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Munster: An Apple TV Set by 2011
- Thread starter NJMetsHero
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Then you may be gone soon.
Really, please wrap your brain around the fact that apple is a hardware company. They don't exist to sell other people's content. They exist to sell hardware. DVR = better hardware. Better hardware = more sales. Do try to pay attention.
I guess I was right...Apple IS moving further towards a consumer electronics company and AWAY from the computer industry.
Now for a little synicism:
Headlines to appear over the next 18 months at Macrumors:
1)Apple Abandons Mac Mini
2)Apple Abandons Mac Pro Since Sales are Under 14 Units Sold Per Year
3)Apple Abandons iMac
-Eric
Now for a little synicism:
Headlines to appear over the next 18 months at Macrumors:
1)Apple Abandons Mac Mini
2)Apple Abandons Mac Pro Since Sales are Under 14 Units Sold Per Year
3)Apple Abandons iMac
-Eric
You mean like iPods, iPhones and Mac are all so much more expensive than any competitive high-end product (ironic!!) ? Have you ever shopped outside Wal-Mart?
Then you may be gone soon.
Really, please wrap your brain around the fact that apple is a hardware company. They don't exist to sell other people's content. They exist to sell hardware. DVR = better hardware. Better hardware = more sales. Do try to pay attention.
If Apple wanted to sell a DVR, the would have done so with the introduction of the Apple TV. TiVo is making losses, what the heck is Apple doing in this business? They are smart and staying out of it. No money to be made and nothing but hassle with cable companies.
Wrong. If Apple wanted to sell the AppleTV, they would have added a DVR. TiVo is not "making losses." As has been mentioned numerous times, Apple should be trying to capture the money people are paying the cable companies. Apple can offer the a la carte buying of programming theat the cable companies never will. They need to add a DVR so that people can watch what they already get for free, and supplement the big networks with offerings that aren't already available in your community.
mlb
Apple streams mlb.tv to the iPhone. I would bet that appleTV is next. Also, the Yankees are currently the only team that allows in-market streaming of games, but other teams may soon follow. It's not impossible that sports leagues will get on board.
Apple streams mlb.tv to the iPhone. I would bet that appleTV is next. Also, the Yankees are currently the only team that allows in-market streaming of games, but other teams may soon follow. It's not impossible that sports leagues will get on board.
Already happening:
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/mac_accessories/storage?mco=NjcxMTU1MQ
So, long, nice to have known ya,
An expensive tv crammed full of stuff makes no sense. Snore.
How would that be exciting? I would rather wait for a reasonably priced OLED or some other compelling visual technology.
Apple could make some sort of all-in-one box to handle the roles of HT receivers, ATVs, Tivos, various players, etc.
Home theater is now dominated by overly-complex arrays of devices that confuse so many people. A simple and compelling Apple device that cleaned up all this stuff would probably sell well.
How would that be exciting? I would rather wait for a reasonably priced OLED or some other compelling visual technology.
Apple could make some sort of all-in-one box to handle the roles of HT receivers, ATVs, Tivos, various players, etc.
Home theater is now dominated by overly-complex arrays of devices that confuse so many people. A simple and compelling Apple device that cleaned up all this stuff would probably sell well.
Okay, so the guy doesn't know what he's talking about. But I've always liked the idea of an Apple TV. (Not the actual Apple TV, but a real TV, of course.)
Home entertainment is complicated and requires lots of different components. Even if you know what you're doing, it takes a lot of time and money to piece together all the right, matching pieces. And you have to run at least a half dozen cables to get everything setup.
Every home entertainment system ends up being highly unique, and therefore, even more complicated since no one person can troubleshoot all of them.
Here's how I envision the perfect Apple TV:
This system would appeal to anybody looking for Apple-style simplicity in a home entertainment product. You plugin the power and the cable connection and -- to quote Steve, "Boom" -- you're done. An entire home entertainment system in just a few minutes.
The only missing piece is an audio receiver, but I imagine third parties would jump into build that missing piece.
Sure, TVs are low margin and not Apple's domain of expertise. But so were mp3 players. Apple watchers were extremely critical when they released the original iPod. It was a saturated market, and their product was overpriced, with features that nobody needed. The result? The most iconic consumer product since the Coca Cola bottle or the Nike swoosh.
Then apple did it again with the iphone: crowded market, commoditization of the handsets (you buy the plan, not the handset, etc.), and Apple didn't have any experience in it!! And yet the iphone is crushing other smartphones, even eroding market share for the venerable (and still very useful) Blackberry. The iPhone fails to match up to the BlackBerry in many ways, and it costs more than the average blackberry, but the style and simplicity of the whole package have more than compensated.
Sorry.... long rant. To sum up: I would buy the product described above in a heartbeat.
Home entertainment is complicated and requires lots of different components. Even if you know what you're doing, it takes a lot of time and money to piece together all the right, matching pieces. And you have to run at least a half dozen cables to get everything setup.
Every home entertainment system ends up being highly unique, and therefore, even more complicated since no one person can troubleshoot all of them.
Here's how I envision the perfect Apple TV:
- Integrated cable tuner. 2 cable card slots available. No need to rent a lousy, low-end box from the cable company anymore.
- Built-in bluray player. No need to worry about component or HDMI. It's just built in.
- Integrated DVR. Again, fewer cables. Plus even Tivo (as good as it is) leaves a lot to be desired. It's slow and still a bit clunky. Apple could crush them on UI and usability.
- Built in graphics card. This graphics card would do multiple duty as it helps process, smooth, and scale video from all built-in sources: Blu Ray, DVR, and Cable. No need for each box to have its own, separate logic. (Most TVs have one also, so you end up with 3-4 of these chipsets spread throughout your system.)
- Wifi and ethernet ready. Syncs with itunes like the current Apple TV product but can also stream.
- Runs a stripped down OS X, like the existing Apple TV. (Hackers will love this. And a good hacking communicty does a LOT for building brand rapport.)
- Integrated app store. Content providers can release apps to update additoinal content, or overlay information. So Hulu gives away an app for free. Maybe ESPN has a sports ticker overlay that costs $1.99. bloomberg can add a stock ticker overlay on top of anything you are watching, etc.
- Gaming controllers. The iphone has turned out to be a surprising little gaming platform. If Apple has bluetooth gaming controllers with accelerometers or infrared (like Wii), then the app store opens up a lot of game possibilities. It won't beat the Xbox or PS3 for raw power, but Nintendo has revealed that there is a huge market of non-hardcore people who would play games if the barrier to entry was much lower (cost and learning curve).
This system would appeal to anybody looking for Apple-style simplicity in a home entertainment product. You plugin the power and the cable connection and -- to quote Steve, "Boom" -- you're done. An entire home entertainment system in just a few minutes.
The only missing piece is an audio receiver, but I imagine third parties would jump into build that missing piece.
Sure, TVs are low margin and not Apple's domain of expertise. But so were mp3 players. Apple watchers were extremely critical when they released the original iPod. It was a saturated market, and their product was overpriced, with features that nobody needed. The result? The most iconic consumer product since the Coca Cola bottle or the Nike swoosh.
Then apple did it again with the iphone: crowded market, commoditization of the handsets (you buy the plan, not the handset, etc.), and Apple didn't have any experience in it!! And yet the iphone is crushing other smartphones, even eroding market share for the venerable (and still very useful) Blackberry. The iPhone fails to match up to the BlackBerry in many ways, and it costs more than the average blackberry, but the style and simplicity of the whole package have more than compensated.
Sorry.... long rant. To sum up: I would buy the product described above in a heartbeat.
I guess I was right...Apple IS moving further towards a consumer electronics company and AWAY from the computer industry.
Now for a little synicism:
Headlines to appear over the next 18 months at Macrumors:
1)Apple Abandons Mac Mini
2)Apple Abandons Mac Pro Since Sales are Under 14 Units Sold Per Year
3)Apple Abandons iMac
-Eric
The Mac will be the "digital hub" of Apple's electronics offerings for years to come. I doubt they abandon their main lines of business simply because this has been their plan all along. But then they realized that the peripherals to that hub would be profitable businesses as well.
But they would be dead stupid not to go out and gain lots of money in other industries. Yeah, it's probably a distraction to their core business, but I'm perfectly happy with the laptops they are making now. And Snow Leopard is going to be a huge (read: untouchable) leap ahead for their computing technology.
For $40 a month, cable would still be a much great value than an Itunes pass. If this is the price...i'll stick with ala cart...
Looking at the non-bundled services, and add $10/month ($5 for local programming, $5 for the privilege of using a DVR), the cost at AT&T is $45/month for 12 months, then $61/month thereafter (they say the introductory price yields a $16 credit on your account per month, getting it to the quoted prices). Add in one or two "premium" channels and you're well into the average $50-100 range. Add in HD programming, and you're in the high end of that range. Add in a couple pay-per-view events and you're well beyond it.
Again, I'm speaking about actual reported average subscriptions from actual real-life people. Introductory offers from companies will always be significantly cheaper than what people actually pay, both because people tend to add on the things that are intentionally left out of those offers (like foolishly wanting to watch their local news station instead of CNN and Fox's cable abominations) and because those introductory prices expire long before people switch to other services.
I live in northern California, for the record. My choices here for TV service are Surewest (coming in on phone lines), Comcast, or DirecTV/Dish. AT&T's prices are in the ballpark of what Comcast and DirecTV offer, and with a similar set of "gotchas". I can't say for certain on Surewest, but going on general impressions when I last looked, they had higher-priced "deals" but with fewer gotchas ... coming out to about the same cost overall.
Apparently a lot of Comcast customers:
From http://www.newser.com/article/d99te...gher-revenue-but-subscriber-growth-slows.html
Again, in real life, not in the glossy ads Comcast sends in the mail: they get over $100 per month from cable subscribers. That's cold hard cash, folks. If someone else can give the same service for $30 or so, they've got a powerful message. Granted, people are going to look at it and think there are the same kinds of hidden fees and "services" that the cable companies hit you with, but if $30 is real world costs then that will come out and drive people away from Cable.
[edit: added below]
For more:
* Directv: The average monthly revenue received from subscribers rose 1.7 percent to $83.16
* Time-Warner: Gets $2.667Billion in revenue from 13.105Million video (including triple-play and digital video) subscribers, for an astounding per-video-subscriber revenue of $203.51 (as of 1Q 2009 results; I didn't go to their 2Q statements to find the similar numbers there) - I might also note that year-to-year their video subscriber rolls went down 2% while their video revenues went up 8%. I'd really hate to be one of their customers!
Do it yourself: google "MyFavoritCableCompany Revenue per customer". Some will have a nice summary in the press; others you'll have to slog through the financial statements yourself (search for "subscribers" and "revenue" in the PDF docs and you should find the two relevant numbers). Enjoy!
Whomever believes this is smoking something. Apple will NOT have a HDMI port because they passed over that proprietary port a while ago and went with the free Display Port.
Do you kids have memory today?
Do you kids have memory today?
Apple uses an HDMI port in the Apple TV, and will have to if they want to keep selling a set top box. HDMI is not leaving the Apple TV.
I see that as chicken and egg sort of thing. Apple has to use HDMI because most TVs still use HDMI. Apple really didn't have a coice there and when the AppleTV came out Display port was ready for prime time.
fwiw i bought some TiVo stock last october. In 10 months it's up more than 80 percent. Not quite as good as apple's gains, but not shabby at all. Clearly many investors see bright prospects for the company.
btw, what prompted my investment 10 months ago? some analysts' reports praising the stock's prospects because, they said, the co had switched from selling hardware to licensing software.
I thought that reasoning was pertinent to some of the discussions here re: apple selling tv hardware vs licensing software to tv makers, etc. Make of it what you will.
Hyuk yuk yuk.
The "race to the bottom" only means low commodity prices on mass market hardware.
Apple is in the business of rebadging such stuff and selling it at a markup (with a little value-added Jonathan Ive love and OS X to boot).
Furthermore, the whole TV equation is being changed by downloading. As with the iPod, Apple is poised to step in and skim off the action of a nation of file-trading sluts.
Cheap TV hardware + Ive jacket on top + iTunes vending for Mom and Dad + downloads-r-us for Everyone Else = Apple FTWM'fer
munster is sooo clever: have they realized that there is not much demand for an apple tv? let me guess what munster predicts next that apple will "invent":
apple phone watch in 2012?
apple media tv wall in 2014?
apple branpod in 2020?
apple phone watch in 2012?
apple media tv wall in 2014?
apple branpod in 2020?
another thought
I didn't see anyone else post this, but for quite a while now I've had this image in my mind. Would anyone be surprised to see a 42" iMac with the required connectors to hook into your cable/satellite receiver, wireless keyboard and mouse (or keyboard w/integrated trackpad similar to macbook)
I'm sure there are 1000's of reasons this cannot possibly happen. I am just not going to be completely surprised if it does.
I didn't see anyone else post this, but for quite a while now I've had this image in my mind. Would anyone be surprised to see a 42" iMac with the required connectors to hook into your cable/satellite receiver, wireless keyboard and mouse (or keyboard w/integrated trackpad similar to macbook)
I'm sure there are 1000's of reasons this cannot possibly happen. I am just not going to be completely surprised if it does.