No Revamped Apple TV or iWatch Expected at WWDC

[charlituna]

This is the thing that honestly has frustrated me the most with Apple over the last few years. People say they release products "when they are ready". I say bull crap. Some magical way they ALL happen to be ready during a 2 month period in the fall.

Keep in mind that some of that 'when they are ready' is controlled by outside forces like when Intel has their new chips ready. So yes it could all fall at the same time.

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As a developer, I honestly could not care less about

And because you don't give a rats ass the rest of the world shouldn't either.

 

[charlituna]

If Apple releases a new Apple TV with support for 3rd-party apps, there will undoubtedly be an SDK to go with it.

Or there won't be because they are revamping the Apple TV OS to basically be iOS as it is rather than this hobbled version. So every app will naturally work on the Apple TV without the need for changes. Of course developers could, just like they could do a second UI look of their iPhone apps to look better on the iPad. But that will come after the switch over, thus keeping the game plan secret until the last minute for most folks. Save a few who were warned so as to have working apps at launch -- much of which will likely be the same apps already on the Apple TV as folks will lose it if they lose an app they already had.

 

[charlituna]

Apple absolutely must release an SDK for the Apple TV and allow a proper App Store with Apps installable from any Apple-registered developer if it is serious about TV.

MUST?

You sound like an analyst. And guess what they are wrong also. Apple must nothing. Just as they have been doing for ages and still making hand over fist.

If you have an issue with that don't buy their stuff or their stock. They will do just fine without you.

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Still, on the other hand, 'No mention' could imply not this year cos Apple's struggling, like how Apple Television, but we never hear from that now.

It could mean they wanted to and it's delayed

It could mean they never wanted to mention it at WWDC

It could mean that the analysts are full of crap and it isn't happening at all and never was. Same with that alleged 'real' tv

 

[I WAS the one]

Please, focus about software and be surprised if they suddenly show a brand new product as a bonus. WWDC stands for World Wide Developers Conference.

 

[Menel]

Don't need hardware to launch new AppleTV / AppStore / SDK at developer conference.

Current AppleTV3 has a single core A5 chip. Slots itself somewhere between the iPad 1 and 2 for performance. Yes, its low. But
1. it gives devs something to debug on
2. It lets basic apps and more services come out, its proven plenty for tons of media services.
3. Its plenty of cpu for cut the rope class games and graphics.

And it can probably limp as a dev platform, debug platform, for the next gen hardware details (A7X, A8, ram+, triangles+, etc) secretly given under NDA to the big mobile graphics dogs like Unity and Unreal Engine.

*wishing and dreaming*

 

[Frankied22]

I'm going to be really disappointed if they don't at least show off new software for the ATV. That thing is so cumbersome to navigate compared to Roku 3, Fire TV, and CC. Just about everything you open shows a spinning circle for a second. When you go into Netflix you have to drill down like 4 menus just to get to movies. In Hulu and HBO it takes a minute for all the show pictures to load in.

They need to redesign it and add a universal search like Roku 3 has.

 

[leesmith2]

They don't need to announce new hardware at WWDC. Just announce the Apple TV SDK and CarPlay SDK. A Siri SDK would really be something.

 

[Tranquilizer]

Aw man

 

[jctech]

Stocks

If that is true, I bet we will see Apple's stock plumit far more than june of last year.

 

[MellowFuzz]

How about a FaceTime that isn't functionally crippled because it's not cross-platform? The fact that most of us normal people who don't live in an Apple employee-bubble have friends with Android phones and therefore need to be pestered to use 3rd party services like Viber and Line, is a great big ugly stain on the Apple experience (and highly reminiscent of early 90s Apple that almost died because it had its head up its proprietary butt).

 

[MikhailT]

How about a FaceTime that isn't functionally crippled because it's not cross-platform? The fact that most of us normal people who don't live in an Apple employee-bubble have friends with Android phones and therefore need to be pestered to use 3rd party services like Viber and Line, is a great big ugly stain on the Apple experience (and highly reminiscent of early 90s Apple that almost died because it had its head up its proprietary butt).

First of all, Apple promised to open source FaceTime the moment they announced it. Unfortunately, they got sued and lost the case for certain VPN patents that FaceTime uses.

Since you cannot open source a standard unless you have agreements from all companies who have patents in the standard, Apple's SOL.

IIRC, the VPN patents are going to expire by 2020. If that is accurate, then Apple can open source FaceTime by that time.

 

[PieCake]

[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]


Apple does not have plans to use the company's upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference to debut new Apple TV hardware, its related software, or the iWatch, reports John Paczkowski of Re/code.

Citing sources familiar with Apple's plans, Paczkowski confirms that Apple's big announcements will focus on OS X 10.10, iOS 8, and possibly Healthbook, an app Apple is said to be developing to aggregate fitness and health information.

Image​

An Apple TV concept via Curved​

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Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, which starts on June 2, has historically been used as a platform for unveiling new operating system software. Apple has, however, occasionally debuted new hardware at the event, including new MacBook Airs in 2013 and the Retina Macbook Pro in 2012.

Though the company does not have plans to unveil an updated Apple TV set-top box at WWDC, the product is said to be in the works. The revamped box is rumored to include an App Store, gaming support, iOS 7 controller integration, and possibly new content deals.

Apple may have had plans to debut the box earlier in 2014, but according to a recent product roadmap from often reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, we may not see an updated Apple TV until the third quarter of 2014.

As for the iWatch, which also remains in development, a late 2014 release date is expected.

Article Link: No Revamped Apple TV or iWatch Expected at WWDC

That "concept" Apple TV is ridiculously O.T.T. for a little box that's design is meant to be low-key and discreet, tucked away in a dark corner and dwarfed by HUGE flat screen tellies.; who's going to bling out a streaming box that never sees the chance to be shown off? That's like making the soles of your shoes out of polished 24ct gold...

Doh!

 

[MellowFuzz]

First of all, Apple promised to open source FaceTime the moment they announced it. Unfortunately, they got sued and lost the case for certain VPN patents that FaceTime uses.

Since you cannot open source a standard unless you have agreements from all companies who have patents in the standard, Apple's SOL.

IIRC, the VPN patents are going to expire by 2020. If that is accurate, then Apple can open source FaceTime by that time.

Sigh... but others worked around it. They didn't need to open-source it - just hire a few contractors to build clients for other platforms.

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Apple used to announce new hardware months before release all the time. I think it worked well, as the waiting period helped build up some excitement. Hopefully, they'll do the same here - the Mac Pro preview by Phil Schiller helped to stave off a mass dumping of the Apple platform by media industry professionals... but even then, only partly.

 

[MikhailT]

Sigh... but others worked around it. They didn't need to open-source it - just hire a few contractors to build clients for other platforms.

The problem is that when they wanted to open source it, there was no need to host the video calls themselves. That was just direct connections between two parties and they're sending data through that connection at no additional cost for Apple.

Expanding to other platforms (even as a closed-source) does not change anything because Apple would have to pay for the massive bandwidth that's going to increase over time with each new user.

Others probably have a license, Apple's just being stubborn about not wanting to license the patents.

One thing for sure, they're not going to pick up the huge tab just to cover FaceTime calls from Android users.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...e-tweaks-facetime-and-logs-500000-complaints/

The original spec bypasses the majority of the costs by doing a direct connection between both parties but after the patents, all Facetime calls have to route through relay servers to connect both parties and that server also pushes the video data. This was costing Apple $2.4 million dollars per MONTH. That's ~30 million dollars for 2013 alone for iOS users, which is technically not that big of a market share when compared to # of Android users.

Can you imagine Apple paying more just to cover Android users? They're not going to do it and they will remain stubborn about the whole thing.

At this point, it's just easier to wait for a third party (Viber, Line in your case) to come up with a better solution before expecting Apple to do anything.

The point I'm making is that Apple's not doing this because they wanted Facetime to be closed to Apple platforms, they're simply not doing it because of the costs.