What should Apple call their TV?

1 - they're not making a TV
2 - their only TV-related product should continue to be called TV

The Apple staff spoke loud and clear - they will only make a product where they can make a significant improvement. Right now, the TV landscape is shifting a bit to the rich feature TVs and boxes with motion control and voice input:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErbLG7Rmni0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKjsVWwWhMU

Those developments are along the same lines that technology companies usually go - pile on as many buzz words and that constitutes value. The UI in the LG example is a mess. Apple could make an improvement to it but the goal would be to focus the user on the object's purpose:

"If something is going to be better, it is new, and if its new, you are confronting problems and challenges you dont have references for.

Our goal is simple objects, objects that you cant imagine any other way. Simplicity is not the absence of clutter. Get it right, and you become closer and more focused on the object. For instance, the iPhoto app we created for the new iPad, it completely consumes you and you forget you are using an iPad."

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifest...h-7562170.html

In case you missed this link, here is Steve Jobs talking about the purpose of the TV:

http://kensegall.com/blog/2011/11/st...alks-pc-vs-tv/

It's not a device that you sit down with in order to concentrate on, it's a device that allows you to turn yourself off. If its raison d'être is to allow you switch off, then complicating it is contrary to that. TVs already fulfil their purpose, they are dumb boxes that provide you with content.

in order for Apple to improve on this, there has to be a problem with what TVs do now. The only big problem is getting good content easily in a way that's affordable for the consumer, profitable for the provider and manageable for the distribution networks.

The internet is the ultimate distribution network and right now, television isn't distributed using it but it needs to be because that's where everything else is. I should be able to tweet a link to a good show and allow people to watch it immediately, I should have the option to find people with common viewing habits to myself on social networks.

This doesn't mean building a pretty screen, it doesn't mean adding a cluttered UI with every option under the sun. There needs to be a fundamental restructuring of TV distribution. If Apple can do it, so be it but I don't think they are holding the keys.

When they figure out the problem and the solution appears, the name is easy.

Apple TV.

As a tiny box, identical to what they're selling already. It's the perfect name.

Not a fan of Apple TV, my husband brought home a couple of months back and we promptly returned it for a Boxee. It's a much better product, I'm sure the Apple TV will get better though. I think our biggest problem was the lack of codecs and a file manager and really don't care about the responses but also offers Flash support. We like watching US shows and most of those sites that offer them still require Flash.

Well, that's what it is.

The only "panel" solution Apple would do is a complete retooling of what 'television' means.

That means no packages, no channels. Just the shows consumers want. Which is why they're not just going to release some stupid television with a few apps that are nothing more than a stopgap to a true solution.

iCan'tBelieveIt'sNotButter...

By the logic you've held through all of these threads, the iPhone should have been called the iSmart.

Because it's so much smarter and innovative than a phone, it would have been better not to use the archaic term 'phone'.