazy because it'll be made from Apple, and many people just want to cut the (cable) cord.

Unfortunately after all this you will still be stuck with the big cable company. And, I don't know if it's appropriate to mention here, but I think that this is a scenario where having complete net neutrality, with broadband as a utility (like electricity) would eliminate the fear of cable companies throttling connections.

This is just my layman's take on what could happen. It could be nothing special, but I just have a feeling this is it.
 
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Dekema2

Dekema2

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 27, 2012
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A coincide now...The Beats service and the ATV were mentioned in the same MR article about Apple's Acunu acquisition:

https://www.macrumors.com/2015/03/26/apple-acquires-acunu/
 
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sdilley14

macrumors 65816
Feb 8, 2007
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I think this is a pretty accurate guess. The ATV "box" might see a bit of a physical overhaul, and the internals are almost certainly getting upgraded. But I agree - there will likely be a strong emphasis on content access with the ATV and streamlining content access/control from all of the hardware within the Apple ecosystem. I personally cannot wait to see an updated ATV with added functionality and internal storage.
 
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Tallmrplym

macrumors newbie
Mar 21, 2015
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0
Kinda find it unlikely Apple are going to use the keynote of their developer conference to talk about other people's content.

Think if atv is mentioned it'll be somewhat of a side note to something else. Similar to how it was when it was first introduced, which it was then immediatly overshadowed by the next item to be announced, a phone of some form...
 
2

2010mini

macrumors 601
Jun 19, 2013
4,698
4,806
Tallmrplym said:
Kinda find it unlikely Apple are going to use the keynote of their developer conference to talk about other people's content.

Think if atv is mentioned it'll be somewhat of a side note to something else. Similar to how it was when it was first introduced, which it was then immediatly overshadowed by the next item to be announced, a phone of some form...
Click to expand...

Dunno...

Apple wants the ATV to be the hub for the home. One box that unifies everything in the home. Something like that can't very well remain a "hobby"
 
oneMadRssn

oneMadRssn

macrumors 603
Sep 8, 2011
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Considering it's a developer conference, I think it's more likely we'll see a TVKit api or something, for developing AppleTV apps.
 
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Michael CM1

macrumors 603
Feb 4, 2008
5,681
276
sdilley14 said:
I think this is a pretty accurate guess. The ATV "box" might see a bit of a physical overhaul, and the internals are almost certainly getting upgraded. But I agree - there will likely be a strong emphasis on content access with the ATV and streamlining content access/control from all of the hardware within the Apple ecosystem. I personally cannot wait to see an updated ATV with added functionality and internal storage.
Click to expand...

I'm hopeful for a massive software overhaul that could hide a lot of the layers involved now on ATV. Maybe this would be optional or just default but optional, but I want to see the UI make us almost oblivious to where content comes from. Base the UI around music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, maybe books.

From there, say you go to TV shows. Your "library" is listed, and the software displays the TV shows that you either own in your iTunes library, have in your Netflix queue/list, favorited on Hulu, etc.

So if Arrow is one of your Hulu favorites and you also own the first season from an iTunes purchase but the first two seasons are available on Netflix, the software just lists the episodes you can access. It would show the first two seasons of episodes and the last five seasons from season three, which are available on Hulu. Then it could expand out from there and take you to each app.

Same thing with music, which is what I think Apple is doing with Beats. Your music is listed, but your "library" shows a combo of the albums/songs you own and the albums/songs you have added to your Beats library. The end user doesn't have to give a darn which service the music came from, even Spotify if it builds an app to certain parameters using the SDK.

This could also extend somehow to live programming like Sling TV and whatever Apple calls its service. Again with Arrow, maybe you don't subscribe to Hulu but Apple's service has the CW. You could go to that show in your TV show library and it would list upcoming episodes on the CW, maybe reruns on that channel or another. If the network allows on demand, episodes available that way show up.

Add in Siri functionality from an Apple Watch or iOS device, or even just from the box, and you've got what I think Tim Cook was referring to when mentioning how crappy TV still is. You can keep familiar channel displays for people like my parents who are used to that. But you also add that above UI for anybody to easily pick which show they want to watch.

If the third parties such as Netflix and Hulu played along, cable/satellite subscribers would flee in a hurry and this box would sell like crazy in places where broadband speeds are good enough (and where data caps don't kill you). THAT is how you change TV.
 
jonblatho

jonblatho

macrumors 68030
Jan 20, 2014
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Oklahoma
SuperNova2150 said:
That isn't an answer. Source or go home.
Click to expand...

I'm not joining either side of this, but this is a site whose main purpose is rumor and speculation in the gaps between Apple events. Sources are expected to be sketchy, provided they exist.

That said, I think it's pretty easy to see where Apple wants to take HomeKit without their saying a single word—especially how Apple TV is going to tie in to these goals.
 
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SuperNova2150

macrumors member
Mar 8, 2015
51
40
jonblatho said:
I'm not joining either side of this, but this is a site whose main purpose is rumor and speculation in the gaps between Apple events. Sources are expected to be sketchy, provided they exist.

That said, I think it's pretty easy to see where Apple wants to take HomeKit without their saying a single word—especially how Apple TV is going to tie in to these goals.
Click to expand...

Yet if you're gonna say "Apple wants to use this for that", you'd better provide a valid source that confirms that Apple actually said that.

I added an up vote BTW.
 
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