Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Hum.... so... lets see...

Just another box under my TV, and look, it is MAGIC!!!

"You type what you want" oooook.... now, let me ask a dumb question: HOW THE F DO YOU TYPE?!?!?!? Will we have a keyboard attached? Or will we use a directional control to find letters and click them? Or....

Ah yes, the channels, that looks interesting... but how will it work again?

Oh, I just started a download of a huge file from the internet. Hey look, my TV show is having "spasms..."

Honestly, I don't see this going anywhere. I still enjoy my experience with the "hobby" Apple TV, which for goodness sake Apple could give more attention to, and using the remote on my iPhone works as a charm.

By the way, the iPhone remote thing was one of the best ideas EVER for controlling a TV attached device.
 
New experience for tv?

Is this not just a rebirth of WebTv from the late 90's?

I just want to watch movies and tv shows and play games on my tv. I don't want to browse the web. Web pages and online content look like crap on those large "low resolution" screens. I have a computer hooked up to the tv to play videos. But the web looks like crap on a huge screen
 
Hum.... so... lets see...

Just another box under my TV, and look, it is MAGIC!!!

"You type what you want" oooook.... now, let me ask a dumb question: HOW THE F DO YOU TYPE?!?!?!? Will we have a keyboard attached? Or will we use a directional control to find letters and click them? Or....

Ah yes, the channels, that looks interesting... but how will it work again?

Oh, I just started a download of a huge file from the internet. Hey look, my TV show is having "spasms..."

Honestly, I don't see this going anywhere. I still enjoy my experience with the "hobby" Apple TV, which for goodness sake Apple could give more attention to, and using the remote on my iPhone works as a charm.

By the way, the iPhone remote thing was one of the best ideas EVER for controlling a TV attached device.

If you watched the conference they stated that they are working with a few manufactures on a great input device.

One would assume we will see a slide out keyboard much like the highend vizio TV remotes.
 
Google is about the last company in the world who will find a way to get a user interface working/looking right on a large screen. Google is far too sterile of a company in just about every way to get multimedia right in a "home entertainment system." And on top of that, their offerings rarely flesh out to be even remotely as nice as touted to be, not to mention the "endless-beta period."

Part of me wonders if this will even make it to the market in any serious way.

No one has gotten this model even close to right yet. Apple certainly hasn't with AppleTV and I doubt Google will, but at some point someone will, and it'll likely be great. HTPC's are close in ability, but it's kinda missing the point of "simplified media manager." Some of the other options are getting there, but they're just not quite there.

There's still just too many interests desperately trying to pull strings at this point for there to be a single, simple, intuitive box that organizes and runs all your media well.
 
After what Google did to Youtube, how can I believe that GoogleTV won't be anything but a bloated, ad-filled, unwatchable abortion?
 
Dear Google,

Come back when you have an actual product to demo. Not trying to pick on you, but Microsoft has soured us all on the inspiring video full of promises thing (see Courier, Natal, Surface, etc.)
 
After what Google did to Youtube, how can I believe that GoogleTV won't be anything but a bloated, ad-filled, unwatchable abortion?

There really aren't that many ads on youtube.

And the sheer popularity of youtube is the reason it runs slow at times.
 
As an Apple stocks holder Im very happy of Google stupidity of announcing everz of their products MONTHS in advance giving Apple enough time to react. But this is not the only thing I like about Google. The other things are for example that most things they do fail, while most things Apple does do not. Compare Googles (much higher) stock price with apple's I think it will soon be reveresed with Apple essentially havong Google stock price and vica versa.

The stock price in and by itself means nothing. What matters is the Price/ Earnings ratio. Currently, GOOG is 21.81 and AAPL is 20.62. This means that Google shares are just a little more expensive than Apple's. AAPL has been catching up with their stock price catapulting this year. However, every time AAPL reports record earnings, their trailing P/E goes down, and hence the stock becomes more attractive to investors, which makes the stock price go up. The higher the P/E ratio is, the less attractive the stock is. However, with innovating companies like Apple, even a relatively high P/E ratio may attract a lot of investors if Apple continues to deliver high-margin profits like they have been so far.

The bottom line is that there are two camps forming out there. The one that is centered around Google, and Apple going at it on their own. This is an all-out war. I am hoping that Apple will win in the long run, but I think this war is more serious than the one that Apple had with Microsoft. This one will most likely kill either Google or Apple. These two giants will not rest until one of them dies.

Google has a lot of stuff in beta, and it stays in beta forever. They are an advertising agency. All their efforts are centered around peddling ads. Everything they invent must be able to bring advertising revenue to ever have a chance to get out of beta. Otherwise, all these efforts are just the more successful than average personal projects to which every Googler is required to dedicate 20% of their work week (1 day a week).
 
Wow this is pathetic

So you can search for things and then watch them, great. You still need cable, you still need a dvr, and you still need the old media dogs. The people who love this are NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, COMCAST, DIRECTV, etc., etc.

This is google trying to protect the old media from innovation and the way of the future where I have one easy place to go for all my media and I can watch it on demand for one price, which is what Apple will do now. Apple threatens this old media and they are scared and they think google can stop it but sorry it will keep marching forward. I see similarities in Congress and Obama, you have the old dogs (media, google and congress) fighting against change because it scares them and then Obama (Apple) is fighting to progress us forward and that freaks everyone out. Well all I can say if the old dogs win then this country is over and so is any great innovation we have coming our way. So I hope that Obama and Apple win this fight (which I think they will because they have the populous on their sides)
 
This is all really quite simple. Apple just needs to wirelessly port the i-Phone and i-Pad to Apple TV so that you can use your i-Phone or i-Pad as a controller for the games you own and play them on your tv through Apple TV. The only thing that would be even cooler is if Apple started building television sets that could do this. Imagine not being required to purchase a separate gaming system because it was all built in to the television.

You could go to your friend's houses with your phone and you could all sync up to the same game. It's THAT simple. This is where it is all headed. TRUST ME.

If so many of us see this potential, I can't help but think that Apple sees it. Didn't they say they still had plans for it.
 
New experience for tv?

Is this not just a rebirth of WebTv from the late 90's?

I just want to watch movies and tv shows and play games on my tv. I don't want to browse the web. Web pages and online content look like crap on those large "low resolution" screens. I have a computer hooked up to the tv to play videos. But the web looks like crap on a huge screen


Ummm not on my 1080p tv.....
 
Only a Vision

This was only a vision. Everyone would want the "best of the web" mixed with "the best of TV". They didn't show any of the key hurdles in achieving this:

1) keyboard and mouse in the living room
2) typing on the couch while the words appear on the TV 5-10 feet away
3) working with cable providers
4) messy results from full web search

The real solution: a tablet PC controlling your TV. That way you interact with the tablet and the results of that interaction show up on the TV. Yes, Google may have a tablet in the works, but Apple is closer to this solution than Google.

It's still about weight, battery life and operating system. Apps will win.
 
I really hope that the product isn't as convoluted as this ad.

I tend to read, still, unlike a number of people who want the Cliffs Notes version of everything these days. But I found this commercial difficult to follow. What are they trying to say that can't be said in two or three images and no words?

I'm seeing the images, then trying to keep up with what this generically-friendly guy is saying in the voice-over... and I can't remember a damned thing he told me. All I've got in my head is a jumble of images and something about how confusing it is to search for your favorite show on a DVR.

Here's where Google's going to fail compared to Apple. Apple has a pretty good grasp on how to get a message across. It doesn't matter that the message might not contain all the caveats therein or whatever complaints that a narrow niche of geeks can think up. What matters is you see two or three key images that immediately tell you what the product is, what it does, where you can use it. People aren't as dumb as most companies want to think. Show them a few images and they can easily figure out where in their lives the product might be useful. And since that differs for everyone, it's far simpler letting their imagination run with the basic image in their mind, rather than trying to explain in 30 to 120 seconds every single purpose, person and function the product serves.

Show me, don't tell me.
 
You can pretty much bet that Apple will completely abandon Apple TV. It's a 3 year old hobby, makes no money, has few customers, and judging by "the competition," isn't going anywhere either. They can redirect those R&D resources into something better that has a higher chance of success. Consumers are reducing their set top boxes, not adding to them.

AppleTV=The Cube
:D

Apple could do to TV what it did to music. Its a huge market, and simply bringing the app store model to TV would be huge.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.