Apple television expected in mid-2012 as competition is 'scrambling' - Page 2

No they don't, and as said in my previous post Apple has nothing to do in the cable/sat area. They need a connected TV with internet content.

They even haven't built an FM radio into the iPhone yet. So why would they try to do that tuner thing in a full blown TV set ?!

It would have to be a TV which is totally different than current ones, stripping off all the hassle with tuners and various input sources. Just the LCD panel, wifi and AirPlay receptive A5 or A6 equipped logic board. No hardware scaler, no 3D processing, no HDMI ports.

If they could produce at 300$, they had to sell no lower than 600$ to get their standard margins. And Apple should never drop their margin targets!

But, who would buy a TV set without inputs and tuners ? I guess, even the hardcore Internet enthusiasts among us would not consider that. TV is all about 'having all possible options'. sports events, night shows, p*** channels, kids program ... I don't think that Internet can compete with the current 'old school' TV model. Just iTunes, YouTube, Vimeo and the like without anything from the 'old world' ? No one would buy it.

It would be sufficient if they license out AirPlay, create a reference standard and leave it to a 'coalition of the willing' original TV set makers to bringt that to market. A fully equipped TV with an included AppleTv logic board would do it. Apple could describe all of the user work flow integration in their reference standard, e.g. require that the TV switches on for AirPlay and the like. All Siri remote control can already be done by iPhones, iTouches etc.

Also I think that an iTV would cannibalize some iPad sales, as the iPad is also a good home video consumer device. And how would an iTV integrate into the ecosystem ? There's nothing more passive than a TV screen, neither touch it, nor want to see apps running on it, not even 'widgets' ! That has all failed. Would Apple sell more content ? Probably not. And whats todays revenue contribution of iTunes ? iTunes is there to support hardware sales, not other way round.

'Reinventing' the TV only makes sense when you can reinvent its content. But who wants that and how profitable is it ? TV content used to be 'free', paid by ads. So this is Googles territory.

Home automation would be a much better Apple target: it's essentially hardware, it's a mass market, requires cloud and networking, integrates well into iDevices, requires extreme user friendliness ... and as it controls your home power, could refuse to recharge/supply Android devices... And it's for people with money. I don't see that Apple should try to serve to all the freebies.

One button. Just like the iPhone. Just like the iPad. One button.

lol....almost made me choke on my coffee!

CES tends to be filled with whatever vendors think Apple will introduce next. Optical drive-less MBPs means, a rumoured, 50 Ultrabooks at CES this year. Does this mean CES will be filled with a plethora of new intelligent TVs?



There is a well traveled clip from 30 Rock showing pretty much that same thing, except dialogue on the TV is causing the voice control to react. Pretty funny.

I'd think that Apple would 1) use Siri in a remote so you're not yelling across a room, and 2) require the press of a button to activate just like with Siri on the 4S. Bluetooth with version 4.0 finally seems ready to start replacing IR remote controls.

Wait for the "Microsoft and/or Google did this years ago" comments.

Sure, HDTV manufacturers have been building in third party links like Netflix and Hulu for a couple of years now but they've been me-too kludges. Set top boxes like iTV, GoogleTV, Roku, etc., have had limited success in the mass market. It will take the total package of HDTV/iOS/iTunes and agreements with the content providers to do it right. Apple has the total package under its control. The others don't so once again they will have to catch up by piecing together third party parts.

I'm sure that the indidual channel suppliers will be happy to offer a la cart subscriptions to such a setup. Let's see, I'll click on the Discovery channel, the History channel, the Science channel, and oh yes, OWN so I can watch Dr. Phil. When that takes off the cable and satellite companies will be scrambling too. It looks like Apple will be disrupting two more business models if this comes to pass.

Baloney from a hater.

I think this has got to be one of the most absurb things I've heard any analyst claim (and we've heard some pretty absurd things from these guys). Nobody has a clue what this phantom Apple TV might be, even Misek says he has no idea what features it would include, and he's claiming that the competition is already 6-12 months behind? Behind what?


Would anyone claim that Apple has accomplished any of these three items? They've made relatively minor incremental improvements in organizing your photos with facial recogniztion and location tagging in iPhone and Aperture, but not much in the way of improving the taking of the photos (yes, the iPhone has a great camera, but not so much better than other smartphones, and Applel should be embarrased by the cameras they've put in the Touch and iPad). The iPad is a great tablet computer, but Apple has left it to others to figure out how to use it for textbooks. And of course, AppleTV has been largely a "hobby" for Apple since it was released.

It's ironic that Apple's greatest recent success has been the iPhone and yet reinventing the phone wasn't on Steve's wish list.

The TV doesn't need reinventing. Accessing content is what needs reinventing. The ONLY time time I interact with my TV is for three things: turning in on/off, adjusting volume, switching inputs (which I rarely need to do). Everything else is interacting with the cable box or my Mac mini HTPC. No matter how smart Apple makes a TV, it's still just a dumb monitor to me. (But I'll be happy to be surprised if Apple does come up with something revolutionary.)

Has anyone noticed? Vizio that shares manufacturing with Sharp have no new TVs for the holidays.
I almost bought an 80 inch Sharp this morning but have decided to wait on Apple.

if they can reinvent sports event coverage then they are good to go. Sports is the only thing people will really pay for. And it needs to be available! If ANY sports event of just some relevance in the whole wide world can be watched on an iTV - regardless of price - then it would sell.

Probably Apple creates a 'sports reporter' app for iPhoners and they rely on people filming and streaming all possible events. So you'd have different perspectives to switch on. Just an idea...

But it won't work without sports TV

Internet content from where? The content providers won't play ball. The current AppleTV has MLB, WSJ and YouTube.

To watch the internet channels you still need an internet connection, which most people get from their cable provider.

I watch a lot of TV via the internet and it's good fun but the picture quality is not that great.

I hope they can come up with a solution coz I would love an Apple Television. Personally I would be happy with a normal telly that receives all the free to air channels and has the functions of the current AppleTV built in so I could access my iTunes content directly from the cloud rather than having to go through my iOS device.

I agree with you. The nearest thing I have tried to this is Netflix on Mac, iPad, iPhone and ATV. Obviously we have to accept the older material with no current or breaking news type content. However, it is a model once used, makes everything else seem archaic. If we had an Apple designed Netfilx (I must say it is pretty good already) including access to current content and news it would be amazing. I particularly love being able to start watching on the big screen and continue exactly where I left off on my iPad or iPhone or the other way around. Plus being able to watch something different on any device through the same account even when traveling.

I don't see Apple releasing a TV. They care about the user experience and delivering content which can be done with an improved Apple TV with Siri and a few other features.

Why bother directly competing with other LCD/Plasma manufacturers and limit people's options? You just connect your TV to an HDMI Apple TV, then you never touch the TV remote again. Everything is done using the Apple device. It would be nearly as easy as a fully custom Apple made TV.

Yeah, but that FIRST Google TV was just Google throwing everything at the wall and hoping something would stick... YouTube? Android Apps? Seriously. Kitchen. Sink. Approach. It's not a singular vision of anything.

The Google fans will cry, "but Apple needs competition!" forgetting completely how it was the stale and unimaginative TV manufacturers who needed competition (from Apple) to finally do something innovative with TVs.

Apple hasn't bought them.


Question: What does anyone need with an 80" TV, and where could anyone put it? Also, why would you wait for a $99 Apple TV box to buy an HDTV? Or even if you believe Apple's making a TV, the rumors have only ever said 50", so you don't seem to be in their fictional market, anyway.

anything will be better than the craptastic PVR / TV interface I have to put up with right now. Designed by a chimp. rediculous. madenning. stupid.

Has anyone tried the Whole-Home DVR service with DirectTV? How responsive is the system?

I think that we might have that. Not sure myself; I stay away from satellite software.

Whatever we have is terrible, though. I do know that. It's completely unintuitive.

The ads are unrealistic yet compelling.

• http://www.youtube.com/user/DIRECTV

Yep, if we DO have that, I have no idea how to use it.

And Apple has had that capability since the first Apple TV, so it should be easy for them to implement correctly.

I think an AppleTv would have to make it easy to cancel cable. For that to happen today, it would have to have a tuner for live over the air hd broadcasts, along with a built in DVR. iTunes would have to have all the popular shows readily available (that's where it could get tricky... shows like Dexter aren't available the next day, I think). I would think there would be an overlay similar to what Elgato's software does. I always wondered why Apple never bought them. I would think you would never have to switch sources, because itunes would be a channel, your mac would be a channel, netflix would be a channel, and maybe even ota channels would just be called NBC, ABC, CBS, etc...

Of course I have no real idea... it's just something I know I would like to have.

Verizon is attempting to integrate mobile, TV and computer, tho still a work in progress. The first time I "flicked" pics from my phone to the TV I was pretty darn impressed at how fast it worked. Steaming video from the computer to TV is also pretty good. Viewing movies on mobile using their "FlexView" works well too according to my son. Using a smartphone as the remote actually gets a faster response than using the real remote.

Personally I'm not big on renting movies, maybe one or two every couple of months. There's not that many that I care about seeing so much that I can't wait for HBO.

http://www22.verizon.com/home/fiostv/usingfios/

Steve Jobs pretty much confirmed in the biography that Apple are working on this and that he has finally "cracked the television user interface" problem.

I think Steve may have been a bit off the target with this one. The problem is NOT with the interface.
The new Apple TV could come with a naked woman to turn the channels, the problems are with the CONTENT! Here in Canada, there are broadcasting protection laws. They are so restrictive, and rediculous, that Apple TV would almost be an automatic nonstarter. It would be so neutered, as to be useless. The trouble, as noted by other posters, is to wrap up the various broadcast agreements, licenses, and other foreign customs, laws, et cetera.
The best interface doesn't help when there is little to no content to watch. Even here in Canada, we can only watch about half of the things that are available in the US. Heck, we can't even watch the original Superbowl TV commercials!!!

I think most of this rumour reemergence is a result of Isaacson, but we don't know when Jobs said "I finally cracked it."

We also don't know what he meant by that. I don't thinks about the TV Ui, as you state above. That's never been the elephant in room in regards with TV; it's always been the way content is handled and controlled between networks, affiliates and content providers (who oft provide your internet). That's what needs to be cracked, and fancy TV with a better UI simply isn't going to ever break that paradigm.

[QUOTE=Tallest Skil;



Google will accuse Apple of copying them. Remember, the Google TV came out FIRST, so anything Apple does is obviously a copy of that.[/QUOTE]

actually, Microsloth came out with "Web TV" back in the 90's. Anyone remember how well that worked out?

What about that ....

Make a TV which has no digital connectors at all !
Just cable/satellite tuners + integrated Apple TV + easy remote + integrated harddisk PVR/timeshift.

You could of course airplay it by an Apple iDevice, but no YouTube and stuff! All Apple has to do to control the link between internet and LCD panel. If Apple blocks any *wild* internet content only then they can take the content owners aship.

Google has proven it's impossible to revolutionize against the content owners will. And all they want is a locked device ! Only Apple can provide it. So they should. For that they'd indeed have to produce an HDTV. Without any HDMI ports ! All stream descrambling can be done by the Apple-HDTV and users have to identify by AppleID. Recorded stuff could even go up to iCloud, pushing this one.

Just no connected devices, that's all that is to it ! Of course tech blogs will cry for the 'lost options' and 'walled garden'. But Apple needs to satisfy content owners and content consumers, not tech bloggers. If the 'lost options' can be countered with the best user experience and best content choice then this will fly.

I'd buy that for a dollar...but my wife might object...

As with most tech MS wasn't first and Apple had some role to play before MS got involved.

From Wikpedia:

"Co-founder Steve Perlman is credited with the idea for the device. He first combined computer and television as a high-school student when he decided his home PC needed a graphics display. Then, he went to build software for companies such as Apple and Atari. While working at the Apple spin-off, General Magic, the idea of bringing TVs and computers together resurfaced." It wasn't later until 1995 that WebTV Networks was founded and MS didn't buy it until 1997.

Did you reach the maximum number of posts allowed on this forum? Or are you holding solipsy for ransom?

I imagine that whatever Apple dreamed up is tied to iCloud, and the TV is just connected to it. However, to replace the complicated remotes, Apple could use either an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. I'm speculating of course, but if my name were Ashtok Kumar or Shaw Wu, AppleInsider would be quoting me right now in headlines.

Given how far behind everyone was in reacting to the iPad, saying that TV companies would be 6-12 months behind in getting their reactions to Apple's product to market seems reasonable.


[QUOTE =AI said]In an interview published last week, Isaacson revealed that before he died, Jobs had three products he wanted to reinvent, with the television being first among them, followed by textbooks and photography. Jobs reportedly felt there was "no reason" for televisions to be as difficult to use as they currently are.


These are things that Jobs said he wanted to accomplish before he died, but clearly he died first. Isaacson was only working over the last couple of years on this book and Jobs was still saying he was expecting to live a long time yet even just a year ago. He wanted to make interacting w/a TV and getting all the content you want better, and if you believe the rumors that is all in the works. He didn't say what his ideas were in regards to photos and textbooks, but I believe I have seen him talk about tablets for everyone removing massive amounts of weight from backpacks, easier updating of textbooks, removing printing costs, etc. These are all things that exist currently, but the textbook companies aren't fully behind these methods yet. It sounds like Steve wanted them to go all in on a digital route.

They've made relatively minor incremental improvements in organizing your photos with facial recogniztion and location tagging in iPhone and Aperture, but not much in the way of improving the taking of the photos (yes, the iPhone has a great camera, but not so much better than other smartphones, and Applel should be embarrased by the cameras they've put in the Touch and iPad). The iPad is a great tablet computer, but Apple has left it to others to figure out how to use it for textbooks. And of course, AppleTV has been largely a "hobby" for Apple since it was released.

It's ironic that Apple's greatest recent success has been the iPhone and yet reinventing the phone wasn't on Steve's wish list.

The TV doesn't need reinventing. Accessing content is what needs reinventing. The ONLY time time I interact with my TV is for three things: turning in on/off, adjusting volume, switching inputs (which I rarely need to do). Everything else is interacting with the cable box or my Mac mini HTPC. No matter how smart Apple makes a TV, it's still just a dumb monitor to me. (But I'll be happy to be surprised if Apple does come up with something revolutionary.)[/QUOTE]

I can't believe any new TV can be successful. Apple does not and can not control enough of the content to make it worthwhile. It's too late, marketwise. As Jobs had said, TV is Balkanized. Apple does not have the resources to unBalkanize it.

What do we know? It will have to include iCloud as part of the solution. It will have to solve the problem of the user having VCR tapes, home movies on CDs and DVDs, commercial DVD movies, Blue-ray, maybe DVR, cable, over-the-air content. What about access to international content? And we've got this greedy Regions issues.

A simple TV, no matter how improved the UI is, is going to resolve the above problems.

Please do.
There are unquestionable problems with iCloud and iPhone 4S battery life.
They need to be fixed, pronto.

Now you know why a lot of companies are struggling against Apple? They are staffed with a bunch of feeling smart people with no imagination whatsoever.

Not baloney, from someone who has been a big Apple fan since he got his first Apple II in 1979.

iCloud is *not* ready for prime time. The launch was just as bad as Mobile Me.

And watching the battery percent meter count off the minutes when I forget to kill every background app is a *big* problem. I thought the 3GS w/iOS 4 was bad for battery life -- the 4S can't get through an entire day without being charged half-way through. Some of us need to use our phones away from the battery charger.

Funny that whenever Apple TV rumours are in discussion, people seem to miss that Apple has a draft for the HTTP Live Streaming protocol.

It could possibly be that Apple will deliver programs as apps streamed through broadband or digital tv, controlled either by a single button remote, some iDevice or gestures (Kinect). All in a screen that again will vhage the way people imagined TVs.

The current Apple TV could provide all the technical solutions to the interface as they exist today. The reason it does not is not technical. It is human beings protecting their turf.
What the current Apple TV does not address is the quality of the TV's that you can buy today. The only reason I see for Apple to compete with Sony, Sharp, Pioneer etc. is the quality. I purchased a Sony for my first flat screen TV. I thought, this is a quality brand and it will be a good investment. The TV had a problem one month before the warranty expired. Sony fixed it under warranty. However the fix was not the problem and only masked the real problem. The real problem occured again two months later. Sony would warranty the repair work they did, which was not the solution, but would not fix the real problem because the rest of the TV was no longer under warranty. My experience with Apple is they would not handle this type of situation this way. That is they only reason I would buy a full blown Apple TV.

As dumb media is talking about modern TVs being 'connected to the Internet' the SIMPLE solution is to lock Internet out from HDTVs. By removing all HDMI ports they'd lock out YouTube (Google), XBox, PlayStation and save costs by avoiding complicated scalers, ease up settings, leaving just room for one remote.

An Apple remote like the current one. No more buttons required. No digit buttons, no nothing. Then let's see if we start seeing similar remotes by the competition and everyone will know what game is played here.

As gaming consoles become more and more obsolete, there should be no problem. All the stuff with Siri, iPhone remotes, iPad guides / iPad second displays would be an extra. For attracting the normal guy, all Internet/Wifi stuff is regardless, if not just distracting and unmanagable. Easy operation and extra content by simple choice is all it needs. So just remove useless tech and close the box, like with iPad.

The upside with an Apple HDTV would be, that Apple could even more glue users to its ecosystem. If users stick to their TV for 5+ years that'd also mean decreasing likelihood of users defecting to Google/MS ecosystems with their mobiles.

If the iTV gets frequent updates why do care for newer HDMI versions anymore ? While standard TVs get no significant firmware updates (coz vendors want to sell new) Apple could bump up HDMI capabilities frequently by iOS updates. It's not their main business.

Such a move would hurt
- all STB vendors (Motorola Mobility/Google?)
- all game console makers (MS, Sony)
- Bluray (as the only left physical media distribution)
- all internet movie rentals

The easy operation would attract me enough to kick out my Bluray+xBox which I rarely use. That closed box HDTV should attract so many game makers and content publishers, that it would also be an option for younger people.

For sure it requires a lot of cojones for Apple going to market with such a 'stripped' HDTV.

As we all know, one big reason why past smart TVs and boxes like the Apple TV haven't really taken off is because of content.

I'd say television programming can be broken up into 3 categories:
* Live: CNN, Local news, weather
* Pre-Recorded but time restricted: New Jersey Shore episode starts at 8pm so you can't watch it until then. If you want to start watching at 8:20, you can only view 20 minutes into the show.
* Unrestricted Pre-Recorded: Movies, Syndicated shows, etc.

Current cable, digital cable, and satellite providers treat all programming like it's Live. Then they give you a Tivo to record and time shift. What if you tune to a show 20 minutes in? Too bad.

The future is streaming on demand, but no one has been able to do it yet for enough programming to make it worth it.

Apple really could revolutionize the market if they can use their influence and convince most of the major networks and cable providers to allow Apple to stream all 3 types of content, along with movie studios for movies. The bandwidth and technology is here today, Netflix does it.

Unfortunately, that seems unlikely since execs have already been complaining about what Apple did to the music industry.

If the Apple TV replaces or can be used as a computer, to make a phone call? I must admit I'm not sure what it would need to do (better) then what I have right now, to make me want to purchase one?

I'm the kind of person that likes a:

- Good Camera
- Good Phone
- Good Computer
- Good Television
- Good laptop
- Good iPod

Which is why I have at least one of each of these. NO one item out there (current), can replace all of the above FOR ME.

When we start seeing the folks covering the NFL, NBA, Golf and other sporting events, snapping photo's with their iPhone

When we start seeing the folks at National Geographic using their iPhones for photo's while on Safari, or filming whales.

Might some of these things happen, yes. Might we put another few 1,000 folks (likely to more in the 10's of thousands) out of work (the paper industry & forestry business) yes. Are we ok with that?

Very few of us, even use what we currently have to it's fullest capabilities, and now we want to add something new to the mix.

These are very interesting times with live in (and a bit scary). I'm going to sit back and watch if you all don't mind.

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