Samsung may spin off struggling LCD business to focus on OLED displays - Page 2

Apple makes things well, and though they are expensive, people will buy it for its superior quality. If Apple makes a tv, they will make money on it cuz people will buy it.

Can't wait to see the line of people with 50" flat panel TVs at an Apple store.

I was with family yesterday morning and my nephew had a problem with his iPhone that could have been a defective battery. Since we were near and Apple Store I pulled out my iPhone, accessed the Apple Store app, it found the store via the GPS and I made an appointment to see a Genius for one hour later which was right after breakfast. Walked in and got seen right away.

Then there was my 60 second shopping at the Apple Store to buy an AirPort Express without talking to a single person. Just used my iPhone to buy it and walked out. Receipt mailed to me and my iTS card was charged.

Those are just some of the major things but there are countless innovations they've done to make it a great experience. There revenue per square foot is not undeserved.

Very true. The Apple Stores (of which the Genius Bar is simply a part) are one of the smartest, most forward looking and innovative things Apple has done.

But it has to be put in the context of the "whole widget" philosophy at Apple. People often overlook or discount Apple's innovations because they think "innovations" are a feature list or a sui generis technology without antecedent.

Apple is an experience company. They innovate the experience. That means better supply chain, better materials, better design, better packaging, better software, better retail and better service after the sale. It also means making all of those things work together as a seamless whole. Apple enters markets where the incumbent experience sucks, and rethinks things from the ground up to deliver a great experience. That is, in fact, innovation. Sometimes it involves major new technologies, sometimes subtle tweaking of existing tech, or re-contextualize something that was there all along. But it is real, substantial innovation-- just at a higher level than individual nuts and bolts.

It's why Apple is unique, and it's why Apple is loathed (in some quarters). If you don't believe that there's any such thing as an "experience", or that to the extent it exists it's the wrong thing to concentrate on-- if you think a features list is the beginning and ending of "quality"-- then you will find Apple to fatuous and trivial. You will suspect Apple's users of sharing those qualities, of being easily swayed by silliness.

Which is why Apple, should they chose to enter the TV market, will do so with an experience that they feel substantially improves on incumbent offerings.

Usually when speculation ramps up around a new Apple product category, the naysayers just take what's already out there and assume that Apple will make it a) more expensive, and b) prettier. That's because the naysayers literally don't understand what Apple is about. The iPod was just a more expensive Nomad (because they couldn't conceive of the iTunes Store to come and an entire digital music experience anchored in the iPod), the iPhone was just an expensive cell phone without a hardware keyboard (because they couldn't conceive of a smart phone world that didn't exist yet) and the iPad was just a big iPhone (because they couldn't conceive of a post-PC world that didn't exist yet).

in every case the hardware was just part of a system, and in ignoring the system you underestimate Apple at your peril. Of course an Apple TV won't just be a fancy smart TV that costs more than a similar Samsung and accesses the iTunes store. That isn't nearly enough. It will be a fundamental reimagining of the television experience.

Samsung makes great panels, that's not the problem. Their TVs don't sell because their video processing tech just plain sucks. Put them side by side with a comparable Sharp at similar picture settings, and action scenes make the difference crystal clear. Juttering, artifacts, and stuttering galore. It's embarassing.

The problem I see is that the iPod/iPhone/iPad are all personal, mobile, and handheld devices. It took awhile for the iPod and iTunes to really take off, the first iPhone built on that and then came the App Store, then the iPad built on both. A TV is less personal, and plays content different content, live, streaming and games from a console. Why will people get content from iTunes that they can get from Netflix/Hulu, or on demand? My gaming console gets moved around from TV to TV and sometimes to another house.
I don't see how Apple can best that.

Right, nor can I. But I have no doubt that should Apple decide to enter this market (which after all is nothing more than a rumor) it will be because they think they have a compelling answer to those questions.

Apple isn't always right-- their version of an iPod docking sound system was merely expensive without being particularly note-worthy, and of course the Cube was ill considered for its time and price-point.

But those are just products, failed iterations of one-off concepts. The Apple HiFi wasn't a bid to enter the audio market in any significant way, the Cube was just an eccentric Mac.

But something like a TV would be a big bet for Apple. They couldn't just toss out a pretty good set with some compatibilities with Apple's eco-system. It would have to be a real game changer, or they wouldn't bother. After all, they already have their AppleTV box, just putting that in a big LCD chassis is sort of pointless, no matter how nice the hardware is.

So if Apple makes a TV, I would expect it to answer the questions "why" and "how" in some pretty interesting and unexpected ways. Even it that isn't immediately evident.

Why did this even make news here, it has nothing to do with Apple.

It's distressing, I know, but the people that own this site get run articles on whatever they want. They're no small print anywhere that says "We promise to only do articles on Apple", and you didn't click a little box when you registered that said "by agreeing to these terms I understand I will never be subjected to general tech industry news."

I mention it because judging by the number of people that complain about non-Apple stories as if their rights were being violated I suspect that perhaps this isn't generally understood. The people who comment on the forums don't get to dictate what the main site chooses to cover, and just because it's called "Apple Insider" the owners are under no obligation to limit their scope to Cupertino.

If only there was some indication of the article's content before they stated reading it. Something, anything that would caption the essence in the article in some sort of title or heading before they read it.

So true. I recently read the article entitled "DoJ allows Google acquisition of Motorola, but calls FRAND commitments 'ambiguous'", fulling expecting to learn about Apple's recent earnings or iPad 2 rumors, but Apple was barely mentioned! Apparently this Motorola and Apple are "rivals" or something, and there's been some litigation, but still-- the article was literally mostly about Motorola and Google! Bor-ing!

I could never understand how spin off works.

You Spin off a department for a so called "Separate" company.

The company still has Samsung as largest Share Holders, Still has Samsung as Broad of Directors.
Still has Samsung as its largest customers.

Which will still politically or financially influenced or controlled by Samsung.

Why would i want to work with Samsung Mobile Display and not LG if Apple ever had a choice?

I believe if Apple had a choice they would have choose to manufacture SoC with TSMC rather then Samsung.

Good to see AI is following on its competitors (as it should).

This is just proof that they are acknowledging Sammy as a competitor

Good for them.

I'd give them a cookie if I had the chance.