Quote:
Originally Posted by
wheeles 
There are quite a few other devices that you can hook up, turn on, and have it work. You clearly have not looked at what is available.
As I said, Internet capable TVs are what will kill off devices like Apple TV as everything an Apple TV can do will become built-in. Think of it as smartphones eating into the iPod market. If Apple want to compete in this market, they will eventually have to release a television.
I disagree. We have all seen Roku boxes, the Western Digital Boxes, the Boxy Boxes, etc, but for someone using iTunes, none of them work as well as the Apple TV. They all have clunky interfaces, and are hard to use.
With technology that changes this quickly, I don't want it built into my TV - any more than I wanted my DVD or BluRay player built into the TV. I will upgrade this technology more often than I will purchase a TV - and I don't want to count on my TV manufacturer to provide firmware updates for new channels.
Smartphones ate into the iPod market because both devices were priced comparably (on contract), and convergence is much more important in a mobile environment where I have to physically carry around the devices. It didn't make sense to carry around an iPod when my iPhone did the same thing. My iPhone is updated as often (if not more often) then the iPod so its technology is always up to date.
Convergence is much less of priority in a consumer electronics space, where we are already used to having separate TV's, DVD players, Set top boxes, etc.
But hey, there is no one solution that is perfect for everyone.