Speculation on Apple's Television Set: Range of Sizes, Device Integration, Premium Pricing

[something3153]

Um... from the content providers. How does streaming an episode of Modern Family enter the iPad? Through a WiFi connection via the ABC app.

Alright, let's take this slowly. How does the wifi connection get to ABC's server?

 

[Vantage Point]

So how would AppleCare work?

So how would apple care work? If a large set breaks does one ship it back, lug it to an apple store, or will they have a team of people like Best Buy's Geek Squad driving around in little clone cars?

 

[JAT]

You have any idea about Cablecards? THEY ARE THE WORST!!!! I was a tech years ago and for every 1 cable card job you did, you bring 5 cards and pray 1 of those 5 works. They are garbage and the TV manufactures are not consistent on any set up either. Every TV maker has their own way of setting them up, THEN you get these idiot customer who think they know more and add their own splitters and not tell you and think "oh gold splitters, they must be better because they are gold". Cable cards are more touchy than a modem for internet for signal also. So before you bash people, think again about what people really go through.

You realize that cablecards suck because cable companies want to avoid them. Basically the same deal is required by both sat companies and they are perfect.

 

[divinox]

Aren't they doing that already? The "cord cutters" can attest to this.

Content providers don't want to be held up by the cable providers-- just ask HBO.

Cable companies are in a very precarious position. They have leverage, but not for long. Content providers would much rather deliver content directly to the individual. AMC would love to charge for content like HBO and Showtime, but can't because of the cableco's. Instead, they're forced to make significant cuts to their shows which affect quality.

Cord cutters, cute. Reminds me of this article.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/03/st...-percent-of-tv-subscribers-have-cut-the-cord/

As for HBO, I'm not an american so i really don't know much about that. What i do know, however, is that no one ever likes gate keepers until they are gate keepers themselves. Of course, content providers don't want to kiss the pinky ring of CableCo. Do they have to? Pretty much.

What you miss in your cable cutting thinking is that you still need the cable. It may not necessarily be the same cable, but you need it. (That is why i asked you about how the content was supposed to hit the set). As long as you need a cable, and cables are in the hands of few, you will have gatekeepers. Killing one just brings another to life. Bit like the Hydra, without the nasty multiplying effect.

Further, in many instances i would think that the cable TV providers and the cable INTERNET providers are one and the same. Try to cut them out in the TV side of things, and they recoup on the Internet side of things. You still need them. You still need their distribution. Ergo: You will still need to pay them.

With time, say end of this decade, we will have wireless networks capable of doing the job of pushing hd-media. But we're far from there yet. And, as pointed out, we still haven't killed the Hydra... far from it.

Addendum:

Not mentioning capacity issues. Thats worthy of a post in itself.

 

[Lesser Evets]

This is idiotic. On the list of things you "interact" with, are TVs really that hard. give me a break...

I feel the same, however, I watch people also struggle with the myriad controls and buttons on remotes. TVs themselves are now simple, the cable boxes/systems are complex. Being able to say "BBC America, Guide, Tuesday 8 o'clock" or "House M.D. when?" is far easier than the 40-button remotes and flipping around to search for one channel in 600.

On the other hand, I was just talking with a credit card voice-recognition line via telephone. My aim was to pay my cc down via phone. Every time the computer asked me for the amount I wanted to pay, I was in the middle of saying "SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS" when the cat meowed so loudly that the credit card computer would ask, "Is that... SIX HUNDRED TEN DOLLARS?", "Is that... ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS?" etc etc.

At this time I am wary of efficiency with voice control. Especially in a social environment.

 

[divinox]

alright, let's take this slowly. How does the wifi connection get to abc's server?

:- )

 

[stevemiller]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

My guess is itd be LCD which isn't my cup of tea, i went plasma and can't go back.

 

[ArcaneDevice]

So how would apple care work? If a large set breaks does one ship it back, lug it to an apple store, or will they have a team of people like Best Buy's Geek Squad driving around in little clone cars?

Most manufacturers for higher end sets have in-home servicing. Apple will probably outsource to a tech support company.

 

[divinox]

I feel the same, however, I watch people also struggle with the myriad controls and buttons on remotes. TVs themselves are now simple, the cable boxes/systems are complex. Being able to say "BBC America, Guide, Tuesday 8 o'clock" or "House M.D. when?" is far easier than the 40-button remotes and flipping around to search for one channel in 600.

On the other hand, I was just talking with a credit card voice-recognition line via telephone. My aim was to pay my cc down via phone. Every time the computer asked me for the amount I wanted to pay, I was in the middle of saying "SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS" when the cat meowed so loudly that the credit card computer would ask, "Is that... SIX HUNDRED TEN DOLLARS?", "Is that... ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS?" etc etc.

At this time I am wary of efficiency with voice control. Especially in a social environment.

Everytime im faced with voice-recog. crap i just go "blablablabla". Nine out of ten times (if not more - in fact, i can't remember if it ever failed) that leads to call being routed to a manual operator.

 

[Primejimbo]

You realize that cablecards suck because cable companies want to avoid them. Basically the same deal is required by both sat companies and they are perfect.

Then tell me why 1 out of 5 work? I agree once you get them to work, they are great, but finding one that works it the issue. BTW I also did satellite for a while and the same issues, everything cable, home entertainment, home networking, smart houses I have done. The main issue with trouble shooting is 90% of the time the customer added a splitter, removed one, moved the TV, messing with settings and so on.

 

[aluren]

There's only one way that this makes any sense. Apple would have to have found some legal way to provide instant on-demand access to all the tv shows that you already pay for with your cable package, but without having to get any contracts signed by any studios or anything. Like maybe they found a legal argument saying that mass-storage DVRs with multiple tuners are legal for people to have at home, so it should be perfectly legal for Apple to offer DVR capability that records all the shows that legally come over your cable connection that you pay for and legally stores them into the essentially infinite sized DVR space at Apple's data farm.

TL;DR an Apple TV set only makes sense if Apple found a way to legally offer you on-demand access to all the shows that you pay for through your cable subscription, but without having to sign any deals with the studios.

x100. This is the only sensible way to make Apple TV work. Otherwise you're just paying an extra $500-1,000 for a fancy way to change channels.

 

[GQB]

I still think its a stupid idea for one simple reason... TVs are furniture. They're integral to the design of a room, even if that design calls for hiding it.
Will it be black like an iPad? There goes the half of the buyers who want a silver bezel, and visa versa.
42"? Sorry, out armoir makes 37" the biggest we can do.
Oh yeah, we just bought a LCD TV. Wnt be getting another for at least 5, maybe more years.

Nothing I've heard about it can't be done with a box like the current AppleTV.

 

[hipnetic]

That said, if its "just an aTV3", twice the price seems highly unlikely. I'll give you that.

But if it's not just a TV with an ATV3 (1080p, Siri, more apps) built-in, then what are you speculating that it will be that would justify a "twice the price of a regular TV" price?

p.s. the last thing you are asking for already exists -- as a non Apple-provided solution though. Works on all iOS devices, through web, and certainly there must be a OSX client too. Nifty indeed.

I'm curious what product you might be referring to. FWIW, here's my experience with this sort of tech: I had a TiVo for quite a long time, followed by a TiVo HD which used a cablecard. As the cablecard bashers here mention, there's a lot of stories of installers coming out and having "bad" cards, but I didn't experience any of that. And even with those who have, my understanding (and experience) is that once it's working, it never fails. Recently, I decided to give Windows Media Center another try (I had tried it for a while long ago) and bought a SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime which is a little network-connected box with a cablecard slot in it. For about $200, you get 3 tuners with that. This, combined with XBox 360's in other rooms of my house, allows me to have all of the rooms share the central computer's recorded shows and for each XBox to play a different live TV channel, if desired.

Apple has plenty of talented software developers (and lots of cash to budget) to allocate a few folks to working on a Windows Media Center alternative, either to run within OS X on something like the Mac Mini or via a dedicated MPEG2-to-MP4 conversion chip, an even lighter-weight, cheaper device like the AirPort Extreme/TimeMachine.

Even with my present solution, I've experimented with a piece of software (I forget the name off-hand) which will watch your "Recorded TV" folder on the Windows machine and convert the shows to an AppleTV-compatible MP4 format. It will even automatically add the metadata to iTunes. This all requires too much hackery for the average person, though, so an all-in-one Apple-branded solution which handles all this heavy lifting would be great.

As I mentioned, Apple would be dumb not too have already allocated some of their software developers to this task years ago, but upper management may have held it off the market because of the difficulty in dealing with cable labs (?), but that seems to have loosened up now, as demonstrated by the recent devices by SiliconDust. On the hardware front, Apple could easily partner with SiliconDust or simply buy the company outright if they don't have a hardware solution in the pipeline already.

Again, though, I suspect that Apple has been putting most of their effort into trying to get the movie studios and TV networks to buy into their vision of a la carte or monthly pricing.

 

[ChrisA]

You all sound like Henry Ford's customer. Mr. Ford said if he had asked his costers what they wanted they'd have told him "A faster horse" So far people are just thinking this will be a TV with a built-in ATV box. That would be pointless

Here is how apple could change the market.

(1) All those other boxes have remove controls. the cable box has one, the audio "AV Receiver" has a remote and so does the blueray player. What Apple might do is build in a transmitter that simulates all those remote controls. Then you use Siri and trash the stack of remotes.

(2) video recording that uses cloud storage. Once you have told Siri to "Please record the game tonight." then the game is available on your iPod or Computer or on the TV.

(2.5) You can use Siri on your iPhone to tell the Siri on the TV to record the game. Then later watch on the phone.

(3) Why e-mail a photo? It is is in the cloud. You just tell Siri atyour home to show the photo on Gandma's Apple TV.

(4) Facetime on TV. Integration with the phone's voice mail system

(5) use TV for computer monitor and computer monitor for TV set. Images move in either direction

 

[JAT]

Samsung UN46C9000 46" 3D LED Ultra Slim HDTV selling for 2k Apple TVs will not compete with the bargain TVs - they will be ultra thin, and compete with the high end expensive models.

That is crap. Only D series would be worth a premium.

 

[gugy]

This dude Gene Munster is just full of ****.
Seriously you guys at MR and other rumor sites give him too much exposure, that's why we keep hearing him saying all this crap. 😡

He is just another clueless guy about Apple plans like most of us.

 

[JAT]

Then tell me why 1 out of 5 work? I agree once you get them to work, they are great, but finding one that works it the issue. BTW I also did satellite for a while and the same issues, everything cable, home entertainment, home networking, smart houses I have done. The main issue with trouble shooting is 90% of the time the customer added a splitter, removed one, moved the TV, messing with settings and so on.

What do you mean? You claimed they suck, I agreed and gave a reason, so your first sentence here doesn't make sense.

I said the sat cards work fine, as a contrast.

 

[ipedro]

You all sound like Henry Ford's customer. Mr. Ford said if he had asked his costers what they wanted they'd have told him "A faster horse" So far people are just thinking this will be a TV with a built-in ATV box. That would be pointless

Here is how apple could change the market.

(1) All those other boxes have remove controls. the cable box has one, the audio "AV Receiver" has a remote and so does the blueray player. What Apple might do is build in a transmitter that simulates all those remote controls. Then you use Siri and trash the stack of remotes.

(2) video recording that uses cloud storage. Once you have told Siri to "Please record the game tonight." then the game is available on your iPod or Computer or on the TV.

(2.5) You can use Siri on your iPhone to tell the Siri on the TV to record the game. Then later watch on the phone.

You're still asking for a "faster horse".

Simulating remotes? Record tv? Why bother asking your Tv to record something when you can instead just remember that there was a game on the other day and ask to watch it. Apple TV will be just like Apple has made it thus far: on demand. No recording anything. You simply watch the content that you want to watch, no need for schedules or channels.

 

[JAT]

You're still asking for a "faster horse".

Simulating remotes? Record tv? Why bother asking your Tv to record something when you can instead just remember that there was a game on the other day and ask to watch it. Apple TV will be just like Apple has made it thus far: on demand. No recording anything. You simply watch the content that you want to watch, no need for schedules or channels.

All of you are asking for something Tivo (and ReplayTV) did over a decade ago. Other than potential voice command, but that is a bag of hurt. IMO.

 

[CylonGlitch]

TL;DR an Apple TV set only makes sense if Apple found a way to legally offer you on-demand access to all the shows that you pay for through your cable subscription, but without having to sign any deals with the studios.

I 100% agree with you there! It has to be something game changing and innovative on top of just a functionality change. It has to make life better for the end user. If I can get rid of 90% of all of the things on cable I would. So many I don't care for at all. But if they can stream me the 10 shows I do watch, I'd buy the set in a second.

It will have to be something like the iTunes model; you go in, find what you want and then pay for that show, either one at a time or a season at a time. Of course you can sample and browse to your hearts content.

Studios will get more of my money, Apple, of course, will, and I'll cut out the cable company completely. I guess I'll have to go with someone else to give me internet, but that is OK. 😀

 

[brunskii]

Prediction??

It is kind of a waste of space & time to post such a quasi "revelatory" article with so called predictions that most Apple users would already assume. A 1 liner reference to it would have sufficed.
The only surprise is the price prediction. Someone posted an example on a 32", but realistically the most common would be 40" +. In Oz a "Top of the line" - (as Apple will surely rank itself amongst these) 46" TV ..say Sony, would cost upwards of $3.5K, so a $7K + price tag for that size TV would seem outside the range of most buyers. The presumed features shouldn't add more than 25% at the most to the average price.
..Then again, aside Munster's so called predictions, it all depends on what Apple has really in store for the price.

 

[flipperfeet]

Wild Guessing

if they double the price i don't see them selling a ton...I know it won't be on par with the TV's, but double...not buying it.

Why would Apple need to double the price? They have already demonstrated they can provide much of the functionality and incorporate it into the iOS ecosystem for as little as $99 retail, updating and integrating an A5-based aTV into a full-fledged TV allows for even greater manufacturing economies. There likely will be a premium, but given Apple's stance as a tour-de-force consumer electronics company, their price leadership with the iPad, their need to be disruptive and frustrate competition, and their demonstrated willingness (and success) to measure success by shared growth across the fully integrated ecosystem of Apple products I would be very surprised if they did not hold pricing to less than a 20% premium.

 

[chrisbru]

4)1 charge per household...not extra fees for extra boxes for extra tvs. I don't pay my water company more money when I add a bathroom...or my electric company when I begin to use a new plug or use a splitter or install a new outlet. I don't pay my phone company more money because I installed a new phone jack or bought another phone.


Unless you are a complete tv junkie, $70+/month is so expensive for tv.

Um... You pay per unit for electricity, water, etc. You haven't noticed that if you leave the lights on all the time, your electricity bill is higher? This is a worthless analogy. You would have to pay for usage like cell phone data plans (only there would be no "unlimited" option.)

The phone one makes sense, I think (I don't have a home phone.) But again it depends on usage not number of devices using it. This would make more sense for TV than the pay-per-tv system that is in place.

 

[cirus]

The question if Apple gets into the TV industry...

Will they support Blu-ray?
Its really pathetic if you sell 1080p TVs and you sell the movies at 720p. Upgrade to iTunes would have to be done.
Not to mention that plenty of people would be pissed that their itunes library consists of 720p movies. In a way, apple's refusal to accept Blu-ray and sell high resolution movies on iTunes may be a thorn in their side.

 

[gugy]

IMO Apple wil develop the ATV Box instead of television. All the functionality that people keep dreaming will be in that little box, maybe at a higher price point but the TV set itself makes no sense for Apple to pursue.

Apple can charge premium for ATV and sell to millions of consumers that already have great and high end tv sets.

Another key factor is to figure out a new model of distribution of content that will drive people into the Apple ecosystem.

Forget this damn tv set.