Because the issue is TVs are rather clunky to operate. By selling a $99 box you can't address the complexities of the TV, instead you just add another layer to it. It doesn't lead to a clean solution from a functional and physical perspective. I won't list any examples other than to say that by selling your device as an add-on as opposed to replacing the set, you can't do things such as get rid of the TV remote completely.
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iTunes Creator Jeff Robbin Heading Apple Television Effort?
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Because the issue is TVs are rather clunky to operate. By selling a $99 box you can't address the complexities of the TV, instead you just add another layer to it. It doesn't lead to a clean solution from a functional and physical perspective. I won't list any examples other than to say that by selling your device as an add-on as opposed to replacing the set, you can't do things such as get rid of the TV remote completely.
I just don't see what apple hope to get out of making a TV. Why not just stick with Apple TV, and upgrade it from a hobby to a fully fledged product, make apps for it, stick Siri in it (with a mic in the remote), and really commit to it...
But then again, i am quite interested to see exactly what steve "cracked"
Fun times ahead!
But then again, i am quite interested to see exactly what steve "cracked"
Fun times ahead!
I can imagine iOS "integrated" (what you really mean is "a display panel and the Apple TV slabbed together") into the foundation of the TV, and it doesn't look nice. No one except the people who buys anything Apple creates and have no interest in consuming any multi-media beyond Apple's ecosystem (quite few I believe) is going to trade their TV for an Apple device that wont let you connect other devices to it. It's certainly not worth it just to get rid of two cables.
Not one of the things you mention necessitates a large fixed display panel on the Apple TV, controlling with multi-touch, iCloud and Siri, can all be done with software on the current Apple TV. No one uses Facetime but if that's necessary a camera in the Apple TV box would be a better solution.
There is a big difference between this and the detractors of the iPod, iPhone, iPad etc. in this case Apple has already given us a very valuable solution that works great and have the potential to do all the things that have been suggested.
Most TV's switch automatically to the currently active input so this isn't a problem
You ever notice it's only geeks that complain about iTunes? The real world loves it. LOVES IT. That can't be overstated.
Please, oh masters of UI: What about iTunes don't you like? And how is it bloated?
There is a reason they started playing around with this particular hobby. Apple is not the kind of company that does "hobbies" merely for fun and diversion...
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The memory footprint is much bigger than Winamp. / Sarcasm
Seriously though, a lot of hate comes from Windows users. The Windows version is more sluggish and problematic than the Mac one, IIRC.
As someone said, TV is dull, but that's exactly what needs to be changed.
I'm a power electronics user, but am also lazy and the TV remote scares the hell out of me, esp. with all the new stuff (recording the shows, video on demand etc) being available now.
So, the remote needs to be completely changed or just gone:
- small iPod nano style - complexity, not size - simple remote for non-Apple users and full-fledged apps for iOS devices
- Siri-eaque TV assistant, think Siri with IMDB and TV programming built in, also with access to DVR/VOD functions.... Siri, record tonights Americal Idol for me... Siri, play latest House episode for me (... you don't have it in your library, do you want me to buy it for you for 0.99$?...).... Siri, play Star Wars for me.... you have Star Wars 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,6 in your video library, which one would you like to watch)
Also, movie/series collection... we probably all have those, those need to be organized and accessible on TV without any hassle. The only thing that bothers me here is that I don't use the TV screen at all for movies and tv series, I use a projector for cinema-like experience. But, I'm probably in minority and the majority of people would be completely ok with 42" LED being their only big screen. So, iTunes integrated in the TV set, with Home Sharing access to other iTunes devices and sharing ability with other Apple TV sets in the local network.
I'm a power electronics user, but am also lazy and the TV remote scares the hell out of me, esp. with all the new stuff (recording the shows, video on demand etc) being available now.
So, the remote needs to be completely changed or just gone:
- small iPod nano style - complexity, not size - simple remote for non-Apple users and full-fledged apps for iOS devices
- Siri-eaque TV assistant, think Siri with IMDB and TV programming built in, also with access to DVR/VOD functions.... Siri, record tonights Americal Idol for me... Siri, play latest House episode for me (... you don't have it in your library, do you want me to buy it for you for 0.99$?...).... Siri, play Star Wars for me.... you have Star Wars 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,6 in your video library, which one would you like to watch)
Also, movie/series collection... we probably all have those, those need to be organized and accessible on TV without any hassle. The only thing that bothers me here is that I don't use the TV screen at all for movies and tv series, I use a projector for cinema-like experience. But, I'm probably in minority and the majority of people would be completely ok with 42" LED being their only big screen. So, iTunes integrated in the TV set, with Home Sharing access to other iTunes devices and sharing ability with other Apple TV sets in the local network.
And if there is more than one active input? My Samsung most certainly doesn´t "automatically" switch to whatever input I want it to use.
Also, the user experience quality of cable boxes are about where MP3 players were pre-iPod... I´d say there is a potential market here for Apple. Especially given that Apps on the TV has the potential to be pretty big.
I cant see it being too successful tbh.
Spend around $2k on an Apple Television set just because it has a 'magical' display and ATV built in. Or get the same quality screen for $500 and buy AppleTV for $99.
Even if they stopped the $99 ATV, its still not worth buying an actual Apple Television as you know already that it will have a huge premium slapped on it.
I dont think its the kind of market that needs shaping....theres nothing wrong with having a TV and a set to box. Its comparable to having a desktop computer with a couple of monitors plugged into it. Its called expandability. Removing the set top box to make it part of the product then leaves a huge problem, what happens when you switch from Cable to Sat? What happens when <insert disk media here> is no longer used? You're stuck. At the moment you can pick up a 30 year old TV and it'll still pick up everything you want it to, because it supports expansion through set-top boxes.
Spend around $2k on an Apple Television set just because it has a 'magical' display and ATV built in. Or get the same quality screen for $500 and buy AppleTV for $99.
Even if they stopped the $99 ATV, its still not worth buying an actual Apple Television as you know already that it will have a huge premium slapped on it.
I dont think its the kind of market that needs shaping....theres nothing wrong with having a TV and a set to box. Its comparable to having a desktop computer with a couple of monitors plugged into it. Its called expandability. Removing the set top box to make it part of the product then leaves a huge problem, what happens when you switch from Cable to Sat? What happens when <insert disk media here> is no longer used? You're stuck. At the moment you can pick up a 30 year old TV and it'll still pick up everything you want it to, because it supports expansion through set-top boxes.
So the solution to that is to remove external inputs completely? If you like to have multiple inputs on your TV, this Apple television is not going to be for you, if you only want Apples content, then you don't use more than one active input.
If we're going to draw parallels to the iPod; the iPod has always needed detacheable headphones to play the music, Apple never created a pair of headphones with an iPod integrated, which the fixed display panel on an Apple TV would be sort of equivalent to.
The problem with that is interconnects. That might work for an iPad or an iPhone, but for a TV, there's just so many things Joe Sixpack wants to connect it to. His A/V receiver to get that nice 7.1 surround sound from his system, the kid's Xbox/PS3/Wii, the Blu-ray, the DVD player, heck the VHS for those old family tapes and even that USB TV Tuner he uses to sometimes rip stuff from the TV to his computer.
I really think what you're saying can easily be done and with a greater market appeal with an updated 99$ Apple TV. If people really want to be free from "Cable companies", they can already be with a 99$ purchase.
This doesn't require changing out the 2 TVs in the house to Apple's set. 99$. Free of cable companies.
Come on Apple! I'm in the market for a new TV and my other half wants to buy one of these..
I don't want to get a Samsung. (even though its a beautiful tv!)
I don't want to get a Samsung. (even though its a beautiful tv!)
TVs are at the point where they're selling gimmicks like 3D to shift newer models now. Apple could make classy, super-responsive units that normal people would love.
For me whether Apple can make a nice TV is not the question - it's whether they hobble it to try and push their distribution agenda. If it didn't have HDMI ports or something daft like that then I'd lose all interest. Otherwise I think they'll sell millions of them though.
For me whether Apple can make a nice TV is not the question - it's whether they hobble it to try and push their distribution agenda. If it didn't have HDMI ports or something daft like that then I'd lose all interest. Otherwise I think they'll sell millions of them though.
Because Apple want to run the entire ecosystem. You hook your TV into a non Apple television now. In the future Apple want the television to have the shiny on it too. So everything tech gadget in your house could be one day.
They wouldn't release a TV without HDMI ports would they
Sky or an Apple TV set....... I can't live without sky.
Jobs didn't care either way for Blu-Ray. Jobs hated the licensing costs and process from sony to get Blu-Ray on the Mac. He called it "a bag of hurt". That's why the Mac didn't ever get Blu-Ray.
TV is about content. They may come up with a new interface, new ways to charge for shows but there really is no reason for them to build new tv sets. They would have to come up with at least 4 different screen sizes. 
TV is good enough for them to conquer the TV, if they have something truly revolutionary to offer.
BTW remotes with buttons are not all that bad, you can operate them without having to look at them.
This is all happening because we didn't get a bigger screen on the iPhone.
TV is good enough for them to conquer the TV, if they have something truly revolutionary to offer. BTW remotes with buttons are not all that bad, you can operate them without having to look at them.
This is all happening because we didn't get a bigger screen on the iPhone.
I can't imagine Apple selling actual TV sets. But maybe I'm not seeing an effective business model. Apple could very well innovate and change the way we look at TVs.
Apple makes computers, phones, tablets, and mp3 players that are refreshed every year so people can update their devices with the new technology. How many times do people update their TV?
If they did make a TV, the first iteration would surely be lacking many features. Will it be 1080p? How many HD connections will it have? Optical? Audio? Speaker quality?
Their interface may be an improvement and integration with iTunes and iCloud would be awesome, but will it be at the expense of every other standard TV feature?
How much will it be? Their 27" display is $999. That's a lot. 46" at $1499? $1999? A lot of people will be excited, but I'd say your average iPod, iPhone user who hasn't bought a Mac and won't replace their Dell definitely won't replace their Samsung.
All of these rumors and evidence points to an Apple TV set though. So who knows. Steve knew.
I guess we'll find out soon enough.
Apple makes computers, phones, tablets, and mp3 players that are refreshed every year so people can update their devices with the new technology. How many times do people update their TV?
If they did make a TV, the first iteration would surely be lacking many features. Will it be 1080p? How many HD connections will it have? Optical? Audio? Speaker quality?
Their interface may be an improvement and integration with iTunes and iCloud would be awesome, but will it be at the expense of every other standard TV feature?
How much will it be? Their 27" display is $999. That's a lot. 46" at $1499? $1999? A lot of people will be excited, but I'd say your average iPod, iPhone user who hasn't bought a Mac and won't replace their Dell definitely won't replace their Samsung.
All of these rumors and evidence points to an Apple TV set though. So who knows.
Steve knew.I guess we'll find out soon enough.
Jobs was a marketing expert. He told you that Blu-Ray was a 'bag of hurt', but really he just wanted it dead so that he could sell you content from the iTMS instead.
Don't confuse what he told you with reality.
Another reason I think Macs didn't get Blu-Ray, in addition to having to jump through hoops with Sony, is that personal computers don't really need Blu-Ray. The added resolution can't really be realized on such a small screen.
Don't get me wrong, I rent Blu-Rays from Netflix and wish I could play them on my MBP when I'm not at home but you know what, I don't even watch DVDs on my MBP anyway.
A lot of my friends who have 17" Dells with 3D and Blu-Ray don't even use those features enough to fully justify having them. So what exactly would the point be in having one? Just to have one? Just to say you could have one?
As good as an Apple TV could be I'd be worried about inputs. I've tended to get mid-high end Sony sets with lots of inputs for my growing fleet of consoles, Sky box etc. An Apple TV with the usual Apple "as few ports as possible" would be pretty useless to me, and judging from the thread a lot of other people. :/
Apple has to control the distribution all the way to the consumer for it to work, and they need to use part of the massive pile of cash they're amassing to achieve it. It reminds me of when Apple decided to take control over their retail experience by opening Apple retail stores. They want no part of the cable companies. That leaves wireless. Current market caps:
• AT&T = $171B
• Verizon = $105B
• T-Mobile = $55B
• Sprint - $8B
AT&T has lots of garbage Apple doesn't want (like credit card services, landline phone service, etc.), and is too expensive anyway. Verizon might be affordable, but they'd have to borrow. Still too expensive. T-Mobile might be affordable, but they're in the process of being bought by AT&T.
That leaves Sprint, which is very cheap (to Apple) at only $8B. Furthermore, Sprint already owes Apple $20B for future iPhones, that makes it even cheaper (if not free). And Apple would immediately sell off or eliminate a bunch of junk they don't need, like the over 1,000 Sprint retail stores. Streaming video requires lots of bandwidth, so let's assume they have to spend a ton of money completing and beefing up Sprint's 4G LTE upgrade, and expanding service area (which could be done over time). Let's say that costs them $25B. So for $25B+, they have a fast, robust, nationwide 4G LTE wireless network. What are the results?
• Apple controls the entire network, and the entire chain of their services, end to end. They can now sell their own wireless plans to iPhone owners signing up with them. Additionally, they can now sell home internet service through the exact same network. And of course, video services. They can make money from this, but it even further cements consumers into the Apple ecosystem, which means more sales of all kinds of hardware, software, and services. And there's even other other opportunities. For example, how about a new A6-based AppleTV box with quad-core GPU, and a $40 Apple wireless game controller? Now you have close to PS3/XBox 360 quality graphics, with games from major publishers and independent developers alike, downloadable right from the App Store. Bye bye consoles.
• Consumers would benefit by lower combined prices, consolidated billing, more flexible video subscription plans, and reduced points of contact for problems (with Apple's support being superior to any known cable, satellite, or phone company). Installation, setup, and upgrading would be easier (and likely done by the user in most cases, not requiring technicians). And that magic single Apple ID would now link and synchronize even more of a person's devices and data.
Currently a consumer might spend $120 on digital cable, $80 on cel phone service, and $50 on home internet. That's $250 per month on 2 to 3 different bills, and that's probably below average. Over $300 would not be uncommon with extra minute and text message plans, channel bundles, etc. Apple could easily offer a package for let's say $200 that includes unlimited minutes and text messages, and as many "channels" (and on demand content) as they could get rights to. They might offer a cheaper option for shows with advertising and a more expensive option for no advertising, or even an a la carte menu, which many people have been demanding from the cable companies for year, and they refuse. Live pro sports could be handled individually by the MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL apps.
Now let's say they offer the content providers a $5B to $10B pre-payment to secure content for a couple years. While they watch dwindling cable subscriber numbers , chances are they are not going to turn down money like that. If they can start with only 1 million subscribers (these could be Apple television sets, or new Apple TV boxes, it doesn't matter), at $200 per month each that's $2.4B per year (including the entire wireless package). Let's say they give 50% of that back to content providers, or $1.2B. That's not enough, but it's a start. They need enough cash flow to show the content providers that they should be taken seriously, and to slowly wrest control away from the cable companies. When subscribers grow to 10 million (still only a modest % of the potential customer pool), we're talking $12B per year to content providers, which is, as they say "real money", while still making a nice profit on the services themselves (they'd have to spend some of that to maintain the network). As near as I can tell, the US television industry revenues (from programming) are somewhere between $40B and $90B. Essentially, they would become a provider with the same stature as a Comcast, Cox, Time/Warner, albeit (we hope) a kinder, gentler, less infuriating one.
There's an insane amount of things that would have to go right for this to happen (including government regulators allowing it), but Apple is perhaps the only company in the world that could pull it off because of their highly-rated consumer brand and consumer trust, ecosystem, industry connections, and of course, giant cash reserves (they'd still have about $50B left over after this). If the things I listed went down, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Netflix, Amazon, Google, Comcast, Cox, Charter, Time/Warner, DirecTV, Dish, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and others would immediately crap their collective pants.
• AT&T = $171B
• Verizon = $105B
• T-Mobile = $55B
• Sprint - $8B
AT&T has lots of garbage Apple doesn't want (like credit card services, landline phone service, etc.), and is too expensive anyway. Verizon might be affordable, but they'd have to borrow. Still too expensive. T-Mobile might be affordable, but they're in the process of being bought by AT&T.
That leaves Sprint, which is very cheap (to Apple) at only $8B. Furthermore, Sprint already owes Apple $20B for future iPhones, that makes it even cheaper (if not free). And Apple would immediately sell off or eliminate a bunch of junk they don't need, like the over 1,000 Sprint retail stores. Streaming video requires lots of bandwidth, so let's assume they have to spend a ton of money completing and beefing up Sprint's 4G LTE upgrade, and expanding service area (which could be done over time). Let's say that costs them $25B. So for $25B+, they have a fast, robust, nationwide 4G LTE wireless network. What are the results?
• Apple controls the entire network, and the entire chain of their services, end to end. They can now sell their own wireless plans to iPhone owners signing up with them. Additionally, they can now sell home internet service through the exact same network. And of course, video services. They can make money from this, but it even further cements consumers into the Apple ecosystem, which means more sales of all kinds of hardware, software, and services. And there's even other other opportunities. For example, how about a new A6-based AppleTV box with quad-core GPU, and a $40 Apple wireless game controller? Now you have close to PS3/XBox 360 quality graphics, with games from major publishers and independent developers alike, downloadable right from the App Store. Bye bye consoles.
• Consumers would benefit by lower combined prices, consolidated billing, more flexible video subscription plans, and reduced points of contact for problems (with Apple's support being superior to any known cable, satellite, or phone company). Installation, setup, and upgrading would be easier (and likely done by the user in most cases, not requiring technicians). And that magic single Apple ID would now link and synchronize even more of a person's devices and data.
Currently a consumer might spend $120 on digital cable, $80 on cel phone service, and $50 on home internet. That's $250 per month on 2 to 3 different bills, and that's probably below average. Over $300 would not be uncommon with extra minute and text message plans, channel bundles, etc. Apple could easily offer a package for let's say $200 that includes unlimited minutes and text messages, and as many "channels" (and on demand content) as they could get rights to. They might offer a cheaper option for shows with advertising and a more expensive option for no advertising, or even an a la carte menu, which many people have been demanding from the cable companies for year, and they refuse. Live pro sports could be handled individually by the MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL apps.
Now let's say they offer the content providers a $5B to $10B pre-payment to secure content for a couple years. While they watch dwindling cable subscriber numbers , chances are they are not going to turn down money like that. If they can start with only 1 million subscribers (these could be Apple television sets, or new Apple TV boxes, it doesn't matter), at $200 per month each that's $2.4B per year (including the entire wireless package). Let's say they give 50% of that back to content providers, or $1.2B. That's not enough, but it's a start. They need enough cash flow to show the content providers that they should be taken seriously, and to slowly wrest control away from the cable companies. When subscribers grow to 10 million (still only a modest % of the potential customer pool), we're talking $12B per year to content providers, which is, as they say "real money", while still making a nice profit on the services themselves (they'd have to spend some of that to maintain the network). As near as I can tell, the US television industry revenues (from programming) are somewhere between $40B and $90B. Essentially, they would become a provider with the same stature as a Comcast, Cox, Time/Warner, albeit (we hope) a kinder, gentler, less infuriating one.
There's an insane amount of things that would have to go right for this to happen (including government regulators allowing it), but Apple is perhaps the only company in the world that could pull it off because of their highly-rated consumer brand and consumer trust, ecosystem, industry connections, and of course, giant cash reserves (they'd still have about $50B left over after this). If the things I listed went down, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Netflix, Amazon, Google, Comcast, Cox, Charter, Time/Warner, DirecTV, Dish, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and others would immediately crap their collective pants.
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