NYT: Apple expected to release Siri-powered television by 2013 - Page 2

Originally Posted by Maury Markowitz

So, here's a question why would I possibly want this?

I consider my TV to be nothing other than a large monitor. I get inputs from a cable box, PS3 and an Apple TV. I can add new inputs, or remove old ones.

Simply put, I don't believe this rumour for a second.

Originally Posted by kent909

To all the people who have come up with reasons why this will not work. Do you really think you are smarter than Steve Jobs was, and he never considered all of these technical issues?

Really!

Originally Posted by jm6032

Folks, I've written about my professional musician wife before. This pretty much really happened:

Wife: I just bought Netflix.
Me: Oh. (Thinking: Don't we have cable?)
Wife: Yes, now I can watch movies on my MacBook and iMac.
Me: Ok.
...Time Passes...
Wife: Can we hook this to the TV in the bedroom? (Nice little 32" flatscreen.)
Me: Yes. (Off to Apple store to buy adapter to hook to PC input on TV.)
Wife: Cool. But what are all those cables going to the TV?
Me: Well, we need those to get the signal to the TV from the MacBookPro.
...Time Passes...
Me: Dear, did you say that was Netflix? (Yep. I listen really well...)
Wife: Yes.
Me: Uh, the AppleTV in the living room can receive Netflix.
Wife: Well, bring it in here.
Me: (Being an engineer I start to get wires and power cables to run it all nice an neat behind the entertainment center.)
Wife: Can you hurry?
Me: I am hurrying.
Wife: Just grabs the whole mess and sets the AppleTV cables and all on the side of the entertainment center.)
Me: (That's really ugly.)
Wife: Now, make it work.
Me: (I hand her the TV remote and Apple Remote.) Push the HDMI button and then press the big silver button on the Apple Remote.
Wife: Cooool!
Me: Now, use the round iPod thingie and move to Internet and push the silver thingie.
Wife: Cooool! There's Netflix.
Me: Leave on business trip. Get Call...
Wife: I can't get this to work.
Me: Push HDMI. Push silver thingie. Go to Internet. Select Netflix.
Wife: Cooool!

Folks, if you're a TV manufacturer, a content creator, or a content deliverer and this isn't your business plan, or a logical extension of this business plan, you're dead meat.

I have seen the future. It is Cooool!

Originally Posted by kotatsu

I've tried talking to my Xbox with Kinect, and it's inability to recognise pretty much anything makes it 100% useless. I've also played around with Siri on my wife's iPhone 4S and the results are.... to be frank, garbage.

Perhaps it's because we're English and not American, but it's accuracy was only around 50%. it produced amusing results, but it's really limited to toy value for now. The thought of trying to control a TV solely using voice commands is not in the least bit appealing. I think I'll stick with my TiVo.

Originally Posted by paxman

what did I miss here - why didn't she just open her MacBook and log into Netflix? Or was that the whole point?

Originally Posted by paxman

Well, we are all VERY VERY smart here at AI forums. Sometimes we emphasize that LOUDLY and sing our own praises, other times we belittle and denigrate. But we are almost always right. Outside of AI lots of people insisted the iPad was nothing but a large iPod, for instance. They never really 'got it' like we all did. Some people on the 'outside' even dissed the iPod, and iPhone when they originally came out and some even insisted the lack of a physical keyboard would never fly. Here we knew better. So when we loudly proclaim an Apple Television to DOA with absolute certainty, its because we know.

Originally Posted by jm6032

Folks, I've written about my professional musician wife before. This pretty much really happened:
<snip>
Folks, if you're a TV manufacturer, a content creator, or a content deliverer and this isn't your business plan, or a logical extension of this business plan, you're dead meat.

Originally Posted by King of Beige

No microhone, Siri will learn to filter out home background noise.

Great software makes great hardware.

Originally Posted by iKol

King of Beige doesn't know content is King?

Originally Posted by jm6032

In a way that is the point. To see Netflix on the TV from the MacBook, she had to drag the web browser to the second screen. Then the MacBook would go to sleep way too often.

The point here is that the integration of control, hardware, and content just took a light year leap. All the pieces are there. Nobody but Apple has successfullly brought it into a realm where a person as absolutely intelligent as my wife is happy with it.

Also, it freed up the MacBook Pro and the associated table and one set of ugly wires went away. This is a beautiful system.

Originally Posted by kent909

To all the people who have come up with reasons why this will not work. Do you really think you are smarter than Steve Jobs was, and he never considered all of these technical issues?

Really!

Originally Posted by solipsism

Can you use AirPlay to push Netflix (and other video) onto the AppleTV? Or have an AppleTV in the HEC and bedroom TVs so you don't have to move them around or pay for pricey dongles?...

Originally Posted by jm6032

Let me say this: My wife asked if we could have it on both TV's. I said the simplist solution is just to buy another AppleTV. She said ok, go get another one.

I think that what I'm trying to say is that Apple is taking us in the direction of one remote that looks a lot like the Apple Remote that came with the AppleTV. There will be virtually no input switching or any thing even near the complexity of what AppleTV already supplies.

You put that remote in the hands of a customer and tell them to use it on that brand new Apple TV Set and they will be watching whatever they want in about a minute and a half.

That is my point. I think we're all missing it. We're headed to one Internet connection, one TV, and one remote. As many of these TV's as you want, anywhere in the house you want.

When I moved the AppleTV into the bedroom, I only had to hook up power and HDMI. With the Apple TV Set there won't even be that. It worked. It was already configured for WiFi. The remote looks like a funny iPod. The interface is blown away simple.

My wife has two master's degrees in music. She is happy. She can make it work.

Originally Posted by paxman

Well, we are all VERY VERY smart here at AI forums. Sometimes we emphasize that LOUDLY and sing our own praises, other times we belittle and denigrate. But we are almost always right. Outside of AI lots of people insisted the iPad was nothing but a large iPod, for instance. They never really 'got it' like we all did. Some people on the 'outside' even dissed the iPod, and iPhone when they originally came out and some even insisted the lack of a physical keyboard would never fly. Here we knew better. So when we loudly proclaim an Apple Television to DOA with absolute certainty, its because we know.

Originally Posted by jm6032

In a way that is the point. To see Netflix on the TV from the MacBook, she had to drag the web browser to the second screen. Then the MacBook would go to sleep way too often.

The point here is that the integration of control, hardware, and content just took a light year leap. All the pieces are there. Nobody but Apple has successfullly brought it into a realm where a person as absolutely intelligent as my wife is happy with it.

Also, it freed up the MacBook Pro and the associated table and one set of ugly wires went away. This is a beautiful system.

Originally Posted by jm6032

I think that what I'm trying to say is that Apple is taking us in the direction of one remote that looks a lot like the Apple Remote that came with the AppleTV. There will be virtually no input switching or any thing even near the complexity of what AppleTV already supplies.

You put that remote in the hands of a customer and tell them to use it on that brand new Apple TV Set and they will be watching whatever they want in about a minute and a half.
.

Originally Posted by massconn72

I'm kind of excited at the prospect, but it has to be competitively priced. My 61" Samsung gives me beautiful 1080p pictures, and until it dies, I'm not replacing it with anything. Even an Apple TV.

Originally Posted by island hermit

... and that may become a big problem.

Sadly, Steve is not here anymore. This Tv thing is a very complex venture. As I said before... it's a Steve thing. His vision isn't there anymore... his tenacity, his arrogance, his patience, his timing... the RDF... all gone.

I'm not saying that the team he left is incapable of pulling this off... but it will be a lot harder without Steve. It's always a lot harder to complete a project when the team leader/architect is gone.

A huge project such as this will really bring forward Apple's inner politics. Eventually one of the big boys, whether it be Cook, Ive, Forstall or whoever, will disagree with something and then we will see what is what. ... and eventually someone with enough power will want to do it their way and take a different route at the fork in the road.

jmho

Originally Posted by solipsism

That sounds great, but it misses two very important things. First, you still need to switch inputs on the TV to get to cable/sat/DVR/DVD/Blu-ray. Second, In the US most of get our internet from the same people that sell us access to TV, who play very large sums of money to get access to that TV content, who depend on these large sums to support their shows.

Originally Posted by King of Beige

And iTunes is the King of content, right?

Originally Posted by Maury Markowitz

me: "television, find…"

my kid yelling: "gogglenAdfnd!"

This will never work.

Originally Posted by ncee

and now that the world has SOME idea as to what it MIGHT be, that does help the competition a bit more then SJ's would have liked I'm sure. ...

Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody

Or ...

... like Siri on the iPhone it might come with a button that you press for Siri to listen to you, which would eliminate interference from all but the most determinedly self-centred and poorly parented children.

Computers can do a lot, but not technology can make your child behave properly except you.

Originally Posted by island hermit

... As I said before... it's a Steve thing. His vision isn't there anymore... his tenacity, his arrogance, his patience, his timing... the RDF... all gone.


jmho

Originally Posted by jm6032

I submit that you're still missing the fundamental point: I assert that there will be no more input switching. I submit that cable, satellite, DVR, DVD, Blu-Ray (a world of hurt, remember). May not even be in the Apple TV Set.

Think about it, with Internet and On Demand programming, why all that other stuff?

I know of the complexities of the content providers and licensing and all that you mention. But I further submit that all this will fall away as it becomes clearer and clearer that it's a "Who needs it" situation.

I'm not going to guess what the threshold is for the pendulum to swing toward dropping all those accessories, but I believe that the pendulum is swinging.

Originally Posted by Sammy Davis

You're missing it. This is not a physical television with a Siri remote control. That isn't the way Steve thinks about this and that isn't the way AAPL does things. It is start from the beginning, how would you build from scratch the television watching experience....and what do we have now...and how are they different? And can you create that ideal television watching experience.

etc. etc.

Originally Posted by pt123

Maybe I want it to be in the TV set because I already paid for the many Blu-ray and DVD movies and would like to watch in on my TV.

Originally Posted by pt123

Maybe I want it to be in the TV set because I already paid for the many Blu-ray and DVD movies and would like to watch in on my TV.

Originally Posted by jm6032

I've seen her use Netflix. All these things that you and I grew up with and cherish are becoming obsolete. Yes, that bothers me, but that doesn't affect the process.

Originally Posted by solipsism

and you have the entrenched system of the content owners and content providers not letting anyone break up this union. If Jobs "cracked" it, that is what he cracked, not simply doing the obvious by putting an AppleTV in a TV to save the effort of a power cord and HDMI connection.

Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody

No one has mentioned this yet that I am aware of, but I find it ironic that the biggest leak of an upcoming product we've seen from Apple for years came from ...

Steve Jobs.

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil

Pshh. I still have my Laserdisc player hooked up to my HDTV. Hello, original Star Wars trilogy!

But no, I'm absolutely in the other camp. Physical disc media is dead. We're just letting the corpse fester before the funeral for some reason.

Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody

No one has mentioned this yet that I am aware of, but I find it ironic that the biggest leak of an upcoming product we've seen from Apple for years came from ...

Steve Jobs.

Originally Posted by island hermit

I can see 3 or 4 siblings screaming at Siri, each wanting a different channel.

Later... Siri to parent:

"Look, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over. I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you."

Originally Posted by Sammy Davis

You're missing it. This is not a physical television with a Siri remote control. That isn't the way Steve thinks about this and that isn't the way AAPL does things. It is start from the beginning, how would you build from scratch the television watching experience....and what do we have now...and how are they different? And can you create that ideal television watching experience.

When Steve says television is "totally broken" or whatever, he isn't talking about the physical television...he is talking about the different pieces that go into watching television. It is too complicated and there are unnecessary pieces in the system that make things worse..not better. Steve is constantly thinking about ways to remove pieces to improve things...physically and conceptually.

Begin with the concept of a TV network. A TV Network takes available content and selects it for a targeted viewership and then puts in on a TV channel at a particular time for you to watch..Yes, you can partly get around this using a DVR...but the existence of the VCR or DVR just highlights the problem...doesn't really solve it. if Steve were here, he would ask, "why do we even need TV Networks...think of the resources that go into running a TV network and all they do is restrict your ability to watch the shows you want to watch!" Steve would say, "how about using existing technology to give people the tools they need to become their own TV networks."

Steve would have another whole rant about the firms that provide the bandwidth...why does a viewer have to worry about Comcast and all that...

So you have content providers...you have some interface (think an itunes store)... you have a TV that works seamlessly with the interface...you have a customer.....

and the question always gets to ... how can people become their own TV network if they can't program their own VCR or if DVRs remain a challenge....

The ability to easily find content and program the TV is an important missing piece to the puzzle. Another important piece is that content providers need to get on board...it will be harder than convincing record labels...

...one possible reason for all this sudden "openness" about an Apple TV is that they want to create a firestorm of buzz about it...so content providers will feel that if they do not negotiate agreements now, they will miss out when this thing is launched....

openness from AAPL is almost always strategic.

Originally Posted by kotatsu

I've tried talking to my Xbox with Kinect, and it's inability to recognise pretty much anything makes it 100% useless. I've also played around with Siri on my wife's iPhone 4S and the results are.... to be frank, garbage.

Perhaps it's because we're English and not American, but it's accuracy was only around 50%. it produced amusing results, but it's really limited to toy value for now. The thought of trying to control a TV solely using voice commands is not in the least bit appealing. I think I'll stick with my TiVo.