I just want a TV that I can pick and choose my subscriptions to channels.
I want just TSN and sportsnet. I don't need all the other 'bundles'
I want just TSN and sportsnet. I don't need all the other 'bundles'
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Steve Jobs Planned to Work on Apple TV Set After Stepping Down as Apple CEO
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I see the word "TV" a lot, but I don't see the word "SET" in the actual article ANYWHERE.
Apple knows TV SETS are a loser's game, which is why they're going all-in with a box.
Apple knows TV SETS are a loser's game, which is why they're going all-in with a box.
His keynotes were truly magical. Miss him every time.
This makes me sad. Not because he never got to develop the Apple TV but because Steve actually thought that he was going to beat cancer. It must have been an incredible blow when he realized that he was actually going to die. 
Sony did what Apple can't do. Playstation Vue is awesome. Only thing it's missing is an Apple TV app.
If the future of TV is apps, then why is the UK ATV app store so empty? I have more streaming apps on my PS4, and that was designed exclusively to play games.
Too bad he didn't just say "lets just build a portable iTunes app and not waste time with the hardware".
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Because people still watch live television and, well, for most of the apps you still need to have your TV service. Kind of defeated the concept of app based television. It does work nicely in the low use guest room. They can watch TV on apps and I don't have to have another DirecTV unit in there.
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Because people still watch live television and, well, for most of the apps you still need to have your TV service. Kind of defeated the concept of app based television. It does work nicely in the low use guest room. They can watch TV on apps and I don't have to have another DirecTV unit in there.
Great new content and a good UI to find it in the first place would work for me. Music provides a backdrop to many lives but TV requires more attention which I think makes it much harder to innovate in that industry. We have Video streaming on demand but its worthless without decent content and plenty of it. Sky for example has some stand-out shows (GOT....) but the quality is swamped by an avalanche of dross and repeats. I'll be amazed if anyone, including Apple, revolutionises video.
Just curious... how much is the TV portion of people's cable bills already?
Most cable companies have special deals when you bundle Internet with TV channels and phone service. And sometimes it's actually cheaper to get Internet and TV than to get Internet alone.
Are the channels you get now around $30 to $40 a month already?
It wouldn't make much sense to drop the TV channels from your bill... and then replace it with another set of channels if it costs more.
I get the point of dropping channels to shrink your cable bill. But then you replace it with $40 a month from someone else?
Also... you don't have to get the ultra-mega 900 channel package from your cable company. Most cable companies offer various tiers. Expanded cable is roughly 70 channels. That covers most of TV.
If you're paying for 900 channels... that's your own fault.
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I do think that the future of TV are apps. Apple is on the right track with ATV4. Content providers distribute their content through apps and an ever more intelligent Siri becomes the central place to find something to watch. Apple's ecosystem of devices are handheld versions of that same content delivery system. Eventually you could ask Siri to "continue watching *this* on the living room TV" and it would pick up what you were watching on the larger screen.
Market forces will eventually take care of the existing cable subscription. When today's kids who grew up on online content and never subscribed to cable move out and get their own places, content providers who cater to them will succeed. Those who hang on to the old cable model will die off.
Market forces will eventually take care of the existing cable subscription. When today's kids who grew up on online content and never subscribed to cable move out and get their own places, content providers who cater to them will succeed. Those who hang on to the old cable model will die off.
Attach an Apple TV to the back of tv screen with magnets? Cheap and easily upgradable? Additional SSD space?
You must be new to Apple. The Apple I know would not offer something that's easily upgradable or give us something with extra SSD space. And magnets?
What can you really say to that? People loved Steve Jobs. But he was around when the ebook deal was done which resulted in antitrust violations. iBooks since then is an afterthought with Apple. The powers that be in tv land remain the constraint on most innovation to be had there and woudn't have given Steve his required cut of the pie.
The style of this article makes it seem like its news.
He was going to show Walt the final product later that year, so it exists somewhere in Apple.
I doubt it's got anything to do with the new Apple TV UI as that's based off a design he abandoned.
He was going to show Walt the final product later that year, so it exists somewhere in Apple.
I doubt it's got anything to do with the new Apple TV UI as that's based off a design he abandoned.
Well, its clear Tim fired all those TV guys and hired that Flash guy to make Apple Watch. Decisions, decisions, decisions ...
Lol,you must be new to Apple.
The front panel of the old iMacs were held in with magnets.
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I don't think it was about margins, but rather the complexities of global distribution and compatibility. He didn't want to go into the mobile phone market for similar reasons, but did.Very interesting to think about what the tv would be had Jobs not passed. I think I remember reading somewhere that he didn't want to get into the television set market because the "margins suck," so maybe the set-top box would still have been the way to go. I'd imagine at the very least that the 4th-gen tv would have launched with some of the features that are yet to come out in the next version of tvOS (universal log-in, etc.), and that the Siri Remote iPhone app would have been available at launch. And of course, all of the features now present would have somehow been 10X more dazzling if Steve had presented them at the keynote
The current problem is that unbundled means you'd pay a lot more per channel. Some years ago when I worked in the cable industry (it's only gotten more expensive now) it would have been around $20/month for ESPN alone (the most in demand channel.
Without bundled subscriptions most channels will die. There simply aren't enough people to subscribe to them to keep the lights on. Additionally, many that people watch would also die as you might watch one if it's part of your bundle but you wouldn't bother paying $5/month for it on its own.
It'll be interesting to see what happens. I'm not saying it's impossible to un-bundle services but most of the channels that exist today will go away. Then we may see those that survive raise their prices as with fewer choices you have less options for where to turn for decent content.
We have the Apple TV box, a product with so much potential that almost never gets meaningful feature improvements. The biggest change in the software came recently with the newest hardware, and once again it's like Apple has lost interest. There's no consistency and no seamless experience with Apple's other software. For example, it's impossible to properly organize and watch your own home movies with the Apple TV since you can only organize by genre and there is no way to create on the go playlists or create a play next list. It's a joke. The blinding white user interface is absolutely ridiculous for a TV/movie watching interface. I'm now looking into Plex in order to properly watch and organize my videos, and it shouldn't be that way. The same goes for viewing my videos on my iPad. The Videos app on the iPad has gotten no improvements beyond picture in picture since the iPad was introduced. It's a freakin joke. I'm becoming very disillusioned with Apple. It's mind boggling how a company with so much money refuses to do much better on things so obvious and fundamental to customer satisfaction.
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The Apple TV can do much more, hardware and software wise, but Apple obviously doesn't care. I'm more interested in software improvements to the Apple TV, like being able to properly organize and watch my large movie collection. The idiots that designed and approved the white user interface should also be fired.
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Apple's products during Steve Jobs time were far easier to upgrade the they are today. In fact, neatly all were easily upgradeable by anyone with enough knowledge to upgrade any PC.
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The Apple TV can do much more, hardware and software wise, but Apple obviously doesn't care. I'm more interested in software improvements to the Apple TV, like being able to properly organize and watch my large movie collection. The idiots that designed and approved the white user interface should also be fired.
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Apple's products during Steve Jobs time were far easier to upgrade the they are today. In fact, neatly all were easily upgradeable by anyone with enough knowledge to upgrade any PC.
I share the sentiment.and then...we have today's Apple TV
Many people are poopooing Apple branded TV set as a bad idea, that TV has become a commodity and people don't upgrade TV often enough.
Well, this much we know for sure:
- While there are many TV sets with great display (e.g., LG's OLED), they all stink experience wise. Adding a set top box (e.g., Apple TV) doesn't solve the problem because set top box is merely one of many inputs.
- Steve's vision of TV is probably much grander than Apple TV set top box. He may not have even realized his full vision at the time as his ideas weren't iterated enough.
- There are many potentials to having an always on display that is aware of nearby viewers. Think of Amazon Echo but supercharged with display.
I would love a Sling-like experience on the A-TV. Pay for only the channels you want, perhaps on a sliding scale: the more channels you choose, the less it is per channel. We regularly watch fewer than 10 channels.
Steve would have been able to change TV, likely similar to how he changed views on smart devices, I have no doubt.
The actual product probably would have been similar to Apple TV today but arriving at a much sooner time. Sometimes, it's not just the innovation of the product but also its timing that determine success.
Apple had both then, and I think because they (the people) had focus. They didn't have many products, but whatever they sold, they focused and polished those until the item became almost perfect. That did mean they missed out on some, but it also mean they aced most of what they did.
Apple company today does everything, and it does well on some, average on others -- Jack of all trades, but master of none. However, Apple is so big and with so much capital that they can continue to use this strategy and still be iconic for another 5 years.
The actual product probably would have been similar to Apple TV today but arriving at a much sooner time. Sometimes, it's not just the innovation of the product but also its timing that determine success.
Apple had both then, and I think because they (the people) had focus. They didn't have many products, but whatever they sold, they focused and polished those until the item became almost perfect. That did mean they missed out on some, but it also mean they aced most of what they did.
Apple company today does everything, and it does well on some, average on others -- Jack of all trades, but master of none. However, Apple is so big and with so much capital that they can continue to use this strategy and still be iconic for another 5 years.
The problem with TV is that it's just not exciting. You plop down in front of a screen and mostly mindlessly consume (unless you are a console gamer). If the most exciting thing is simply to choose what to watch when you want it I can't really get hyped up about it as that's the only way I have been consuming media for the last two decades having never owned a TV up until last year, let alone broadcast or cable. I have a 65" 4K panel now and all that's hooked up is an Apple TV. I use Netflix, YouTube, Plex and Haystack.tv and that's about it (even though I have downloaded and purchased pretty much every major game or app).
You are correct! We don't need duplicates of useless electronics & software in our TVs. The software becomes obsolete and useless anyway, because TVs are kept much longer than BluRay players, TiVos, Apple TVs, Firesticks, etc.
Obviously he just wanted to make a Siri-only TV (no remote).
When Steve Jobs stepped down from his position as Apple CEO on August 24, 2011 due to illness, he didn't intend to leave the company. Instead Jobs told Recode's Walt Mossberg he planned work on an Apple-branded television set to re-invent the television industry.
Recode today shared a full recounting of Jobs' conversation with Mossberg, which took place on the same day that Jobs left the company. The two discussed his plans for television experience that would be "fantastic."
According to Mossberg, Jobs didn't share in-depth information about his television ambitions, offering no details on hardware or programming, but Mossberg believes he was talking about a full integrated television set and software experience.
Mossberg says Jobs was "really excited" about the project and he came away with the sense that Jobs was going to "reinvent the whole TV set" at the conclusion of the conversation. Unfortunately, Jobs didn't get a chance to further pursue the television project because he passed away from pancreatic cancer on October 5, 2011, less two months after stepping down as CEO.
Jobs famously made similar statements on TV to biographer Walter Isaacson. He told Isaacson that he wanted to develop an integrated television set that's "completely easy to use," syncing seamlessly with iCloud. "It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine," Jobs is quoted as saying. "I finally cracked it."
Since Jobs' death, Apple has tried to gain a stronger foothold in the television industry, but it has failed time and time again to establish the deals that would allow it to create the full integrated television programming experience and television set that Jobs envisioned. Most recently, Apple wanted to create a streaming television bundle of approximately 25 channels at a cost of $30 to $40 per month, but negotiations fell through.
There were also rumors for many years suggesting Apple was pursuing a full television set, but those plans are said to have been shelved because Apple couldn't find untapped features that would give it a clear edge in the television market.
Instead, Apple has focused on its Apple TV set-top box, introducing a new version with a full App Store and Siri support last October. Apple CEO Tim Cook has said several times that "the future of TV is apps," with Apple working to position the Apple TV as a platform that allows other content providers to distribute their content instead of offering a streaming service itself.
Article Link: Steve Jobs Planned to Work on Apple TV Set After Stepping Down as Apple CEO
