Why dont they just allow you to plug your IPAD 1 or 2 via wireless or via HDMI and then you add a blutooth keyboard and track pad. Bank extremly fast internet on your HDTV. For now you would get 720 and with the new Retina display that is coming you would get the tru 1080p.
Maybe I am missing something but that would be the next itteration of the Apple TV and IPADS...They do not have to build it in apple tv just use what you have. It could help sell more of these little buggers...Put it on the dock with the plug into ATV and away you go...
What do people think of that?
The main problem with ALL of these kinds of ideas (using iDevices with
TV, using iDevices as remotes, use iDevices as a game controller, etc) is that it only works if the owner of the iDevice is the ONLY user of the
TV. If more than one person lives in that home, they'll want the iDevice to stay home with them so that it can be used that way too. So, a mobile device become immobile. As soon as the iDevice goes with the owner out and about, anyone else at home wanting to do iDevice-driven things with their
TV are frustrated.
If you build the functionality into the
TV and keep iDevices as just ancillary ways to do other things with it, you mostly solve these multi-person household problems... though you only need to hear gripes about you taking the "good remote" with you so many times before you realize the mistake in introducing the "good remote".
Of course, your idea is not about using it as a remote, but using it as sort of a "shared tech guts" device. By combining the two in some form of link, it yields a higher function device. Nevertheless, the problem ramifications are the same for any living situation where more than one person uses this new kinds of
TV that may have dependencies for "usual functionality" in needing to be linked up with an iPad or other iDevice.
TV is an island. Of all of the iDevices, it is the one designed to be immobile the vast majority of time it is in use. It needs to offer full functionality entirely on its own, as if there is no such thing as iDevices. That way, the much bigger world that doesn't own any iDevice could still get value out of buying & using an
TV. If Apple made desirable functionality dependent on ALSO owning an iDevice, the proposition goes from $99 to $99 + the cost of whichever iDevice someone wants (er, MUST BUY). Having been around with version 1 cost $229 and seeing an endless stream of gripes about that price, you don't want to see the gripes in a co-dependent requirement (or maybe you personally would, but not the general public)
