Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
In addition to the above, Apple must also address the global market in which people in different countries have very different methods (cable, on-the-air, etc.) to view TV programs.

There will be no over-the-air, or cable content because it will be internet based. I'm sure there will be some ports for random connectivity, gaming etc.

Apple also won't care (and neither will the consumer) that facetime is a closed system. Apple dominates the eco system. Any TV buyer will also own an iphone, and ipad, and increasingly a mac. I'm surprised SJ wanted it to be open, maybe he thought it necessary for rapid adoption. He may not have know at the time just how prevalent his products would become? At this point its a selling point for apple, i doubt they'd share it.
 
Last edited:
:confused:

I know Tim Cook says, don't bet against Apple; all the naysayers so far had to eat their words regarding iPod...then iPhone... then iPad so why do I still wonder?...

Rumors of an iTV / Apple TV have circled for at least 5 years... Many more clever than myself have weighed in on Apple's possible Tv User Interface paradigm shift (i.e. siri voice; ms kinnect like, etc...) or industrial design advancement (this one seems even less plausible as can apple really top designs such as Loewe's or Bang & olufsen's beovision on the first go???)

I have 2 x Apple TV (first generation) as I think Apple TV 2 was a step back - aTV 1 lets you watch the shows you've purchased w/o internet access in case of storm/loss of internet or in case your ISP has a cap on your monthly usage... iTunes match also limits how many songs you can keep in the iCloud.

And the real biggie... Pricing. I spend way too much money now buying tv seasons but if they were fairly priced I would spend 5 - 10 x more! why should a tv season be 24.99-46.99?! i think old tv seasons should sell for $12.99 and brand new no more than $22.99! why should digital be the same or more than a dvd or blu-ray set??? there is no overhand in selling a digital season of the big bang theory compared to dvd or blu ray box set! nonsense Apple! as much as i'm a huge Apple customer, i'm slowly retreating toward Amazon's digital sphere... with Amazon prime video and Amazon cloud music player why would one continue to pay ATV's premium.

i own virtually everything apple sells right now (except for apple tv 2) and so i'm open to Apple surprising us all again but i think apple may be better off trying to make iPad/iphone/atv a gaming platform to rival ps3 and xbox than dip their toes in the lcd/plasma tv low margin market.
 
Not sure about 4K, even if it was feasible to build the panels. Most American's internet bandwidth has a difficult time supporting 720p video let along 4k. Sure you can stream "1080p" off of Netflix Hulu ect but its compressed to hell, just look at it compared to an actual Bluray. For the next few years Apple should probably focus on making high quality 1080p available.

And about apple making televisions themselves, really could be on to something even though there are some obvious challenges. Just look at the market right now, high end Panasonic plasmas just about destroy any lcd panel in picture quality yet the masses flock to cheap led edge lit lcd panels that wash out at an angle, still have slow response times in the panels, and have terrible blacks compared to Plasma when the lights go out. Apple is about quality and what is considered quality in home theater has a much larger range than in say smartphones. Its difficult to imagine Apple compromising on quality, but also un feasible for the majority to be able to afford the "best" tv technology. Would be awesome if they could mass produce a 60" 4k oled for $1500 but like thats going to happen:)
 
Is it really necessary for Apple to come to market with the entire TV? Personally, I see no need for them to make the TV too, it's merely a display and today's flat screens have exceptional picture quality.

I don't see the display as being the problem. The problem is the crappy user experience. I think that it makes more sense to simply make a very clean and well designed front-end and they don't need to make the entire TV to do that.

Plus many people already have very nice flat screen TVs now. I am an Apple guy, but I won't replace my nearly new 55 inch LG with their TV. I'd love a separate Apple designed device that replaces my TV's front end though. I'd pay for that, but why replace a perfectly excellent display?

Just my opinion. Perhaps it'll become clear if and when they do what they're going to do.
 
Ask the A.C. Nielsen company and they'll tell you that's plenty to judge a whole nation's television habits.

I just took a statistics class and was just taught that a sample size of 30 people can estimate what up to 30 million people will do. Since the population of America is about 300 million I guess an acceptable (scientific) sample size is anything above 300 people.

Edit: Sorry I meant to quote the person you quoted.
 
The best part is how these people say they'd be willing to pay over $1000 for an iTV, with absolutely no information about what it would do differently than their $600 tv (apart from having an apple logo and presumably thinner edges)

I think we can all assume that it'll rock the tv world.

It will be top quality, classy, clean. and they will manage to deliver content in a simple, unified way that not only mom and dad could use, but could even install.. No set top boxes. No advertisements. Iphone as remote

All at prices that seem unreasonable until you find out that it makes you enjoy your high system instead of fight with it.

For the same reason "frugal" people spend $1400 per year on a cell phone they didn't think they needed 5 years ago, people will find new value in TVs and spend appropriately.

Now lets be logical: the Cinema Display is 1000 at 27". So we can only guess that a TV at 40+ will be at least $1500. I'm guessing two sizes, same features, at a $700 premium for the bigger set. a 32" and 46".
 
Right, except the iPad actually *is* better than pretty much any competing product and it had a year advantage over anything that came even close and with it Apple successfully defined a new category of products. The iPhone revolutionized smartphones.

But this? This is the most ridiculous analysis of a survey. No one is going to buy anything until they know what it is. Sure Apple *could* sell 13 million. They also *could* sell 100. Or they *could* sell 300 million.

All this survey really tells us is that people are really interested in what Apple can bring to the table. But of course we've known that forever so it's not exactly newsworthy. The only thing that makes it remotely interesting is this number "13 million" which is a wild stretch of a conclusion based on people saying they're "interested" in a product that hasn't even been announced. One to which most people can't even figure out what Apple will add to make them want it.

Well if they are doing an Apple TV you will find out pretty soon.
 
All the naysayers are the same people that said tablet PCs didn't work so iPad won't either before they even saw what the iPad could do. Once they saw the iPad then everyone got it.

Its going to be the same for the Apple iTV. Everyone is just guessing and can't comprehend what it could offer that's better than what they have now, but that's the point. You don't even know you want it but once you have it you can't imagine ever living without it.

The iTV is going to be more than just a beautiful high resolution TV. It may not be even more than 1080p when launched, disappointing some folks here, but it's not going to matter. Plus Apple needs to save some features like 4K to introduce in a later model, probably iTV 3.

The iTV will also be more than just a TV with built-in ROKU or Apple TV. It will have those functions of course but it will be more than that.

The iTV will also have FaceTime but it will be revolutionary. How? You'll start seeing it incorporated into a lot of different TV shows, some live even, where instead of getting your tweet mentioned they'll actually pull your FaceTime feed up and put you in the show! How's that for crazy?

Plus remember Tim Cook said its going to be like the Jetsons. People assume this just means the implementation of FaceTime, but that's not it.

Apple is going to go much further, much further than any of you can imagine. I'm going to reveal it here in the next paragraph. Take a deep breath. Prepare for your mind to be blown.

The Apple iTV is not just a TV, it's also an oven. That's right. The TV will be on the outside but then when you pull it back it's actually a door to the oven.

What's so special about this oven? Well for one it has Siri. That's right. You can talk to your iTV oven. But why would you want to talk to your oven?

How about this?

You - "Siri, tonight for dinner I want tuna casserole. I have some friends over so make enough for 6 people. Belinda is allergic to nuts so make sure there are no nut products in the dish. We'll eat at 7pm and we want to watch the pilot episode of 'Sex In The City' and then the series finale of 'Lost'. Then for dessert we want to eat apple pie topped with mini-chocolate brownies. Remember no nuts."

Siri - "Yes ma'am, tuna casserole to be served at 7pm while showing Season 1 Episode 1 of 'Sex In The City' followed by Season 6 Episode 17 and 18 of 'Lost'. Any ingredients with traces of nuts will be removed. What time should I served dessert Ma'am?"

How's that for revolutionary? People have been talking about Apple needing another game changer to keep its stock from crashing. Well this is it.

Before you kids get carried away this isn't some magic device. The iTV can't just make anything you imagine for dinner. It won't create fondue out of thin air or roasted dodo bird.

Like on the Jetsons there is a limited menu of things it can create.

Jetsons.jpg


Though like downloading apps, you can download recipes and new menu items all the time. The possibilities for what it could do really would be almost limitless, just depending on the creativity of the recipe builders.

Of course, it will need to be stocked up with the raw materials. Tuna, egg noodles, cream of mushroom soup and breadcrumbs for your tuna casserole. But the iTV won't work with just raw ingredients you buy at the supermarket.

No, recipes ingredients will be pre-packaged to be compatible on Apple iTV and in the Apple ecosystem. You won't be able to use Android foodstuffs with your Apple iTV once Google makes their own iTV copy a few years later.
 
Basic statistics would have a polling of around 40% not 1500 people.

Actually, the numbers were pulled from a survey of 1,568 US households. It was only then that they were extrapolated from thin air.


Lots of people talking about the sample size in this thread don't know math.

How many times do you need to flip a coin to get an accurate example of the odds being 50/50???

20? 50? 100?? 1000??

The more you flip the coin the closer to 50/50 you'll get, but you quickly reach the point of diminishing returns. It's a waste of time to flip a coin 100 times to prove the odds are 50/50.

When respondents have 2 choices the margin of error is roughly 1/square root of number of respondents.

So with 1,568 respondents the margin of error would be 2.53%

U.S. Pop: 311,591,917
40% of that is 124,636,766.8

A survey with 124,636,766.8 respondents would have a margin of error of 0.008%

So really the difference between surveying 1,568 and 40% of the US population probably isn't worth the trouble of surveying an extra 124.5 million people.

It gets more complicated when you add a 3rd option to the survey. But as you can see, surveying 1500 people is actually quite accurate, despite what most folks tend to think. It's statistics.
 
(Note: My apologies that was supposed to say £25 not $25. But yes, obviously there are costs for additional addons such as a power cable (£0.20 MicroUSB cable) and such).

As someone who owns 4 Pi's (two 256mb and 2 512mb models) they CAN AND DO play both Airplay and Netflix perfectly fine. If your Pi isnt setup correctly then no, they wont. But if you install the official 'Raspbian' bundle, it reallocates spare RAM to the GPU, giving very good graphic performance.

I've had 1080p content running over the XBMC implementation of airplay perfectly fine, as have many others on the RPi forums.

There is bugger all tinkering involved if you go down the Raspbian route. Hell a number of retailers even sell the Pi, with the cables and SD card pre-loaded so you plug in and go.

Even if you do it manually, flashing to the SD card really is very simple, especially from a mac, but again - you can buy ready to go SD cards.

How did you get Netflix to work? Silverlight isn't available on Linux and I didn't know there was a workaround. Also, the AirPlay built in to XBMC doesn't seem to mirror the screen from a MacBook or iPad, but I would love to be told that I'm wrong.
 
This is what i want apple to do:

1. make it beautiful. most flat screens are unattractive, with the exception of samsung's thin edge to edge tv. it's interesting that brian williams mentioned it.

2. no cables except for a power cord.

3. a full blown cable provider, with ala cart service. i get to watch any old tv show, and new programs become available when they air. I need to stream live content. this subscription can cost me a little more than a cable bill, thats fine.

4. full integration with icloud.

5. facetime, email, youtube, notes, calander, and other apps, etc.

-facetime alone will sell millions of tv's, to families with distant relatives, hip corporations (designers, architects, music/video people, rich exes). Remember that video conferencing has been possible for a long time, but it hasn't been easy to set up, and the hardware hasn't been ubiquitous enough. i find i'm doing it more and more on my phone. i do think it has a major place in the future. Tim Cook's Jetson's vision.

6. intuitive os. it can suggest shows i might like, and a great tv schedule that is easy to navigate.

7. i don't care about siri, unless it works flawlessly. otherwise it's awkward, frustrating, and it open's apple up to public criticism. s also don't need any gesturing.

8. a touch remote with a fingerprint sensor (or face recognition), so it knows who i am, and i don't have to log in to my account / setting / apps etc. interesting that apple recently bought a fingerprint sensor company.

9. a fast enough processor and enough memory in the tv to hold several accounts for all the members of a typical family.

10. something that i didn't know i can't live without.

This would be the most incredible product. It seems nearly impossible, but so did the iphone. Perhaps they should sell both a tv, and a set-top box.

The cost will be the price of a nice tv + the price of a mac mini. So $3000.

Apple could offset this with profits from content. But they love they're hardware profits. So my guess is $2800 for a 50" tv. And maybe just $700 for a box that you can connect to any tv.

The last major hurdle will be internet speeds, not sure how they'll solve that. Google is working on it in Kentucky with a fiber optic build out.

When will all this happen? I would bet its 5 years out. But Tim is already dropping hints, so who knows.

You've thought all this through very well, it appears. I personally don't believe the Television set itself, is going to materialize, but my guess is as good as yours.

.....It would push the envelope toward satellite, cable, and telephone providers becoming utility connection types, not packaged content providers.....

Cable companies are, for the most part, not content creators, but content distributors -middle men- effectively.
Their greed will hopefully make that happen, sooner or later.

.....The "content" part is the speculative part. That's what we want to see being revolutionised.

I have already spent good money on TV hardware. Give me a box with outstanding software and content options please.

I too don't want a whole new TV; I'm perfectly happy with the one I've got.
It is user experience and reasonably priced content, most people are after.

Cable Companies are not willingly going to give up their revenue streams, unless some revolutionary concept came along, that would alter the entire marketplace, and that would either replace them, or be financially beneficial to them in the long term. Another possibility would be, content creators uploading their shows directly to satellite, and dishes replacing our cable modems, for both broadband internet and cable tv.
This would open the door for companies like APPLE to come in with their own customized or a-la-carte content. True, you're replacing one middleman with another middleman, but it would give APPLE the opportunity to come up with this awesome user interface, that we're all holding our breath for. APPLE is smart enough to realize that in order for this to be successful, it: a-Has to be an awesome overall viewing experience, and b-Shouldn't cost more, than what the average person is paying now.

This would also more than likely, be much cheaper than the billions, the cable cos spend on cabling infrastructure, as well as maintenance and upgrading thereof. The savings of having eliminated those cable cos/middlemen, could make a cheaper alternative for consumers a reality, while preserving, if not even increasing, profit, for the creators of worthwhile content.

.....The jerk pundits made the same arguments about Apple muscling in on "mature" markets like MP3 players, cell phones, and the then nonexistent tablet market. They were all wrong so I won't go predicting an Apple HDTV will be D.O.A.

No predictions here either. We all like to speculate about what the possibilities are, and what we'd like to see, but in the end we just have to wait and see if APPLE can pull-off yet another industry game-changer. I too am hopeful, and cautiously optimistic that they may have an ace up their sleeve, somewhere down the line. Only time will tell.
 
Sorry if I am reading this wrongly, but I took it to mean that the overall market for these TVs is around 130m annually, so that the 11% the survey found would equate to about 13m.

I certainly hope they enter this market. I agree with what Tim Cook said about current TV technology.

If you agree with what he is saying (I'm referring to his statement saying that when he turns on his TV it's like going 20-30 years back in time) can you please explain to me precisely what is so old-school and so old about current TV and how Apple or any other company can change this?
 
This is what i want apple to do:

1. make it beautiful. most flat screens are unattractive, with the exception of samsung's thin edge to edge tv. it's interesting that brian williams mentioned it.
Beautiful is relative, I guess.

2. no cables except for a power cord.
It is difficult to imagine connecting all your devices wirelessly to a TV. You would have to use many sets of powerful transmitters/receivers to accomplish this and achieve reliable bandwidth comparable with HDMI cables. Wired connections in this case are a lot more feasible.

3. a full blown cable provider, with ala cart service. i get to watch any old tv show, and new programs become available when they air. I need to stream live content. this subscription can cost me a little more than a cable bill, thats fine.
How does this differ from what we have now?

4. full integration with icloud.
I guess that would only be useful for pictures, iClouds capacity isn't that much...

5. facetime, email, youtube, notes, calander, and other apps, etc.

-facetime alone will sell millions of tv's, to families with distant relatives, hip corporations (designers, architects, music/video people, rich exes). Remember that video conferencing has been possible for a long time, but it hasn't been easy to set up, and the hardware hasn't been ubiquitous enough. i find i'm doing it more and more on my phone. i do think it has a major place in the future. Tim Cook's Jetson's vision.
I can use Skype on my TV just fine and it's dead easy to set up (you just... log in).

6. intuitive os. it can suggest shows i might like, and a great tv schedule that is easy to navigate.
We do have that already. For instance, the BBC iPlayer has great UI.

8. a touch remote with a fingerprint sensor (or face recognition), so it knows who i am, and i don't have to log in to my account / setting / apps etc. interesting that apple recently bought a fingerprint sensor company.
What you need instead (and has been implemented already) is using your smartphone as a remote - it is already personal, and you don't need any silly fingerprint sensing business. And you have a second screen experience.

9. a fast enough processor and enough memory in the tv to hold several accounts for all the members of a typical family.
This is extremely easy to achieve and has already been available for a long time.


I think you don't realise how much of this is available already.
 
Unless an apple branded TV is significantly value adds to a conventional TV, I do not foresee myself buying one when it is released. I really cannot imagine what apple can come up with. But I trust they can and will surprise me in ways that I cannot imagine.
 
I just took a statistics class and was just taught that a sample size of 30 people can estimate what up to 30 million people will do. Since the population of America is about 300 million I guess an acceptable (scientific) sample size is anything above 300 people.

Edit: Sorry I meant to quote the person you quoted.

You should re-take your statistics class.

The size of the population doesn't make any difference (except the obvious one that a 1% error for 30 million people is 300,000, while a 1% error for 300 million people is 3 million).

You can use any sample size you want including a sample size of one. Depending on your results and the sample size you can then calculate error bounds. The larger the sample size, the lower the error bounds. With a sample size of one, the error bounds are just very large.

(An example of valid sample size one: You claim that 99.99% of people agree with X. If I ask one random person, and that person disagrees with X, then your claim is very likely wrong, because the chances of that one random person disagreeing if 99.99% agree is only one in ten thousand. On the other hand asking 1000 people and they all agree with X still leaves plenty of room for error).
 
[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]


Last week, Tim Cook shared that television was an area of "intense interest" for Apple, stoking the rumor mill once again that the company will come out with a TV at some point. Today, Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty shared results from a proprietary survey of 1,568 U.S. heads of household from September. Fortune's Philip Elmer-DeWitt shares some of the results of the survey.

Further, Huberty lays out three strategies for Apple to fix television. The company could become a "full-blown virtual cable service provider"; partner with existing pay-TV carriers and replace their set-top box with its own; or Apple could "bundle the TV set with its existing Apple TV" box.

Of course, there have been years of speculation about a potential Apple TV. Following the release of Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs, in which Jobs said he had "cracked" television, rumors have taken on a more fervent tone.

Article Link: Apple Could Sell 13 Million Televisions According to Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty

I'm not particularly interested in buying an Apple television because it would be so limiting. An apple set-top box with cable integration would be much more compelling. The biggest stumbling block I see to that is itunes competing directly with On-Demand services that the cable companies offer.
 
It will be a huge win if they do it like they did with iTunes for music, where you just pay for the content you want to watch. TV ala carte, the way it should be, instead of the way cable is now where you're forced to pay for 150 channels for the ten you actually watch.

I don't think you get how TV works. The truth is, you pay for the 20-30 channels that everyone watches, and then the other channels get to come along for the ride.

If you think you're going to get just ESPN, FX, Comedy, Nick, TNT, etc. for a significant discount over the entire package, you're being naive.
 
46% of respondents were willing to pay over $1,000 for an iTV and 10% were willing to pay over $2,000. On average, respondents were willing to pony up $1,060, a 20% premium over the the average $884 they paid for their current TV set.

I assume that 10% includes all of The 1%; but are any of the 46% part of The 47%? Because, if so, that says someting about priorities in today's society.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.