Nobody can see any difference between 1080 and 720. All the best scientists agree.
720 is just like a retina display at the correct viewing angle.
To achieve the "correct viewing angle", based on any guide created by a home cinema professional, requires a screen size and view distance where the difference between 720 and 1080 can be resolved by anyone with normal vision.
It doesn't matter how you much you twist words and focus on irrelevant numbers, you can't weasel your way out of cold hard facts.
What you could try to focus on is how much people care, or more precisely how much people value the > 2x pixel advantage of 1080 compared to 720... at least you might be able to sustain some kind of reasonable argument that way.
... iTV is a great idea, but the infrastructure necessary in most parts of the country, which is out of Apple's control, is not ready for it to become a replacement for conventional cable or satellite. But time will tell who's right.
As an Apple shareholder you know how much money they're making out of other markets right...
Even with the infrastructure issues aside, the other thing is the US cable market is much harder for an iTV box to crack because the cable penetration rate is already something like 85%. In other markets cable TV is far, far smaller. So it means there's more of an opportunity there to use good infrastructure and to really do something magical that many people won't have had before.
I have cable. Last night I watched a documentary on the South Pacific ocean. I liked it.
So why am I telling you this? Well, if I would have been browsing through iTunes, and came across it, I would have had to make a purchase decision. Is this going to be worth $2 or $3? Probably not and would have moved on. That is, even if the show is available on iTunes.
Having cable means you can browse and find all sorts of things - even while you are watching something else. When every show you watch becomes a purchase decision, you aren't going to experiment and find new shows to watch - you'll stick to what you know.
That may work for you, but not for others. I don't see cable and satellite companies shaking in their boots quite yet.
Nobody can see any difference between 1080 and 720. All the best scientists agree.
I don't think it matters what the scientist say about this. If I am going to pay for it (buy or rent), I am going to pay for 1080 over 720, unless it was a lot cheaper. Also, if I didn't care about picture quality, I would just go with 480 which is good enough.
I have cable. Last night I watched a documentary on the South Pacific ocean. I liked it.
So why am I telling you this? Well, if I would have been browsing through iTunes, and came across it, I would have had to make a purchase decision. Is this going to be worth $2 or $3? Probably not and would have moved on. That is, even if the show is available on iTunes.
Having cable means you can browse and find all sorts of things - even while you are watching something else. When every show you watch becomes a purchase decision, you aren't going to experiment and find new shows to watch - you'll stick to what you know.
That may work for you, but not for others. I don't see cable and satellite companies shaking in their boots quite yet.
Totally agree with this. While I like choice and not paying for too much junk TV channel, I too appreciate the element of randomness you can get with always-on TV channels. If every bit of TV and movie we watch becomes a '1-click app to buy' the way iTunes is set up now it takes away the joy of discovering unexpected things and the idea that a night on the couch can still be cheap entertainment sometimes.
Totally agree with this. While I like choice and not paying for too much junk TV channel, I too appreciate the element of randomness you can get with always-on TV channels. If every bit of TV and movie we watch becomes a '1-click app to buy' the way iTunes is set up now it takes away the joy of discovering unexpected things and the idea that a night on the couch can still be cheap entertainment sometimes.
That's why I think pay-per-minute solutions work. Subscriptions make it difficult for the content providers to get the revenue they deserve but if a publisher is only paid for the minutes of their shows being watched then it makes it fair.
If a documentary was on iTunes for example, it would start playing just like on TV but you'd be charged 3c per minute. If after 5 minutes, you decided it wasn't for you, you'll only get charged 15c. If you keep watching, you would only be paying as much as the show would be to rent - i.e you pay about 90c for a TV show.
The pay-per-minute rate can drop the more you watch so that by the time you have consumed 10 hours of media, it drops to 1.5c per minute. The first 10 hours would cost you $18. This would perhaps be 5 days of TV.
The subsequent 10 days would cost $18 and the rate can drop further. Hopefully to a point where you could consume as much content as you wanted within $50 per month.
The rate drops may have to be done per network/publisher though as it wouldn't be fair for one publisher to be charged at a higher rate and another at a lower rate. Ideally the system would reduce rates based on repeat business for a given publisher.
In the worst case, the highest pay-per-minute rate of 3c per minute would give you just under 28 hours per month, which is close to 1 hour per day.
The US average is something like 4.5 hours per day or 140 hours per month so that $50 plan falls short but advertisements wouldn't be counted on iTunes unlike a TV, which could be as much as 25% of the viewing time. Also, depending on how many ads were shown, that could affect the rates of some TV shows - in fact, many shows could be broadcast on iTunes for free. This is much more possible with the Netflix, Hulu etc apps for the iOS.
If Apple could even manage to cover 3 hours per day within a $50 per month price bracket (around 1c per minute average), that would have a significant impact on the way people consume media.
What the naysayers are failing to realize is potential of this type of product. Because you can purchase apps, the possibilities are as boundless as the app creator's imagination. Also, the integration with iOS is important. Imagine this:
A consumer owns: iPhone, iPad, AppleTV but doesn't have cable subscription. Now he can buy the ABC app and watch on demand ABC's tv shows at home in HD on the tv via AppleTV. But now he has to leave and wants to watch on his iPhone later. That same app on the iPhone could allow him to start up where he left off streaming over 3G. Also critical is that it won't matter if my 3G service is from AT&T while my wired home internet is through Verizon, TWC, or Comcast. I can get the content to any of my devices whenever I want, wherever I am.
As pointed out before, many content providers will not be happy with this model as they (like HGTV TLC at least as far as I can tell) are types where you only watch it because it is on. However, other high demand stations like ESPN could like make more money off a subscription than they do now through cable. Also, targeted ads will generate more income per subscriber.
Not even close. Some might argue that the Altair 8800 was the first personal computer (it appeared in the January 1975 issue of Popular Science -- this was before the 6502 used in the Apple I was even created). However, there were various 8008 kits you could buy before that (circa 1974). Some might even argue that the first "personal" computers were PDP-8 systems, as several well-off enthusiasts had these machines sitting at home prior to the microcomputer explosion.
The Apple I appeared in the middle of a bunch of microcomputer system introductions. About the only thing really unique about the Apple I (other than its $666 price tag) was the fact that it incorporated on-board video. The Apple II, which followed shortly thereafter, introduced on-board bit-mapped color graphics that could connect to a TV set (quite rare at the time).
I didn't say the first hobbyist computer or first microcomputer, I said the first personal computer. A personal computer needs to be affordable, have a keyboard and a display. The Apple 1 connected to a display was the first.
Disagreement is good. But look at the specs of a Hauppauge 2250. Dual tuner HD content. And they are HDCP compliant. Mine is connected to Brighthouse and I get all the digital content - from cable, not off the air. Your information about tuner cards is a few years old.
Yes, I agree that the Internet is becoming a great source for streaming video. But I also watch streaming Netflix. The quality is acceptable, but is not really even 720p quality. If you don't care about quality, then you'll be happy with streaming video. Downloading then watching is completely different - and extremely time consuming.
I used to like satellite, but rain kills the signal. I agree that it's not perfect. Cable is not without its problems either. But both satellite and cable offer far superior video quality and neither can match the quality of a BluRay DVD.
My problem is not with Steve Jobs' vision. My problem with AppleTV and iTV is that the current Internet infrastructure will not allow for streaming HD quality to every household as a cable replacement. Therefore, the vision is good, but the timing is not there. Now Steve does keep many things secret. H.264 is a nice codec that can give nice quality at low bitrates. He may very well have something even better up his sleeve that can reduce bitrate and achieve high video quality. But unless he can pull that rabbit out of his hat, iTV will be a nice toy - for some peope.
Ok, let me rephrase that, you can watch over the air and QAM delivered through cable. 2 problems... even that card you showed me (I just looked it up on new egg) has zero HD inputs aside from the coax inputs. My problem is I dont get QAM in Houston, with Comcast. HD channels are only available through the Digital Cable service. Which leads me back to TV tuner cards that still dont have anyway of hooking up a box and displaying channels in HD (to this day).
Believe me, I have been patiently awaiting for them to arrive.
I didn't say the first hobbyist computer or first microcomputer, I said the first personal computer. A personal computer needs to be affordable, have a keyboard and a display. The Apple 1 connected to a display was the first.
Under no stretch of the imagination was the Apple 1 a "personal computer"-- it was a motherboard for hobbyists to build as part of a computer-- see below (emphasis mine).:
Quote:
On April 1, 1976, Jobs and Wozniak formed Apple Computer. Wozniak quit his job at Hewlett-Packard and became the vice president in charge of research and development at Apple. Their first product, the Apple I computer, was similar to the Altair 8800, the first commercially available personal computer, except it had no provision for internal expansion cards. With the addition of these cards, the Altair could be attached to a computer terminal and could be programmed in BASIC. The Apple I was purely a hobbyist machine, a $25 microprocessor (MOS 6502) on a single-circuit board with 256 bytes of ROM, 4K or 8K bytes of RAM and a 40 character by 24 row display controller. It lacked a case, power supply, keyboard, or display, which had to be provided by the user. The Apple I was priced at $666.66. (Wozniak later said he had no idea about the correlation between the number and the mark of the beast, and "I came up with [it] because I like repeating digits." It was $500 plus a 33% markup.) Jobs and Wozniak sold their first 100 computers to Paul Terrell, who was starting a new computer shop, called the Byte Shop, in Mountain View, California. Terrell bought just the circuit board for the Apple I; he had to supply the keyboard, monitor, transformer, and even the case in which to put the computer.[3]
You can ignore the facts, and keep claiming that the Apple 1 was a personal computer-- but it was not! Repeatedly insisting it was so does not make it true.
I had the opportunity to discuss the Apple 1 with Woz at some length (about 5 minutes). Paraphrasing, Woz said that he built the original computer that became the Apple 1 (it wasn't named that yet) to have something to show off to the Homebrew Computer Club -- a hobbyist group.
I especially resent people who glibly rewrite history to fit their own pre-judged opinion, without expending any effort to research the facts-- or ignoring the facts when they don't jibe with the opinion.
Steve Jobs still doesn't get it. Unless the iTV has a tuner and capable of connection to cable or off the air TV, it's not going to be mainstream. Why pay ABC, NBC or CBS for access through iTV when you can get it for free off the air? Same for the rest of the programming. Cable and satellite do it better and probably cheaper. This is one area where Microsoft is far superior. Their Media Center is where it's at. My Media Center can connect to off the air, cable, satellite, DVD, Blu-Ray or Internet sources. It's got a built in DVR as well for all those sources. iTV is simply an iTunes pay per view (or subscription) box. Even if some programmers utilize advertising as a revenue stream instead of subscription fees, we'll see how long that lasts. I love Apple products and own quite a few. I find Apple OS far superior to Microsoft. But the Apply TV isn't and the upcoming iTV doesn't sound like it's in the league of Microsoft's Media Center.
MAYBE we should wait for it to be a real product to see what it can do before condemning or praising it. just saying...
But, the iPod Hi-Fi filled a, then, unique niche -- portable iPod Boom Box.
.
Not really, any portable stereo that had audio inputs at the time could do exactly the same as the iPod Hi-Fi, the only unique thing about it was the fact it was white and had a dock in it
Steve Jobs still doesn't get it. Unless the iTV has a tuner and capable of connection to cable or off the air TV, it's not going to be mainstream. Why pay ABC, NBC or CBS for access through iTV when you can get it for free off the air? Same for the rest of the programming. Cable and satellite do it better and probably cheaper. This is one area where Microsoft is far superior. Their Media Center is where it's at. My Media Center can connect to off the air, cable, satellite, DVD, Blu-Ray or Internet sources. It's got a built in DVR as well for all those sources. iTV is simply an iTunes pay per view (or subscription) box. Even if some programmers utilize advertising as a revenue stream instead of subscription fees, we'll see how long that lasts. I love Apple products and own quite a few. I find Apple OS far superior to Microsoft. But the Apply TV isn't and the upcoming iTV doesn't sound like it's in the league of Microsoft's Media Center.
Your only argument is that you will have to pay for stuff that you can get for free elsewhere. That is nothing more than an assumption. We have free, ad supported apps for iOS. We have free, ad supported streaming for various tv shows on their networks website. Why do you suddenly assume that every video streaming app on iTV would be paid? Many ad supported apps have shown to be more proffitable than paid ones, so I also wouldn't assume that any free ones would quickly disappear.
PS: iOS supports third party hardware through the dock connector. There isn't a rule stating that someone couldn't make a TV tuner and an app for it. You simply lack imagination, I'd wait for the product to be launched before being so critical based on some very poor assumptions.
Not really, any portable stereo that had audio inputs at the time could do exactly the same as the iPod Hi-Fi, the only unique thing about it was the fact it was white and had a dock in it
I think you are mistaken!
At the time there was no easy way (available adapter) to interface the iPod connector to RCA jacks, etc.
Sure you could use the earphone adapter-- but then there would be no synchronization of the volume controls-- you would have to fiddle with the volume control on both the iPod and the Boom Box.
The iPod Hi-Fi came with the same remote as the AppleTV. With it, you could remotely control volume, play/pause, next song, previous song-- all this was not possible with a 3rd-party Boom Box.
Hmmm, $99 iTV with a $99 external camera, nice optical zoom, iTV app to adjust the camera so it is pointing right at the family on the sofa. Then... Facetime with the kid in college on her iPod Touch. Or grandma who got a nice iPad for Christmas. Or Dad on a trip with his iPhone. All "free" over wireless.
Maybe combine features. Watch the game, with your brother on the other side of the country watching the same game, and visible picture in picture.
Hmmm, $99 iTV with a $99 external camera, nice optical zoom, iTV app to adjust the camera so it is pointing right at the family on the sofa. Then... Facetime with the kid in college on her iPod Touch. Or grandma who got a nice iPad for Christmas. Or Dad on a trip with his iPhone. All "free" over wireless.
Maybe combine features. Watch the game, with your brother on the other side of the country watching the same game, and visible picture in picture.
TOTAL game changer.
Gordon
Now, if your brother on the other side of the country has the same setup then: you could watch your brother watching you watching....
... the cross-country flip-flop effect is interesting to watch \
To check out the effect: On one Mac set up ScreenSharing to a second Mac-- then on the shared screen of the second Mac setup screen sharing to the first!
Comments
Nobody can see any difference between 1080 and 720. All the best scientists agree.
720 is just like a retina display at the correct viewing angle.
To achieve the "correct viewing angle", based on any guide created by a home cinema professional, requires a screen size and view distance where the difference between 720 and 1080 can be resolved by anyone with normal vision.
It doesn't matter how you much you twist words and focus on irrelevant numbers, you can't weasel your way out of cold hard facts.
What you could try to focus on is how much people care, or more precisely how much people value the > 2x pixel advantage of 1080 compared to 720... at least you might be able to sustain some kind of reasonable argument that way.
... iTV is a great idea, but the infrastructure necessary in most parts of the country, which is out of Apple's control, is not ready for it to become a replacement for conventional cable or satellite. But time will tell who's right.
As an Apple shareholder you know how much money they're making out of other markets right...
Even with the infrastructure issues aside, the other thing is the US cable market is much harder for an iTV box to crack because the cable penetration rate is already something like 85%. In other markets cable TV is far, far smaller. So it means there's more of an opportunity there to use good infrastructure and to really do something magical that many people won't have had before.
So why am I telling you this? Well, if I would have been browsing through iTunes, and came across it, I would have had to make a purchase decision. Is this going to be worth $2 or $3? Probably not and would have moved on. That is, even if the show is available on iTunes.
Having cable means you can browse and find all sorts of things - even while you are watching something else. When every show you watch becomes a purchase decision, you aren't going to experiment and find new shows to watch - you'll stick to what you know.
That may work for you, but not for others. I don't see cable and satellite companies shaking in their boots quite yet.
Nobody can see any difference between 1080 and 720. All the best scientists agree.
720 is just like a retina display at the correct viewing angle.
The fact that you can't even use the correct terms shows you don't know what you're talking about. You're basically making it up.
Nobody can see any difference between 1080 and 720. All the best scientists agree.
I don't think it matters what the scientist say about this. If I am going to pay for it (buy or rent), I am going to pay for 1080 over 720, unless it was a lot cheaper. Also, if I didn't care about picture quality, I would just go with 480 which is good enough.
Goodbye monthly cable bill. You have just been replaced by an equally expensive monthly Internet bill.
and purchasing/renting movies, tv shows, etc.
Steve Jobs still doesn't get it.
What doesn't he get? A currently non-product that people are speculating about?
I have cable. Last night I watched a documentary on the South Pacific ocean. I liked it.
So why am I telling you this? Well, if I would have been browsing through iTunes, and came across it, I would have had to make a purchase decision. Is this going to be worth $2 or $3? Probably not and would have moved on. That is, even if the show is available on iTunes.
Having cable means you can browse and find all sorts of things - even while you are watching something else. When every show you watch becomes a purchase decision, you aren't going to experiment and find new shows to watch - you'll stick to what you know.
That may work for you, but not for others. I don't see cable and satellite companies shaking in their boots quite yet.
Totally agree with this. While I like choice and not paying for too much junk TV channel, I too appreciate the element of randomness you can get with always-on TV channels. If every bit of TV and movie we watch becomes a '1-click app to buy' the way iTunes is set up now it takes away the joy of discovering unexpected things and the idea that a night on the couch can still be cheap entertainment sometimes.
Totally agree with this. While I like choice and not paying for too much junk TV channel, I too appreciate the element of randomness you can get with always-on TV channels. If every bit of TV and movie we watch becomes a '1-click app to buy' the way iTunes is set up now it takes away the joy of discovering unexpected things and the idea that a night on the couch can still be cheap entertainment sometimes.
That's why I think pay-per-minute solutions work. Subscriptions make it difficult for the content providers to get the revenue they deserve but if a publisher is only paid for the minutes of their shows being watched then it makes it fair.
If a documentary was on iTunes for example, it would start playing just like on TV but you'd be charged 3c per minute. If after 5 minutes, you decided it wasn't for you, you'll only get charged 15c. If you keep watching, you would only be paying as much as the show would be to rent - i.e you pay about 90c for a TV show.
The pay-per-minute rate can drop the more you watch so that by the time you have consumed 10 hours of media, it drops to 1.5c per minute. The first 10 hours would cost you $18. This would perhaps be 5 days of TV.
The subsequent 10 days would cost $18 and the rate can drop further. Hopefully to a point where you could consume as much content as you wanted within $50 per month.
The rate drops may have to be done per network/publisher though as it wouldn't be fair for one publisher to be charged at a higher rate and another at a lower rate. Ideally the system would reduce rates based on repeat business for a given publisher.
In the worst case, the highest pay-per-minute rate of 3c per minute would give you just under 28 hours per month, which is close to 1 hour per day.
The US average is something like 4.5 hours per day or 140 hours per month so that $50 plan falls short but advertisements wouldn't be counted on iTunes unlike a TV, which could be as much as 25% of the viewing time. Also, depending on how many ads were shown, that could affect the rates of some TV shows - in fact, many shows could be broadcast on iTunes for free. This is much more possible with the Netflix, Hulu etc apps for the iOS.
If Apple could even manage to cover 3 hours per day within a $50 per month price bracket (around 1c per minute average), that would have a significant impact on the way people consume media.
A consumer owns: iPhone, iPad, AppleTV but doesn't have cable subscription. Now he can buy the ABC app and watch on demand ABC's tv shows at home in HD on the tv via AppleTV. But now he has to leave and wants to watch on his iPhone later. That same app on the iPhone could allow him to start up where he left off streaming over 3G. Also critical is that it won't matter if my 3G service is from AT&T while my wired home internet is through Verizon, TWC, or Comcast. I can get the content to any of my devices whenever I want, wherever I am.
As pointed out before, many content providers will not be happy with this model as they (like HGTV TLC at least as far as I can tell) are types where you only watch it because it is on. However, other high demand stations like ESPN could like make more money off a subscription than they do now through cable. Also, targeted ads will generate more income per subscriber.
For many of the same reasons that that they allow you (and me) to post to these forums.
.
I see your point but that's not the same issue
Not even close. Some might argue that the Altair 8800 was the first personal computer (it appeared in the January 1975 issue of Popular Science -- this was before the 6502 used in the Apple I was even created). However, there were various 8008 kits you could buy before that (circa 1974). Some might even argue that the first "personal" computers were PDP-8 systems, as several well-off enthusiasts had these machines sitting at home prior to the microcomputer explosion.
The Apple I appeared in the middle of a bunch of microcomputer system introductions. About the only thing really unique about the Apple I (other than its $666 price tag) was the fact that it incorporated on-board video. The Apple II, which followed shortly thereafter, introduced on-board bit-mapped color graphics that could connect to a TV set (quite rare at the time).
I didn't say the first hobbyist computer or first microcomputer, I said the first personal computer. A personal computer needs to be affordable, have a keyboard and a display. The Apple 1 connected to a display was the first.
Disagreement is good. But look at the specs of a Hauppauge 2250. Dual tuner HD content. And they are HDCP compliant. Mine is connected to Brighthouse and I get all the digital content - from cable, not off the air. Your information about tuner cards is a few years old.
Yes, I agree that the Internet is becoming a great source for streaming video. But I also watch streaming Netflix. The quality is acceptable, but is not really even 720p quality. If you don't care about quality, then you'll be happy with streaming video. Downloading then watching is completely different - and extremely time consuming.
I used to like satellite, but rain kills the signal. I agree that it's not perfect. Cable is not without its problems either. But both satellite and cable offer far superior video quality and neither can match the quality of a BluRay DVD.
My problem is not with Steve Jobs' vision. My problem with AppleTV and iTV is that the current Internet infrastructure will not allow for streaming HD quality to every household as a cable replacement. Therefore, the vision is good, but the timing is not there. Now Steve does keep many things secret. H.264 is a nice codec that can give nice quality at low bitrates. He may very well have something even better up his sleeve that can reduce bitrate and achieve high video quality. But unless he can pull that rabbit out of his hat, iTV will be a nice toy - for some peope.
Ok, let me rephrase that, you can watch over the air and QAM delivered through cable. 2 problems... even that card you showed me (I just looked it up on new egg) has zero HD inputs aside from the coax inputs. My problem is I dont get QAM in Houston, with Comcast. HD channels are only available through the Digital Cable service. Which leads me back to TV tuner cards that still dont have anyway of hooking up a box and displaying channels in HD (to this day).
Believe me, I have been patiently awaiting for them to arrive.
I didn't say the first hobbyist computer or first microcomputer, I said the first personal computer. A personal computer needs to be affordable, have a keyboard and a display. The Apple 1 connected to a display was the first.
http://oldcomputers.net/applei.html
Under no stretch of the imagination was the Apple 1 a "personal computer"-- it was a motherboard for hobbyists to build as part of a computer-- see below (emphasis mine).:
On April 1, 1976, Jobs and Wozniak formed Apple Computer. Wozniak quit his job at Hewlett-Packard and became the vice president in charge of research and development at Apple. Their first product, the Apple I computer, was similar to the Altair 8800, the first commercially available personal computer, except it had no provision for internal expansion cards. With the addition of these cards, the Altair could be attached to a computer terminal and could be programmed in BASIC. The Apple I was purely a hobbyist machine, a $25 microprocessor (MOS 6502) on a single-circuit board with 256 bytes of ROM, 4K or 8K bytes of RAM and a 40 character by 24 row display controller. It lacked a case, power supply, keyboard, or display, which had to be provided by the user. The Apple I was priced at $666.66. (Wozniak later said he had no idea about the correlation between the number and the mark of the beast, and "I came up with [it] because I like repeating digits." It was $500 plus a 33% markup.) Jobs and Wozniak sold their first 100 computers to Paul Terrell, who was starting a new computer shop, called the Byte Shop, in Mountain View, California. Terrell bought just the circuit board for the Apple I; he had to supply the keyboard, monitor, transformer, and even the case in which to put the computer.[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wozniak
You can ignore the facts, and keep claiming that the Apple 1 was a personal computer-- but it was not! Repeatedly insisting it was so does not make it true.
I had the opportunity to discuss the Apple 1 with Woz at some length (about 5 minutes). Paraphrasing, Woz said that he built the original computer that became the Apple 1 (it wasn't named that yet) to have something to show off to the Homebrew Computer Club -- a hobbyist group.
I especially resent people who glibly rewrite history to fit their own pre-judged opinion, without expending any effort to research the facts-- or ignoring the facts when they don't jibe with the opinion.
.
Steve Jobs still doesn't get it. Unless the iTV has a tuner and capable of connection to cable or off the air TV, it's not going to be mainstream. Why pay ABC, NBC or CBS for access through iTV when you can get it for free off the air? Same for the rest of the programming. Cable and satellite do it better and probably cheaper. This is one area where Microsoft is far superior. Their Media Center is where it's at. My Media Center can connect to off the air, cable, satellite, DVD, Blu-Ray or Internet sources. It's got a built in DVR as well for all those sources. iTV is simply an iTunes pay per view (or subscription) box. Even if some programmers utilize advertising as a revenue stream instead of subscription fees, we'll see how long that lasts. I love Apple products and own quite a few. I find Apple OS far superior to Microsoft. But the Apply TV isn't and the upcoming iTV doesn't sound like it's in the league of Microsoft's Media Center.
MAYBE we should wait for it to be a real product to see what it can do before condemning or praising it. just saying...
But, the iPod Hi-Fi filled a, then, unique niche -- portable iPod Boom Box.
.
Not really, any portable stereo that had audio inputs at the time could do exactly the same as the iPod Hi-Fi, the only unique thing about it was the fact it was white and had a dock in it
Steve Jobs still doesn't get it. Unless the iTV has a tuner and capable of connection to cable or off the air TV, it's not going to be mainstream. Why pay ABC, NBC or CBS for access through iTV when you can get it for free off the air? Same for the rest of the programming. Cable and satellite do it better and probably cheaper. This is one area where Microsoft is far superior. Their Media Center is where it's at. My Media Center can connect to off the air, cable, satellite, DVD, Blu-Ray or Internet sources. It's got a built in DVR as well for all those sources. iTV is simply an iTunes pay per view (or subscription) box. Even if some programmers utilize advertising as a revenue stream instead of subscription fees, we'll see how long that lasts. I love Apple products and own quite a few. I find Apple OS far superior to Microsoft. But the Apply TV isn't and the upcoming iTV doesn't sound like it's in the league of Microsoft's Media Center.
Your only argument is that you will have to pay for stuff that you can get for free elsewhere. That is nothing more than an assumption. We have free, ad supported apps for iOS. We have free, ad supported streaming for various tv shows on their networks website. Why do you suddenly assume that every video streaming app on iTV would be paid? Many ad supported apps have shown to be more proffitable than paid ones, so I also wouldn't assume that any free ones would quickly disappear.
PS: iOS supports third party hardware through the dock connector. There isn't a rule stating that someone couldn't make a TV tuner and an app for it. You simply lack imagination, I'd wait for the product to be launched before being so critical based on some very poor assumptions.
Not really, any portable stereo that had audio inputs at the time could do exactly the same as the iPod Hi-Fi, the only unique thing about it was the fact it was white and had a dock in it
I think you are mistaken!
At the time there was no easy way (available adapter) to interface the iPod connector to RCA jacks, etc.
Sure you could use the earphone adapter-- but then there would be no synchronization of the volume controls-- you would have to fiddle with the volume control on both the iPod and the Boom Box.
The iPod Hi-Fi came with the same remote as the AppleTV. With it, you could remotely control volume, play/pause, next song, previous song-- all this was not possible with a 3rd-party Boom Box.
.
Maybe combine features. Watch the game, with your brother on the other side of the country watching the same game, and visible picture in picture.
TOTAL game changer.
Gordon
Hmmm, $99 iTV with a $99 external camera, nice optical zoom, iTV app to adjust the camera so it is pointing right at the family on the sofa. Then... Facetime with the kid in college on her iPod Touch. Or grandma who got a nice iPad for Christmas. Or Dad on a trip with his iPhone. All "free" over wireless.
Maybe combine features. Watch the game, with your brother on the other side of the country watching the same game, and visible picture in picture.
TOTAL game changer.
Gordon
Now, if your brother on the other side of the country has the same setup then: you could watch your brother watching you watching....
... the cross-country flip-flop effect is interesting to watch
To check out the effect: On one Mac set up ScreenSharing to a second Mac-- then on the shared screen of the second Mac setup screen sharing to the first!
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