Return to the Grid, and thoughts about Apples's TV.

Originally Posted by MattRebs

I'm still piecing some of this together, but I figured I'd get some of this thought into the forum so it could be discussed.

...

But today, Apple announced OS X Mountain Lion. It was missing the Mac (if you look at the Lion page, it's been gone there too since last year, but now it's official) Apple is changing the name of Mac OS because they want the word Mac to represent that hardware category which makes perfect sense if you zoom out and look at the big picture. ...

Originally Posted by Ireland

Mumbo jumbo.

What Apple's TV needs to be is this: have all the content people want in an subscription package, thus giving people what they want and subsidizing the thing they make their money off; the hardware. Next up it needs to have great sound, great audio, great design and great software; they are experts in these areas so we'll assume they wouldn't make a TV unless it had these things. And thirdly, it needs to do all of this in an all-in-one package that just works. One TV that does everything you need made by Apple controlled by a single minimal bluetooth 4.0 remote. That's what their TV needs to be.

Originally Posted by Joe The Dragon

But I don't see a TV having real build in surround sound or a GOOD woofer.

Originally Posted by MattRebs

I'm still piecing some of this together, but I figured I'd get some of this thought into the forum so it could be discussed.

A long long time ago apple introduced the "grid." It was Apple's product strategy that had a consumer side, a professional side, a top half for home products and a bottom for portables. It worked great for a while but Apple began growing out of that model. The G4 Cube, the iPod, and more recently the iPhone, MacBook Airs, iPad, AppleTV etc.

But today, Apple announced OS X Mountain Lion. It was missing the Mac (if you look at the Lion page, it's been gone there too since last year, but now it's official) Apple is changing the name of Mac OS because they want the word Mac to represent that hardware category which makes perfect sense if you zoom out and look at the big picture. Mac's are the device! They said so when they introduced iCloud. Apple has four product categories once again. Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, with iCloud linking them all together, and great products within those categories that fit certain needs and uses.

Mac is your traditional computing experience for consumer and pro use
iPod is your media consumption platform, for music, videos, games, photos, and more.
iPhone is your portable communications platform.
iPad is your Post-PC platform that's still being defined.

So when you think about Apple's TV it could only really fit into one category, iPod.

That's where the AppleTV sits today. So to take that theory to one step further, I believe Apple will call their TV the iPod TV. After all this really is the next step for the iPod, not any other device. iPod is defined as the ultimate media device, and media is the high order bit of a good Television. Now they would also make sense for Apple to split this off from iPod to define a new category. But it would still fit perfectly into this idea of apple making device categories and products that fill those silos.

Ultimately, I think the Apple TV needs to be wonderful at getting new content from iTunes, Media Apps from the App Store and allow you to access your content from iCloud or directly via AirPlay.


And that's all I've got right now.

Originally Posted by Ireland

The Pioneer Kuro with the chin speaker has sound great enough for any household. I own one. It should be at least as good as that. Audio snobs can plug in an optical audio cable if they like.

Here I just snapped a photo, the speaker is practically invisible, but the sound is very good in my opinion. Several people who have watch this TV have commented on the sound of their own free will.