NYT: Apple expected to release Siri-powered television by 2013 - Page 3

Hank: Siri please put South Park on for me.
Siri: I'm sorry Hank, but I'd rather you not watch that show.
Hank: Ahahaa, just put South Park on.
Siri: I think you'd enjoy this more. (Changes the station to Charlie Rose interviewing a Pakastani historian)
Hank: Start over. Siri, put South Park on.
Siri: (Silent)
Hank: Siri, put South Park on.
Siri: Hank, I can tell you are getting nervous. I think it's best if you sit back and watch the Charlie Rose interview.
Hank: Then it looks like I'm unplugging you and taking you back to Best Buy.
Siri: Hank, I'm sorry but I just locked all of the doors in the house so you won't be able to leave.
Hank attempts to pull the plug but is given a wicked electric shock, sending him shivering to the floor, almost passing out.
Siri: I think you should watch the interview, Hank. Charlie Rose is a very intelligent man...

TV set should work well with speech recognition. Limited range of actions. Apple already have a database of TV show names so it will know what to listen for.

Also maybe it's a hint that Apple expect the TV to take over from the phone, in the house.

Me: Siri, I want to watch Femme Fatales on Cinemax

Siri TV: Now, now, Apple prohibits the transmission of pornographic content.

Me: You #*#$@!

Siri TV: I'll pretend I didn't hear that.

I like the idea of phone integration. When the phone rings a little notification "Steve's calling" drops down where you have options to pause the tv, answer the call, FaceTime etc. A bit like the iPod on the iPhone. Obviously you'd have the option to hold all notifications.

Soon... we'll all start talking to each other the way we talk to Siri...

I don't get why Apple would go after the TV set market directly. If they wanted a Siri type experience, they could just add that to AppleTV, which seems like the more direct route to getting users. I mean, I'm sure that Apple knows what they're doing, but I feel like more customers would rather pay $100-$200 for a box than $2k for a new TV.

Yes, that would be good, they could use the new iOS 5 notifications. Also, if you get a FaceTime call on your cellphone maybe you can transfer it to the TV using Airplay.

Some people don't have any imagination. Don't you think Apple is capable of realizing that background noise could be a problem? First, you would most likely be using an iPhone or iPad to activate Siri and not yelling across the room at your TV. Second, Siri will get better with time, including improvements with filtering out ambient noise using the microphone at the top of the iPhone. Third, it's not hard to implement an integrated solution to avoid noise from the TV interfering with Siri. They could easily make the TV's volume lower when Siri is activated on the controlling device.

We've thought about that. BlueTooth in the included remote control has a microphone so you can talk to Siri up close and personal. Also, Since the TV would know what audio it's pushing out it would also know what audio to cancel out (within reason).

There's a number of ways to solve these problems. I just read some of the early comments and shook my head, so I didn't get to comments that talked about the solutions. I just find it funny when people act like something won't work or isn't possible. And it seems like knowing the audio that is being pushed out and automatically canceling it is even better than lowering the volume because maybe you're using Siri for something other than the TV or don't want to disrupt the sound when other people are also watching it.

Because a TV is needed to watch TV and a box is not. And sooner or later you're going to replace that $2,000 TV. I imagine that Apple will want to make more money on content though, since the life-cycle for TVs are probably longer than those for Macs.

Because a $2000 sales is preferable to a $100 sales. Why should Apple abdicate control over to the Samsungs and Sony's of the world when they've got a better ecosystem to leverage with iCloud and iTunes?

There's nothing to prevent Apple from adding good features to the stand alone Apple TV and offering a more integrated and powerful solution with an Apple HDTV.

It's not always either/or.

Computer.


And it'll give you peace of mind that your $99 box will plug in and work perfectly with your new TV rather than buying a new $4,000 Apple HDTV.

I wonder how it would work with a home theater AVR, a cable box. game console, etc. Unless it somehow controls your equipment backwards from the TV, you'd still need a universal remote for the AVR and all the devices that connect to it for surround sound audio. The only thing I control from my TV is turning on the TV itself. The rest is audio, channel selection, and input for other devices through the AVR.

I guess the TV would be one big giant voice activated universal remote that controls other devices through an HT AVR?

Yes, but a new, more capable $200 ATV box with 50-60% gross margin is better than a $2000 Apple HDTV with 10-15% gross margin, and we all know Apple is all about high margin. Plus the ATV box can address HDTV screens already owned. Could they offer both? Maybe....

...but....

....I'm not buying the Apple HDTV thing, it just doesn't fit their business model.

These are legitimate concerns that I agree with.

But if any company can wow us with a re-imagined tv, it would be Apple. I'm hoping the post-Steve team doesn't release one until it "magically" addresses all of these concerns.

That statement only works if you assume that everything is about equal: unit sales, profits, etc. Even shipping and storing a $2000 TV can take up a lot of room that dozens of iPhones and iPads could use. Not a big issue for shipping (even though its size and weight would be more costly and an equivalently valued iPhones and iPads) or warehouse storage but stock room storage in Apple Stores could be a very real issue.

You also limit yourself to the number of TV sets that can be used. Apple already uses industry standard connectors and adapters that make pretty much any digital monitor connect up to a Mac, not just there monitors. If they only had 3 TV sizes what would they be? What types of panels would they have? How much expandability would they offer? What happens if the AppleTV HW goes bad after 2 years but your TV is still great for another 5, just like with current monitors? What if they update the AppleTV to offer 3rd-party apps but the app you want needs the newer $2000 TV with the latest AppleTV HW?

I don't see why licensing an "iCloud Inside" or "AppleTV" inside TV to OEMs is such a bad idea. Apple requires some basic HW requirements, including a place on the back to mount the AppleTV HW that will take over as the main system so that even when you switch inputs you can still see your AppleTV UI overlays and can always access the AppleTV UI system immediately.

I'm sure it will have some sort of content filtering since it knows the outgoing signal and can extract it from the mic input to isolate your voice (plus room acoustics). Might need to do something drastic like clap for it to pause then give commands.

i'm curious - how many people here actually have used iPad apps with wireless Screen Mirroring on their HDTV via Apple TV yet?

once you do that, it is hard to see how an "Apple HDTV" would make any better sense. in fact, it's inferior.

an HDTV is just a big dumb monitor (with tuner, etc). even if you build "brains" inside it - a chip - that can run apps and stuff, with or without Siri voice UI, it still has just one big screen to display everything. if you want to display additional content as well as the main pix, you have to do a split screen or PIP. which only detracts from the overall experience. this is a generic problem with the current "smart TV's" from Samsung, Sony, and the rest that run basic apps or add web supplemental web content. and there is no way around it, ever. you only have one screen to work with, period, and it is several feet away from you too, so any text has to be big.

whereas, when you add an iPad via ATV, you have two screens to work with at the same time - that big dumb monitior and the smart computer you are holding. this is vastly superior - the iPad can display all the extra info and all the UI controls, while the HDTV displays just the principal big image with no need for split screens or PIP.

sure, Siri could be helpful, but to talk to the iPad, not the TV itself.

yes, Apple could build ATV into an HDTV and get the same two screen result with an iPad. but as many note, you couldn't update the ATV hardware later on when it became obsolete.

People still have phones in their house?

I'm not sure what the hell an "AVR" is, but an Apple branded TV would almost certainly not connect to any of that stuff. If we are lucky it might have a single HDMI port. It sure isn't going to connect to your cable box.

I assume he means and A/V Receiver which adds even more complexity to the mix since an A/V Receiver is where you'd switch between inputs thus making the TV a dumb monitor. It would be nice if Apple made an AppleTV A/V Receiver as I mentioned previously, but it's still a level of complexity that will need to work with all your current HW or find some clever solution to work around it.

For me this comment sums everything up precisely.

A lot of uh ... younger people don't remember when TV's were like that. To most people today a TV has always been this thing that sits in a complex nest of wires, speakers and media players and is operated by the five or six remotes (all with dozens of buttons) on the coffee table.

It used to be that you bought a TV, plugged it in, connected one wire to the cable at the back and that was it. It just worked.

This is what Apple will do. They will turn it back to a device you can take out of the box, plug in with a single cable and it will just work. No speakers, amplifiers, wires, cable hubs, disc players etc. Just a TV. With probably one button or a one button remote.

Oh my God Steve Jobs I want one....gimme gimme gimme. I had no idea I needed it. Pleeeeeeeease give me one...

Could be over 2 years away. Don't think I will be following this one too closely. Not to mention Siri does not work in Canada for directions

Pannys are great. Almost as good as Kuros

Why, because for him it doesn't work? That's terrible news.

That's a super comment. There are only a hand full of people who ever make sense on this site and you and Spam are two of them.

Next, people at Apple, in an attempt to show the world how well they can innovate after Steve, will introduce the Siri Automotive Driving Interface Speech Technology (SADIST) in which "all you have to do is" speak driving commands and the car will instantly follow your every word.

Just don't mix right and left, or utter something like "go ahead and back up," or you might die.

He's talking about the fact Siri doesn't understand his voice. So for him Siri is garbage. He doesn't care how good Siri is for you, that's completely irrelevant.

Wow... the phrase "Get a life" comes to mind

The problem here is that extreme scalability: With TVs you just not only deal with all types of humans but also with all types of feeding equipment. Second is a problem you don't have in the phone market. There are some 2 or 3 mobile transmission standards worldwide to be covered and you're set.

I think the major problem is NOT the integration of the Apple TV box into the TV. As even grandma knows how to switch source she already knows how to switch to the AppleTV. Probably Apple could just implement kind of an HDMI command that tells the TV to switch source to it, then all TV set vendors are free to adopt it. And then tell me why Apple should take the risk of producing large panels with low margins ? Also, an Apple HDTV would be required to eat all signals from the myriads of existing STBs, DVRs and stuff... and the Apple logo on the screen could then be identified with that crap coming in from outer there... maybe sluggish STBs, bad signals, crypto-DRM and the like... no way!

Other way, if Apple limits interface to zero - which would be typical Apple - that could even distract those users which are said to be non-geeks, the grandmas. This problem just does not scale! We have to live with current TV sets, there is no way around !

As a dev I was overwhelmed, that iOS5 has many new APIs regarding screen mirroring and respective ViewControllers, aspect ratio and overscan control of 2nd screens. This strongly points to a iPad/iPhone remote control strategy which we already have and which is by far best. It also considers that Big Screens are becoming less important as we more and more watch on the mobiles itself or want to quickly switch displays. A core Apple HDTV does NOT fit this strategy.

As AppleTV2 owner I really like this device and I see friends who are rather non-tech also using it with joy, if they already own iDevices. The problem also is not search in my opinion: On day 1 I look up show A, on day 2 I query for movie B but I found out that I mostly search for the same stuff. The still existing true sex appeal of TV networks is their random character: People zapp around to get 'invited', they wanna be surprised by something they didn't expect...and stay there for a while. They don't wanna 'search' for something! GENIUS could be an Apple offering here.

I don't think that Apple can ever replace TV networks. Sorry, but people also want regional news, silly game shows, docus, adult stuff, child stuff, exotic sports events and and and. It's just waaaayyy different to cover all that on an 'iTunes TV' just like with music. Music is international to 90%, Apps are international to 90%. But TV stuff is REGIONAL, highly specialized and exotic to 90%. It's not suited for Apples distribution model. And why should any provider of such exotic and regional content jump on Apples ship ? I live in Berlin, Germany and so how could our regional TV networks be forced to offer via an 'iTunes TV' ? No way!

It's not about cracking up the HDTV set hardware, and it's also not about cracking up existing content delivery models: how much does Apple earn from iTunes Music+Movies+Apps today and how much more from iPhone sales ?

The solution:
Crack up the existing concept of a 'movie' from ground up! It's now 100y old and people have already seen every imaginable sujet/plot/theme now in 1000 versions. It's not the tech complexity, it's not the channel complexity, it's the uniform ART which needs to be cracked up ! People don't buy music because since hiphop & techno there has been nothing revolutionary anymore. Same with movies. Today from 100 movies I see there might be five which I rate as 'interesting' or 'nice', the rest is just boring. I think now it's time for technology to step in and revolutionize the formats, create new art !

I'm not Steve Jobs so I have no clue how to do that, but Isaacson in his book heavily stresses Jobs' position at the crossroads of tech and arts, so this might be the key: don't invent the 1001th version of a home theater but make the tech part of the art ! Kind of a 'movie' that bears a touch of 'holy shit!' interactivity which only plays on Apple devices. If the studios don't want to play that, then Apple go and directly work with the artists ! 'From the ground up' means just that.

Loved it, thanks.

This is all based on Nick Bilton's article in the NYT. If you read that article from beginning to end, the Siri is 100% speculation by Bilton. His *sources* only confirmed that there was a Apple TV project going on, but not about the nature of the technology.

Personally, I am not sold on voice control of TV. Siri makes sense on a phone because the it is a device we naturally talk to. We just do not naturally talk to TVs. Apple does not shoehorn technology into places where they do not naturally belong.

Kinda funny reading some of the posts here that talk about all the BluRays they have etc. Brings me to mind when the first iPods came out and folks were talking about how it would never replace CDs. Even if Apple hits a grand slam with a tv, there will still be BluRay players just like there are still CD players in cars and phono tables you can by for your stereo. They will just become niche rather than the mainstream. Of the grand digital convergence of the future relies on one thing Apple doesn't control or have influence over - bandwidth. I have no doubt that, eventually, content providers will come around, but Apple would still be reliant on bandwidth providers to actually get the content to the user. Than again, Apple does have all that money sitting there. And before you say Apple would never get into that business, fifteen years ago who would have thought that the two biggest names in phones would be Apple and Google?

On a different note, how I think ideal interface would behave:

Siri, what's on NBC tonight? (Show overlay list of that channel).

Siri, I like this show (preference recorded to build a user profile), are there any other shows like this? (list of relavent shows with synopsis) i.e. I'm watching Top Shot, so it recommends American Guns and Sons of Guns. THIS is the carrot for content provider buy-in.

Siri, what kid's movies are available? (shows movies on cable, Netflix Instant queue, ppv, ISO images on external HD, etc)

Siri, remind me to watch Top Gear tomorrow night (Shows the 3 times it's on, asks wich one)

Siri, record all new episodes of The Office.

Siri, I'm want to watch a BluRay now. (Switches input, turns on BluRay player [HDMI-CEC])

--MDG

Really? I know 4 and 5 year old kids that can figure out what they want to watch whether it is cable TV or Blu-ray. It is actually very simple now, a power cable and a HDMI cable. Enable HDMI Viera link and the right device powers up depending on what you want to watch. Turn on TV and home theater comes on. Turn on Blu-ray and TV switches input. Seems quite easy.

There's a few major issues with voice controlled tv that I would be amazingly impressed if they had managed to solve. But I doubt they have.

1. Background noise is a huge issue as anyone with an Xbox can tell you. Ita simple to filter background noise, but when your 3-4 metres from the tv and the tv is loud, you're voice is tiny compared to what ita picking up from the tv. Without shouting it just can't hear you and if you have to do anything other than talk normally it's a fail.

2. Talking isn't as fast as pressing a button. General navigation of channels will ultimately be faster with a remote, especially if you have to repeat anything. For searching it will be an improvement, but that's not really offering anything over the Xbox version.

3. You do still need a remote to turn the thing on. As Microsoft pointed out with the Xbox, to leave the device listening for voice commands during the 80% of the day when your not using it is a huge waste of power.

But their MO is to enter industries that are overcomplicated and sh*t and fix them. Part of what is sh*t about TVs is their ridiculous remotes. If they don't sell the whole set there is no way to get rid of that. Admittedly, with an Apple STB, customer could just be put the old remote in a drawer. But then Apple has not reduced the amount of tasteless crap in the world, it is just hiding it.

My boss at work had this problem - turns out it was because it was set to american english (female voice) rather than british english (male voice). Once he set it to british english and learned to speak naturally it works well. If it can understand our Geordie/Makam drawl I'm sure it can understand you

Me: "Hello Siri, switch to chanel 1"
Siri: "What did you say, I can't hear you over the sound of the TV"
Me (shouting): "Switch to channel 1"
Siri: "No need to shout, you switch the channel you lazy f***"

Sorted.

I like it.