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FiOS has great service, but the comment on their UI almost made me laugh. There's a ridiculous amount of clutter everywhere with all this widget BS and other stuff flying at you. The DVR features are a bit sketchy. To use your iPhone/iPod as a remote, you have to get their app, which is pretty clunky (and was way, way worse before a recent update). The also spelled "search" as "seach" in the movie selection UI. And to make matters worse, the box crashes sometimes, especially when dealing with Amazon video. Once it crashes, you can't use an iOS remote app with it unless you go and hit a button on the real remote, which is a pain for me since my box is in the basement.

But they do have a great selection of channels and movies. The actual service is great if you ignore the customer service, which is pretty much nonexistent. I called about the DNS lookup failing very often on the ISP service in FiOS, and they told me I had to PAY to get that kind of tech support. WTF?!

The FiOS UI isn't perfect, it's definitely bloated and could use a little more uniformity, but the channel guide alone compared to what I had on Time Warner in New York and Comcast in Florida is an enormous upgrade. TWC/Comcast were both 4:3 standard def, show you 4-5 channels at a time with 1.5 hours of programming, are slow, laggy, buggy. Comcast doesn't even show channel logos yet uses 15% of the screen to show you ads. Moving from that to the FiOS guide in full HD that shows 7 channels and 2.5 hours worth of programming on one page is amazing.

I've been having DNS issues too, seems to be affecting all FiOS northeast customers. I switched over to the Google Public DNS though and it solved everything.
 
I wonder if apple has plans on becoming a bandwidth provider given their interests of cracking the tv industry.
 
Not sure if anyone has mentioned this however, what if :apple: is not producing a TV or even a set-top-box. What if :apple: is producing a

1080p projector with the :apple:TV built-in and a 4K projector down the road. Shipping a defined size and multiple model TV's is a logistical nightmare along with shipping cost, warehouse cost and delivery plus warranties. This sounds unlike Apple.

A 1080p LED projector the size of the MacMini with :apple:TV functionality built-in is logical as packaging, shipping, storage, delivery and repairs are on a minor flexible scale. I believe this is what Apple will release it fits within they Eco-system of small and powerful (opinion based).

I feel all the analyst, rumours, forum members, fans might have the wrong idea.

Think of a projector with AirPlay built-in and Siri as projectors can be mounted on the ceiling, beyond the reach and convenience of daily use. Thoughts?
 
It sounds to me like Intel is pretty secure with themselves and their arrangement with Apple.

First the "Ultrabook" move, oooooohhhhh aaaaahhhhhh :rolleyes:

Now a setop box....

And didn't they try to rip off the App Store with something called Intel App Ups for Windows?

:apple:
 
So companies like Pace are ripping off Apple because they manufacturer set-top-boxes? :confused:

Anyway, why do people think some other company manufacturers anything remotely similar to an Apple product is ripping Apple off?
 
Ces2013 will suck.

Apple will not succeed with their tv

People won't pay more for cable tv

Cable tv is in the drivers seat

Cable TV is losing droves of viewers to Satellites [approaching 40 million in the US] and other platforms like Verizon FiOS to CenturyLink's own and more.

Comcast is around 26 million subscribers.

Add another 26 million to Time Warner Cable which then puts us over 90 million contracts for Broadcast television.

Figure that could be 2.5 per home [around the average by the census] and we're nearly at 230 million air breathers.

Each year Cable TV [basic to digital subscribers to Internet over copper] is losing to Satellite and CLink, Verizon FiOS and others.

Cable TV is not in the driver seat. Broadcast Networks are in the driver seat.
 
Cable tv is in the drivers seat

What makes you think that? The UI of most cable receivers are horrible. And there is nothing intelligent about the likes of TiVO either when it comes to actually working out what viewers like and what to recommend to you...Much room for improvement...
 
Do you have a problem with intel's processors or something?

I think it's more the fact that intels processors are designed for desktop and laptop machines, and having one in a set top box which is just going to process video is a little overkill. Like putting a V8 motor in a moped.

Unless it supports 4K in which case.. Hmmm...
 
About time someone challenged Comcast's outrageous chokehold on our nations crappy internet connection.
 
Why can't Verizon Fios come to my neighborhood?? It's a nice neighborhood. They would like it there.

Last I read they've abandoned further rollouts of the service altogether - they're maintaining subscribers in the areas they've already "wired," but for whatever reasons - cap investment or low uptake or whatever - expansion doesn't seem in their cards. Or hasn't.

What I read was at least a year or two old, though..... ....so if someone wants to correct me, as the landscape is changing and the Fios tech might be promising in that landscape in ways it wasn't then....

...and they still market to equipped homes. My apartment building was set up and I still get email offers for sign-up packages.
 
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I think it's more the fact that intels processors are designed for desktop and laptop machines, and having one in a set top box which is just going to process video is a little overkill. Like putting a V8 motor in a moped.

Unless it supports 4K in which case.. Hmmm...

Whose to say it wont be an i3 or some mid level server chip (Sandy Bridge-E) ?

It makes sense to me. Think about. More cores are being used to check facebook now-a-days. And just over a decade ago apple was selling MHz. It's about time cable boxes get a spec bump, alot of these setop boxes are laggy. All mine are.
 
I don't quite get the discussions about these TV services. It's TV. It always was TV and will ever be. Not matter if it comes from the cable, antenna, satellite, from a box, with paid subscription, with flatrate, ...

Have a look at Teleclub. It exists since 1982 and tried to deliver superior content. It never took off. Most people don't want it. They are happy with what TV gives them.

And even if someone like Apple or Intel comes and truely delivers a new way of experiencing content on the TV... Who will actually care? I mean, I know that overall, there will be millions of customers who might be interested in. But that's the point: They are just interested, not more. Nice to have an option but paying another yearly fee just for some shows?

The market is too small. Maybe in the teenage realms. Or adult contontent. Two opposites, two extremes which are not touched by regular TV. Guess which one will be targeted. :rolleyes:

Besides: I actually don't know many people who DO watch lots of TV. Most of them don't even have a TV. And the rest maybe watches 15 minutes per day (the News).
 
Not sure if anyone has mentioned this however, what if :apple: is not producing a TV or even a set-top-box. What if :apple: is producing a

1080p projector with the :apple:TV built-in and a 4K projector down the road. Shipping a defined size and multiple model TV's is a logistical nightmare along with shipping cost, warehouse cost and delivery plus warranties. This sounds unlike Apple.

A 1080p LED projector the size of the MacMini with :apple:TV functionality built-in is logical as packaging, shipping, storage, delivery and repairs are on a minor flexible scale. I believe this is what Apple will release it fits within they Eco-system of small and powerful (opinion based).

I feel all the analyst, rumours, forum members, fans might have the wrong idea.

Think of a projector with AirPlay built-in and Siri as projectors can be mounted on the ceiling, beyond the reach and convenience of daily use. Thoughts?

Projector? Get real!
 
I wonder if apple has plans on becoming a bandwidth provider given their interests of cracking the tv industry.

That would be an idea, but it would cost billions upon billions in infrastructure, and I'm not sure APPLE has an appetite for that.

.....Cable tv is in the drivers seat

It seems that way, for now anyway.....

Cable companies are, for the most part, not content creators, but content distributors -middle men- effectively, who 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. Probably 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. This could be a win-win for both content creators and users.
Sorry middlemen, with your unbridled greed, you've priced yourselves "out of the picture'. No pun intended.

I'm optimistic that sometime in the future, the Cable Co's stranglehold on our tv viewing will be broken, and I'm cautiously hopeful that APPLE may have an ace up their sleeve, somewhere down the line. Only time will tell.
 
Drawing a blank on the last piece of Intel software I used might have been...

This reeks of Microsoft trying their hand at things they've never done in some totally new area which they find interesting because they see others doing something there and their investors are demanding new directions, throwing a whole lot of money at it, coming out with something, failing, and quietly retreating back into milking your install base upgrade business because that's all you can do well is upgrade the install base you somehow managed to lock in years ago when the industry was much different.
 
I love this idea. "We're tired of half-baked solutions so we're going to do it right, with another box that's missing important stuff like sports".
 
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