Apple television expected in mid-2012 as competition is 'scrambling' - Page 5

I guess we will know once they launch it.. if it going to be a part of the closed wall of apple..In India it will not work at all. As apple is not at all interested in having India in their business map. But things may change in the future with apple pricing their products in sync with the international market..

In Europe, we pay approx. 10/mo for a basic package of cable content (not including the internet connection). (10=$14)

at 2 programs per night, that would amount to $6*30/mo=$180 !!!!!

How would they waste billions? If they invest in Sharp it would almost certainly be so they would also make the monitors for the iMac and the stand alone monitor.

Make a box so great? They have tried that - it's called the AppleTV and it's not exactly been flying off the shelves as I recall.

It's all about control. If you have a box you don't have control, it's just another box under the TV.

I think Apple will release something like the Samsung Smart TV but with a much better interface and iCloud integration.

aTV doesn't have a killer app yet unless it's airplay and console quality games. It's close though...the 4S and iPad 2 just needs a few more killer titles and I think that aTV sales will increase rapidly.

I had wondered why Apple never released apps for the aTV. They didn't need to...and that removes the need to constantly refresh aTV hardware. This make licensing airplay to HDTV makers this side of reasonable. Or they can just sell more aTVs in a big push.

Frankly, I think that AirPlay is a disruptive technology...disrupting consoles and STBs alike. When LTE is widespread then the last mile problem is also solved.

In fact, can you imagine if AT&T, Verizon and Sprint sold a 4G enabled AppleTV 3?

You don't imagine that R&D for an aluminum and glass television case would cost at least several billion? Not to mention manufacturing.


Uh, absoLUTELY it has. And if you think the current UI is the only possible way to do an Apple TV, then you really can't see why having an Apple TELEVISION has any point, either.


No, you absolutely have control. You have all the control that anyone will let you have. You can't make a television with no ports. Zero people will buy it. People have Blu-ray discs. People have DVDs. People have VHS'. People have game consoles. People have satellite and cable hookups.

If you can't plug those in, you'll see sales of the Apple HDTV be WORSE than the first gen Apple TV. Worse even than the iPod Hi-Fi.


There you go, not bothering to think outside the

Hey, a TV's a box, isn't it?

not thinking outside the TV.

I would be more careful than you on this. Apple has systematically pursued a policy to make obsolete physical medias. It started with diskettes, and continued with blue rays, not supported on Apple devices. Every time, the initial reaction was : this is a mistake, they won't be able to maintain this position, and finally they won (or about to win).

Compared to a PC, in addition of other notable features (beauty, user friendliness ...) what distinguishes a Mac from a PC is the minimal number of cables to connect.

Just an example : I have about 1000 DVDs at home, two home cinemas. My two teenager kids prefer watching films on one of our Macs, they hate using DVDs (and it is not a question of buying them).

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" : what more simple than not having to plug anything ?

I know. And I'm for that.

But you can't tell people they can't watch their movie library or play their games on a TV they just bought. Not even if you offer iTunes alternatives. No one's going to buy their movies all over again for absolutely no reason. No one's going to buy NEW games instead of playing the ones they may have also just purchased because the console can't be plugged into the TV.

They just won't buy the TV. That's why it's ludicrous to make one.

Let's take another example : I also have about 800 Cds at home. I NEVER use them anymore, because they have all been compressed & integrated into my iTunes library. I believe my case is far from being unique.

Consoles are another story (which I know less), but I guess games consoles are dead, anyway, replaced by iPad/iPhones. Again, I see my kids spending more & more time on iPhone games than on the other consoles at home ...

You have to engage in contortions of reality denial to think you can sell TV's without input connections, or without tuners as someone else suggested. These are complete non starters. Not only would that fail to storm the market, it would completely fail to sell at all.

Just because Apple has successfully entered/created markets, doesn't mean every rumor about a new product makes sense and needs to be defended.

TV is a stagnating, low margin and even money losing business. The top TV brands are losing money hand over fist (Sony and Panasonic have lost Billions).

You can't simply stick a new interface on the TV, charge 50% more for it and expect people to buy it in mass quantities.

This is true. But the magic of Apple is to make money where the other cannot. Take Sony (admired by Steve). They design beautiful hardware, but suffer financially. Why ? Because an actor selling only hardware (which is the case you refer to) is engaged into a death race of competition on prices, keeping in mind that nothing is more easy to copy than hardware (you just open the competitor product, and see what's inside). Of course, if Apple enters this business, it will not only sell hardware (or even a hardware/software combination), but a whole ecosystem.

I see a repeat of the iPod strategy , with an equivalent of iTunes, a central library to manage audio video content (which is already the case with present iTunes, but may be enhanced in some way, possibly within iCloud). Airplay will suppress any physical connections within your home (easy : it already does). You add the last ingredient, which is an interface which has never imagined before (very likely based on Siri), and you have it.

There is no Apple magic to make money where others can't. The Apple magic is to have the sense to stay out of commodity low margin business like TV sets.

Having an iTunes TV is NOT going to get anyone to pay 50% more. Especially with your "no inputs" plan. Doubly so when you can just buy a $99 box for iTunes ecosystem on your TV if that is what you want.

Smartphones were already high margin, when Apple entered that market, so Apple didn't have to charge 50% more than everyone else. Even music players where not a squeezed commodity market when Apple introduced the iPod.

IMO Steve Jobs believed that at the center of any living room is the TV set, where families congregate and socialize. People presently think of an external media center adding entertainment to their HDTVs but Jobs knew that integration through software within the hardware of the TV is the answer to the family's media center.

IMO Jobs' "hobby" AppleTV has been developing the technology for his vision. Firmware upgrades and quality TV technology, such as long lasting screens and a built-in router as a base-station for people's mobile devices, can make their HDTV useable for the average 10 years people expect from their HDTVs. User repairability, like we use to have in laptops, for upgrading and expansion is easier to offer in a TV. Today's TVs are modular in components and easier to repair.

Having the media built into the HDTV is the easy part. What Jobs probably envisioned and "cracked" was controlling the media center of the HDTV. I don't know his solution but it probably has Siri technology at the forefront. Apple will probably license Siri's control technology in the future for HDTVs to the competition after Apple reaps its benefits first.

This article shows me that the competition realizes Jobs vision of a family's HDTV is the same as a smart phone, just like the iPhone. I hope they can achieve real security with Android and using iOS as their model to control future HDTVs. I will buy an iOS based HDTV with Siri control in a heartbeat, and I'm sure Apple's competition in this market, will add fuel to make Jobs vision a reality.

This is completely meaningless. It's illegal to rip DVDs. It's illegal to rip Blu-ray discs. And that doesn't even address the issue of cable/satellite boxes and game consoles.


I'm not shouting at my TV, and I'm not using voice as my only means of interaction.

You have never done that from DVDs which you own ? Nor your children (if you have some) ? Sure ? (for your personal usage, of course (private copy))

Actually it's against the DMCA to subvert copy protection. You may rip a DVD if it contains no copy protection.

Michael Moore delivered a DVD without copy protection I believe. However Sony being the DRM loving fiends that they are require Blu-ray discs all have copy protection.

Implying what? That it's any less illegal if people do it?

I better start 'shooting H', then, because people do it. Must not be illegal.



Apple CANNOT provide a means by which to do this. If they create an HDTV with no ports, they're locking out every single person who would ever want to buy such a device. You buy a TV to watch the content you have. If you can't do that, you don't bother.

I am not a lawyer, and I prefer to be careful on this issue. For Blue Rays, I admit it can be tricky (at least there might be some technical solutions, (or not), I cannot say). All I am saying is that for normal DVDs everybody knows that technical solutions exists, and that some people (including some forumer here I am presently circumlocuting) use it to have the content in their iTunes database, watch them on their TV through their AppleTV, the same way as they do for CDs (which are also, I believe, supposed to be protected) to listen them from iTunes through an Airport base connected to their HIFI system.

Yes. Because learning how to use HandBrake and VLC to rip your DVDs to a file that looks good and is of a proper file size… and then finding metadata from all over the Internet and applying it yourself… and THEN setting your own chapters by hand… and THEN finding good artwork… and THEN putting the files into iTunes and getting them sorted properly… and THEN streaming them to your HDTV (because that's obviously going to be the solution; Apple doesn't seem to care that we don't want to be forced to have our computers on and iTunes running to get to our media, regardless of if the next Apple TV is a box or a screen)… is not an example of


by any stretch of anyone's imagination. And therefore the only option is to offer to let you buy absolutely everything you own again in the iTunes Store, when the iTunes Store very probably doesn't have your full catalog of movies and certainly has no comparable games to those on consoles. Equally nonsensical. Why would I buy everything I already own twice? Particularly since nowhere near all of Apple's movies on iTunes are 'iTunes Extras' enabled.

And even… even going past ALL of that, it STILL doesn't address the lack of cable/satellite support.

Agreed for this. But for the rest (music) my iTunes database is partly composed of my own CDs (which I previously bought), AND (because I almost never buy CDs any more, music bought from iTunes (I try to avoid duplication, of course). Now, you change "CD" into "DVD" ,and you have the picture.

And by the way the technical process for DVDs is straightforward (only two steps) :

1) rip the DVD (or the main title only)
2) convert it into an iTunes recognized format (mp4, for example)

OK, it can be long (depending on your machine), but is is simple, and you just do it once for all.

Yes, indeed. Actually doing the rip is a piece of cake. It's DVD to M4V and you're done.

BUT, if you want your files to be anything more than 'titleofmovie.m4v' (PERIOD) in iTunes:

You have to know what size to make the file. You have to know how to make the image look good. You have to know what metadata is and how to get it and input it, specifically the metadata that iTunes DOESN'T allow you to input (WHY this is the case I'll never know. You have to use Subler to get a RATING on your movies. So even if you had Parental Controls set up, a Schindler's List rip could appear alongside a Wiggles rip if you don't have ratings on your files). You have to know where chapters start and end and how to input these time breaks into the file. You'd then have to title the chapters properly (fortunately, chapter images are taken care of automatically). You'd have to find artwork for the file in the form of a movie poster. Plenty exist without the ugly billing on them, but a great many more don't, and some don't exist in sizes large enough to look good at television viewing resolution.

It's an ordeal for anyone who doesn't care about any of that and just wants to see his movies like he always had via discs.

Me? I'm fine with doing all that. I'll set all the metadata, regardless of if iTunes wants me to or not. If I can't find an artwork that suits me or all the available ones are too small, I'll make my own in Photoshop (same with books). I'm master of my library. But people don't care about that. They don't want to jump through fifty hoops to get good-looking content.

It's not illegal to rip a DVD or BR disc if you own the disc. It's illegal to sell them or copy them for your friends. In the U.S. the DCMA says so. The studios would like you to think otherwise though. But they can't stop the personal tools to rip. If not for DCMAs fair-use, the studios would have stopped the practice, but it isn't illegal to rip a fair-use copy.




Nobody will have to shout at their TV. Apple's smarter than that. Yes, Siri will probably be in the TV for non-remote use but they will have a remote and/or in any iOS device to control the TV. Shouting won't be necessary and confirming the command will be by the remote's select button or iOS device. And because you'll probably say "then I don't need Siri," just try to type out a intelligent find command or a TV setting buried several layers deep on a TV today and you'll love Siri command!

Yeah. It is. It's illegal to circumvent disc DRM.

It's NOT illegal to have a backup copy of media you own. You're confusing this with that.


My response to that is contained in an earlier portion of your post:


It becomes uncomplicated immediately upon the inclusion of a touchscreen and dynamic interface.

Yeah, TVs today suck. A non-hobby Apple TV would remove the desire to ever use any software but its own with your TV.

Sony is a small part of the Blu-ray association, there are many other companies involved, a lot of them had the requirement of forcing DRM.

Why single Sony out. While we are at it, why does Apple force DRM on iOS applications? Why do Apple force DRM on audio books (even though Audible are happy for some not to have it)?

I actually don't think it's Sony's fault at all. It's the content companies that enable the DRM on Blu-ray disks they publish.

One last comment (promised) on this : as you noted, there is no FM tuner on iPods (which is something Apple could have easily implemented). This did not prevent it from being a huge success...

And sharp will supply the actual panel?

That's a bad sign.

Interesting point, and I agree with you, but there's still a fundamental difference in what radio represents in comparison to cable/satellite and DVD libraries.

Wow. This nonsense is still going on.

An FM tuner is simply a bonus on an MP3 player.

A Tuner on a TV is fundamental element of being a TV.

A TV without a tuner, is like a car without wheels.

It is sheer nonsense to suggest anyone (let alone Apple) would sell a "TV" without inputs or tuners.

No, if they plan to enter the TV market in a way other than the current Apple TV product is part of it, and they hope to make money, there will have to be a redefinition of the market. If you can't win a game playing the same strategy as the current players (because that strategy insures no winner), you have to come up with a different strategy.

Actually, a TV without a tuner is just a computer monitor.

Except they are talking about not having inputs either. No tuner, no inputs for an Xbox/PS3/Blu Ray player.

Is a satellite radio receiver still a radio? I'd say yes.

It's not the broadcasting technology involved that makes it a TV, it's the programming. If Apple can make a TV with all the programming, without a tuner, it's still a TV.

But it should damn well have some way to connect peripheral devices, like media players and game consoles.

Sony being one of those content companies that is most heinous about forcing DRM.

Just as you say it damn well better have input connections, most people would say it damn well better have tuners as well.

Even without those silly limitations, Apple isn't likely to get into the TV business.

There is no business case for it.

People are simply taking rumors for granted and assuming some kind of new magical TV, with a new magical business case.

No Sony is the lead company behind Blu-ray

The disc - Sony created
BD+ - Sony created
The first BD player - Sony .

They led the format charge and like many Sony products hobbled it with DRM. I cannot blame others for the DRM as Sony is really the company pushing the BDA forward/backward depending on who you ask. The problem with mandatory DRM is that companies have to pay for the license which means higher costs. Hence the "Bag of hurt" commentary from the late Steve Jobs.

Maybe you should have a look at the technology behind Blu-ray, then look at who developed it, Sony is one player, there are others that have supplied a lot more, think Pioneer, think Panasonic.

You are being ignorant to continue with the Sony is Blu-ray theory,

BD+ was created by Cryptography Research, and pushed for by Fox
AACS was created by a bunch of companies (Yes Sony was one of them, but so was Disney)
HDCP was an Intel technology

The disc, that would be Sony and Philips.

The first player? Someone had to be first, and Pioneer wasn't far behind them

The video formats? Nope, Sony didn't push that either.

And Steve was wrong about his comment, the reason he said it was because they want to push forward with iTunes video sales, that was the only reason. And for some reason you are happy for Apple to push for their future, but not others? Apple sits there, pushes DRM on videos, on audiobooks, and on apps, but they don't seem to be trying to get rid of any of them, why is that?

Already done...the current AppleTV interface can be run through an iPodTouch/iPad/iPhone App.

I have invested in Blue Ray, too (a Player + capable projector). Frankly, I think that the drawbacks are greater than the advantages (which explains I still buy "normal" DVDs, in addition to a very few number of Blue rays, but which represent less than 2% of my library).

The image quality is higher, admittedly, but this is only meaningful if you project on a very large screen, and good quality DVD players can significatively enhance the normal DVD image quality.


In addition to the cost of a blue Ray, you have to wait for an incomprehensible and unacceptable long time (several minutes) before the Blue Ray consents to start.

Steve was right on that point also, and anyway, talking about computers, because of the size screen, there is absolutely no benefit of having Blue Ray capability. The PC manufacturers campaign trying to mock this "Mac shortcoming" has not been successful, as far as I know.

As always with Apple, facts about what Apple decides NOT to do, is even more significant than what it decides to do.

Maybe you should purchase better quality equipment. It is easy to tell the difference between DVDs and Blu-rays on small TVs, a 26" TV from a distance still displays a nicer image with Blu-ray than DVD.



The cost of blu-ray? Is everything else free? Everything has a cost. And several minutes for startup? What equipment are you running? Do you still have a 2006 player? Neither my Panasonic blu-ray player, nor my PS3s take "several minutes" to start a play.


Steve was not right, it was his opinion based on the Apples direction. And size of the screen? If there is no benefit in having a better quality image on these high res screens, why have them? Why don't we still run 512x384 monitors? After all the image quality doesn't matter

Panasonic DMP BD35 (4 stars out of five on Amazon)