Steve fails. Nano is pathetic. No point to a touch screen on a device that small. It can't even play video! Seriously. Apple TV fails too. What a giant leap backwards! He is totally off the mark in saying people don't want a computer for their TV. I've been saying this for a very long time, and here is what I think Apple TV needs to succeed...
It is a little disappointing that the nano is now the shuffletouch (although I've only ever bought one nano and one shuffle so the product probably isn't targeted toward me) but I think the AppleTV is pretty good considering the content producers still don't want to play ball for fear of killing their cable company cash cow.
Apple needs to create a one stop box for consumers to have in their living rooms (kind of what like the xbox hoped to be, but failed because its marketed only to gamers). At the moment we have a bunch of different boxes and remotes in our living rooms. What I want is a box that can do everything.
I agree with you that the xbox tried and fell short but to brush it aside as being a game machine is kind of silly when you consider the iPod touch is now being heavily marketed as a gaming console.
1) Download apps, and not just crappy iOS apps either. I'm talking full blown games to rival PS3 and 360.
Uh, so you want it to be a game machine now? In all seriousness, how are you going to interact with this device? Currently the only way to interact with your tv is via some sort of
motion control (which is okay but slow since it is hard to point at something so far away with enough accuracy),
remote control (which gives you a nightmare of buttons), or
game controller (which is not immediately intuitive to people since they can't label what the buttons and sticks do due to variable nature of their function). I left out the xbox having voice control soon due to the fact that voice control has never worked and probably never will for anything more than play/stop/skip chapter.
2) Stream stuff wirelessly from my Mac iTunes libraries
3) Stream stuff wirelessly from the net
It can do this for the most part.
4) Play my blu-ray movies (yes blu-ray optical drive included please)5) Full 1080p res
Apple is attempting to replace physical media (eg: iTunes icon). They have no reason to include blu-ray when it will only increase costs and hurt their iTunes store business especially when many people who want blu-ray already have blu-ray.
Minimizing functions (doing a few key things well) may work for things like the iPad where aesthetics and ergonomics are paramount, but for the Apple TV, well Steve needs to toss that logic. Less is NOT more with the Apple TV. People want it to do as much as it possibly can. At the moment there is no decent online store for TV apps, I dont want a PS3 AND an Apple TV. I just want an Apple Box!
Who are these people? Do you have data? Where is it? Are you more then one person? If you are talking for yourself please just say so. You'll look better in the long run if you admit your bias and don't try to hide it by claiming a majority opinion.
As far as "minimizing" this is what Apple excels at. It is their main goal when you look at almost everything they do. Their hardware is extremely minimalistic (eg: iPad launch keynote makes a huge point of this). While I agree that it is neat to run applications on the same device as your tv/media viewing device I don't agree that I am in the majority. I think most people just want to watch stuff. For those who want a computer for their tv, buy a computer (the iMac has a huge screen that is mountable and the Mac mini has HDMI now).
