That looks fine, and is by far the best ATV interface yet. What's so bad about it? It's just like an iOS homescreen but with rectangular icons, which look much better on a 16x9 display. It's also an obvious prelude to an appstore to be added.
Correct. It's meant to be 16:9 iconic, and kid friendly as well as a geezer pleaser. I'm not crazy about the colors, but I can see they're supposed to be accessible, not Martha Stewart.
The appleTV is rather well positioned given the rest of the iOS ecosystem.
My guess is that apple is actively choosing to limit their platform in order to keep it monolithic and consistent. That consistency is one of the less recognized advantages of iOS. Apps work great on every device because of consistent screen sizes, hardware capabilities etc. The platform has remained remarkably consistent despite significant hardware upgrades.
If apple were to offer dedicated gaming console functionality or even an app store for the ATV, it would mean apps running on a platform with inherently different screen and interaction characteristics. Apps would need to be tailored specifically to run on the ATV in order for the experience to be as refined as we are used to on handheld touch screen devices. It is unlikely that all developers would invest the development time to make native ATV apps. So either apple would have to allow non-native apps on the ATV, or limit its store to native ATV apps. Either way, to do it right means going all in. To enter the market casually could really hurt the entire iOS ecosystem.
Yes, the TV is another platform, and they are fully invested in it. TVs currently come in one native resolution - 1080p. Older TVs can now be ignored, so your hardware capabilities argument is not relevant. Yes, existing iOS apps would need to be tailored to TV resolutions and you are correct that not all developers would invest the developer time. Only untold thousands of developers. Of course the apps would be native to iTV, how would it even be possible to run a game on iOS otherwise? This is not as big a hurdle as you are making it to be. Yes, it's different from iOS on a touch screen, but the dev tools and technology stack are identical and are familiar to hundreds of thousands of developers. How many devs do you think are comfortable coding for PS3 or XBox?
Yes, the TV is another platform, and they are fully invested in it. TVs currently come in one native resolution - 1080p. Older TVs can now be ignored, so your hardware capabilities argument is not relevant. Yes, existing iOS apps would need to be tailored to TV resolutions and you are correct that not all developers would invest the developer time. Only untold thousands of developers. Of course the apps would be native to iTV, how would it even be possible to run a game on iOS otherwise? This is not as big a hurdle as you are making it to be. Yes, it's different from iOS on a touch screen, but the dev tools and technology stack are identical and are familiar to hundreds of thousands of developers. How many devs do you think are comfortable coding for PS3 or XBox?
Hardware differences between TV set-top-boxes and handheld touchscreen devices are irrelevant?
That distinction is of critical importance when writing software for either platform. The importance simply cannot be overstated.
When discounted or not held as paramount, we wound up with phone apps that technically run but are not a good experience on a tablet. The opposite is also true although not a terribly common direction to port software given when the markets developed.
In particular, games would be horrible if merely ported to different hardware. The differences in the platforms are so great that many genres of games would be horrible if implemented on the wrong platform. For instance, the controls inherent to pac-man do not translate well to a touch screen. Meanwhile touch screens are great for games that require selecting and interacting in objects in absolute coordinates rather in relative directions.
And that's just one example. If apple chooses to go that direction, they will need to plan quite carefully. Cheap and quick ports of existing software could ruin the entire iOS ecosystem.
Yes, the TV is another platform, and they are fully invested in it. TVs currently come in one native resolution - 1080p.
Nope. Plenty of 720 left.
Quote:
Yes, existing iOS apps would need to be tailored to TV resolutions and you are correct that not all developers would invest the developer time.
Who the frick wants "apps" on their Apple TV? You can't use 95% of them because they're not designed for a television at all. Apple doesn't want to make a game console. There's no way TO make a game console based around four directional buttons and a single click. Not this side of 1985, at least.
Who the frick wants "apps" on their Apple TV? You can't use 95% of them because they're not designed for a television at all. Apple doesn't want to make a game console. There's no way TO make a game console based around four directional buttons and a single click. Not this side of 1985, at least.
As we've seen with AirPlay in 2010 being able to stream media and then in 2011 when mirroring was added, the best way to connect to a TV is through another intelligent device, not through a remote control. Going forward it seems harder and harder to justify the Apple TV getting an SDK and App Store. Already the 15-ish app buttons on the new Apple TV 5.1 UI are a bit busy but on an iOS-based iDevice with a touchscreen that you can easy push to the TV that AppleTV becomes much more useful to me.
Agreed, AirPlay changes everything in regard to interacting with a tv. The whole concept of channel (library/content) surfing is being redefined. If apple would add the functionality found in xbmc, then there would be very little justification for an atv app store at all.
That's the most glaring hole right now, the inability to play any video file from anywhere on the home network. This doesn't necessitate much if any UI changes but rather just codec support and the ability to browse content on file shares or upnp servers. Granted, at too can be accomplished with AirPlay. But it seems more like core functionality of scrolling a list of videos and hitting play.
Gamines is the last can of worms. Given the latency that will always be inherent when using something like AirPlay, there will always be lag as compared to interacting directly with the device. This makes fast pace games almost impossible.
Hmm, except Netflix, there are not many surprises, I think I would like to keep my Apple TV 2, as in the help of iFunia and handbrake, it being a cool home media centre for my family, seems it no need to update~
Comments
That looks fine, and is by far the best ATV interface yet. What's so bad about it? It's just like an iOS homescreen but with rectangular icons, which look much better on a 16x9 display. It's also an obvious prelude to an appstore to be added.
Correct. It's meant to be 16:9 iconic, and kid friendly as well as a geezer pleaser. I'm not crazy about the colors, but I can see they're supposed to be accessible, not Martha Stewart.
The appleTV is rather well positioned given the rest of the iOS ecosystem.
My guess is that apple is actively choosing to limit their platform in order to keep it monolithic and consistent. That consistency is one of the less recognized advantages of iOS. Apps work great on every device because of consistent screen sizes, hardware capabilities etc. The platform has remained remarkably consistent despite significant hardware upgrades.
If apple were to offer dedicated gaming console functionality or even an app store for the ATV, it would mean apps running on a platform with inherently different screen and interaction characteristics. Apps would need to be tailored specifically to run on the ATV in order for the experience to be as refined as we are used to on handheld touch screen devices. It is unlikely that all developers would invest the development time to make native ATV apps. So either apple would have to allow non-native apps on the ATV, or limit its store to native ATV apps. Either way, to do it right means going all in. To enter the market casually could really hurt the entire iOS ecosystem.
Yes, the TV is another platform, and they are fully invested in it. TVs currently come in one native resolution - 1080p. Older TVs can now be ignored, so your hardware capabilities argument is not relevant. Yes, existing iOS apps would need to be tailored to TV resolutions and you are correct that not all developers would invest the developer time. Only untold thousands of developers. Of course the apps would be native to iTV, how would it even be possible to run a game on iOS otherwise? This is not as big a hurdle as you are making it to be. Yes, it's different from iOS on a touch screen, but the dev tools and technology stack are identical and are familiar to hundreds of thousands of developers. How many devs do you think are comfortable coding for PS3 or XBox?
Yes, the TV is another platform, and they are fully invested in it. TVs currently come in one native resolution - 1080p. Older TVs can now be ignored, so your hardware capabilities argument is not relevant. Yes, existing iOS apps would need to be tailored to TV resolutions and you are correct that not all developers would invest the developer time. Only untold thousands of developers. Of course the apps would be native to iTV, how would it even be possible to run a game on iOS otherwise? This is not as big a hurdle as you are making it to be. Yes, it's different from iOS on a touch screen, but the dev tools and technology stack are identical and are familiar to hundreds of thousands of developers. How many devs do you think are comfortable coding for PS3 or XBox?
Hardware differences between TV set-top-boxes and handheld touchscreen devices are irrelevant?
That distinction is of critical importance when writing software for either platform. The importance simply cannot be overstated.
When discounted or not held as paramount, we wound up with phone apps that technically run but are not a good experience on a tablet. The opposite is also true although not a terribly common direction to port software given when the markets developed.
In particular, games would be horrible if merely ported to different hardware. The differences in the platforms are so great that many genres of games would be horrible if implemented on the wrong platform. For instance, the controls inherent to pac-man do not translate well to a touch screen. Meanwhile touch screens are great for games that require selecting and interacting in objects in absolute coordinates rather in relative directions.
And that's just one example. If apple chooses to go that direction, they will need to plan quite carefully. Cheap and quick ports of existing software could ruin the entire iOS ecosystem.
Yes, the TV is another platform, and they are fully invested in it. TVs currently come in one native resolution - 1080p.
Nope. Plenty of 720 left.
Yes, existing iOS apps would need to be tailored to TV resolutions and you are correct that not all developers would invest the developer time.
Who the frick wants "apps" on their Apple TV? You can't use 95% of them because they're not designed for a television at all. Apple doesn't want to make a game console. There's no way TO make a game console based around four directional buttons and a single click. Not this side of 1985, at least.
Who the frick wants "apps" on their Apple TV? You can't use 95% of them because they're not designed for a television at all. Apple doesn't want to make a game console. There's no way TO make a game console based around four directional buttons and a single click. Not this side of 1985, at least.
As we've seen with AirPlay in 2010 being able to stream media and then in 2011 when mirroring was added, the best way to connect to a TV is through another intelligent device, not through a remote control. Going forward it seems harder and harder to justify the Apple TV getting an SDK and App Store. Already the 15-ish app buttons on the new Apple TV 5.1 UI are a bit busy but on an iOS-based iDevice with a touchscreen that you can easy push to the TV that AppleTV becomes much more useful to me.
That's the most glaring hole right now, the inability to play any video file from anywhere on the home network. This doesn't necessitate much if any UI changes but rather just codec support and the ability to browse content on file shares or upnp servers. Granted, at too can be accomplished with AirPlay. But it seems more like core functionality of scrolling a list of videos and hitting play.
Gamines is the last can of worms. Given the latency that will always be inherent when using something like AirPlay, there will always be lag as compared to interacting directly with the device. This makes fast pace games almost impossible.