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Foxconn Likely to Win Contract for Building Apple Television Set

I'll give this one a pass. A TV should display what's pumped into it, not do any kind of other stuff on its own. I can replace components yearly or every two years, but I'm not replacing a TV any faster than every 7 to 10 years.

I don't think the idea of an ACTUAL Apple TV sits with the current "upgrade every 1-2 years" model of Apple products and wouldn't be nearly as profitable (in terms of percentages) as any of their other products.
 
flux73 said:
IMO, the biggest challenge for this rumored product is content. Without it, it's going to be an uphill battle and Apple will not have control over the market even if they make significant headway. With the content, success is virtually assured. With $80 billion dollars in cash, I think Apple will be able to make this happen by brute force if they can't convince the content providers to do so on reasonable terms.
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Flux73 has it right. 90% of television content is generated by independent production companies. These indies pitch to networks who in turn have contracts with cable companies which put shows in front of an audience, an ecosystem which might go the way of the buffalo, the music label and the publisher (although buffalo may be ironic as the model has been to stampede content directly to consumers).

When Jobs said the television industry was balkanized he was talking about 1) the affiliation of local TV stations to the parent networks- relationships which trade national programming for local content and 2) the myriad cable providers and their competing distribution arrangements. These relationships are all tumultuous -subject both to competing ownership interests as well as the rules and regs of the FCC.


TiVo didn't disrupt the TV industry it disrupted the viewer. So I agree that hardware and software alone are unlikely to disrupt the TV industry. Unlike books and music, television underwriting will the hard part of this equation because the networks take risks ($$$) by developing original programming. It's a lot more expensive than an author at a laptop or 3 kids with drums, amps, and protools. The question is who will take/pay for that risk in the new ecosystem. I have my own idea where this is headed but it'll be interesting to see it develop.
 
sarge said:
90% of television content is generated by independent production companies. These indies pitch to networks who in turn have contracts with cable companies which put shows in front of an audience...
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Apple then effectively becomes a "network".

Add in streaming rights to sports (almost there already with existing deals with MLB, NHL, NBA) and we're close to lift off.

The question is whether Indies actually want open access...there are financial advantages to the existing system...
 
britboyj said:
I'll give this one a pass. A TV should display what's pumped into it, not do any kind of other stuff on its own. I can replace components yearly or every two years, but I'm not replacing a TV any faster than every 7 to 10 years.

I don't think the idea of an ACTUAL Apple TV sits with the current "upgrade every 1-2 years" model of Apple products and wouldn't be nearly as profitable (in terms of percentages) as any of their other products.
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Why? For the same reason should all in one computers be failing, because monitors should display what's pumped into them and not any kind of stuff on their own?

While I do agree with an Apple TV not fitting in with their current model it's worth remembering that it's their CURRENT model, and can easily be changed if they've discovered an alternative model they think will work.
 
damir00 said:
Apple then effectively becomes a "network".

Add in streaming rights to sports (almost there already with existing deals with MLB, NHL, NBA) and we're close to lift off.

The question is whether Indies actually want open access...there are financial advantages to the existing system...
Click to expand...

An NYT article recently discussed the 'sports tax' on cable subscriptions
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/business/media/for-pay-tv-clients-a-steady-diet-of-sports.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=cable%20sports&st=cse

It will be interesting to see what kind of a la carte price policy the new Apple 'network' can impose - those who don't give a toss about football are already working on their end zone jitterbug.

Agree about the indies too. If youtube is the future of television then thank god for re-runs.
 
Compile 'em all said:
Apple has always believed in the whole-package experience. Right now, Apple TV isn't a whole-package experience.
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This is true, depending on your perspective. If you look at it from the point of view of the entire package, then none of Apple's current products are a whole package experience. The iPhone still depends on a carrier. Macs/iPod touch/iPad still depend largely on the broadband provider. iPods depend heavily on the music/movie artists and distributors.

So for the iTV (or whatever it'll be called), even if it's a consolidated screen/aTV, it's still heavily dependent on the content providers.

I think Apple's main philosophy is that they get into markets where they can completely improve upon what's there. But they also have to be able to make money. Apple can surely hit on the first of those two requirements. Not sure if there's any money to be made on selling TVs, even if they can charge a 20% premium.

For the record, I don't believe these rumors of Apple producing full TV sets. To me, it doesn't make any sense. There's no money in it. It's rapidly becoming a commodity business. Certainly not the kind of business that Apple likes to compete in. But then again, I not foolish enough to bet against Apple ... after all, they are highly successful with Macs going up against commodity PCs (sort of).
 
Just to point out the obvious ... anything larger than 37" would be rather difficult to maneuver if it has a touch screen control. And anything nearing 37" (at arms length) would completely fill your field of view anyway.

Remember the old saying ... anything larger than a hand full is wasted :p

Apple tends to think outside of the box and so placing a TV in the same proximate distance to a computer monitor wouldn't be outrageous.

I have read that the up coming generation for the most part watch TV today on a laptop even today ...
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Y'all are missing the point. Sir Jonathan Ive will make the most beautiful TV ever created. It's like the MacBook Air and the G4 Cube. It's a proof of concept. Something else to prove their industrial design prowess... Who cares if it sells. It'll be sexy!
 
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