Smart TV makers forming alliances out of fear Apple will soon dominate their industry too

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  • Reply 41 of 160
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    It might be ridiculous for Apple to get into the TV business but couldn't the same be said about PC's? I remember Bill Gates once saying the PC would be nothing more than a low margin commodity business. Apple certainly proved that wrong. Apple likes to control the whole experience. Right now Apple TV is a hobby but if they get more serious about it I can't see them bringing something to the market that you'd use on someone else hardware. If for no other reason when you're staring at the screen they'd rather have you see an Apple logo than Samsung or LG.

    My guess is the TV space will continue to be a hobby (I can't imagine they're making much $$ off the $99 black box) but if it's not and they do get more serious about it they very well could sell their own TV. Tim Cook has been pretty coy about their TV plans but has been clear that they're not looking to make much $$ off content as its the hardware where they make their profit.
  • Reply 42 of 160

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Wovel View Post


    Collusion with the stated intent of thwarting competition.  What could go wrong?


     


    I am not sure Apple plans to make a TV anyway.  They plan to change the entire industry.


     


    Like Apple did with Music and Amazon did with books.  It is not all about, or even primarily about the device.



     


    Agreed.  Apple doesn't care about the TV, it cares about the value chain.


     


    Producers


    Studios


    Syndicators


    Networks


    Delivery (local media, Cable, Satellite, Internet, Torrenters)


    Consumer.


     


    What does the consumer want?   They want to ala carte a bunch of movies and TV series into 'MyPersonalMediaChannels' (MyTV is tmed by someone).  What is that... Sort of like the new PodCast plus Genius ("You like 'BreakingBad and Kill Bill Pt3?   you may like....")


     


    It's less about the TV, and more about the content bundling.   an iOS device (or a new Mac App to replace iTunes) to manage it, the cloud to capture and deliver it, and the appleID account to pay for it. at $1.99-$3.99 per hour.  (with Movies being 8-10/hour...and cable running $80/month ($1/hour?), this is a pretty good in the ball park pricing.


     


    The kicker is 'Live TV'  People want to watch it at moment of delivery and/or DVR it....  How does Apple do that?  (an antenna connection to an AppleTV box with Channel management DVR capabilities?) 


     


    Bottom line... It's all about the content.  If Apple can get Disney (best friend in the business) to swing a deal, then the others may follow... But in the end, it's all about cutting out either Cable providers and/or networks.    If Apple can do to video media what they did to music, the whole world will be set on it's ear.

  • Reply 43 of 160
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    xxsamplexx wrote: »

    Don't get me wrong, I'm interested to see what they come up with.  But there is very little margin on the hardware side of television and I have a hard time conjuring up TV hardware that would be so superior to what I have that I'd pay a premium for it.  But as you point out, they've pulled it off before.
    I'd love it if Apple could create something that got rid of most of the junk behind my entertainment center. Right now it's a complete mess of cables and cords all collecting dust. I'd pay a premium for that.
  • Reply 44 of 160
    shaun, ukshaun, uk Posts: 1,050member


    You can already buy voice and motion controlled smart TVs today from some very well respected TV manufacturers. It will be interesting to see how Apple differentiates their Apple TV offering. It's not like the iPhone or iPad were there wasn't any real competition because Apple was ahead of the curve, unless of course they come up with something totally ground breaking.

  • Reply 45 of 160
    ronboronbo Posts: 669member


    "The sources said the alliances are also forming as Apple is preparing to release a smart TV. Due to Apple's influence in the market, the sources fear it will further dominate the smart TV market, which is estimated to reach a 40% penetration rate by 2014."


     


    And why are we supposed to believe that? Smart TVs have been on the cusp of acceptance for more than a decade. WebTV anyone? Smart TVs aren't getting any traction. People keep predicting success, on the theory that people will only remember that one time they were right and not the dozens of times they were wrong.

  • Reply 46 of 160
    umrk_labumrk_lab Posts: 550member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post





    The Apple automobile

    The Apple personal water craft

    The Apple biplane

    The Apple space shuttle

    The Apple sex doll

    The Apple fashion accessories

    The Apple living room sofa

    There's no end to the kind of silly rumors that people could start.


     


     


    Well again, the road map is pretty clear, and obvious : Star Trek !


     


    (research going on for the HoloSuite, at the moment)


     


    Again, look at Star trek (Image In the Sand iPad ) :


     


     


    image

  • Reply 47 of 160

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by dasanman69 View Post





    That's not exactly true. I recently purchased a Panasonic plasma and have since received one update. So it looks like at least Panasonic is getting on the ball instead of getting run over by it.


     


    There are some companies out there providing this type of support in a very limited fashion. Their problem is that they have MANY product lines and it would be, and is, very difficult for them to keep up with every product they release.


    I'm thinking an Apple TV line would be similar to the iPhone strategy where they are all the same except for the choice in capacity, but with the TV you would have the choice in screen size instead.

  • Reply 48 of 160
    sensisensi Posts: 346member
    People claiming that Smart TVs don't sale must have overlooked the 25 millions (out of 50) that Samsung (sorry) is set to sale this year alone... Speaking of 'mult-year head start on the competition' (sic) over vaporware projections coming out of thin air, that's rich... For now I will stick with the actual numbers...
  • Reply 49 of 160
    patranuspatranus Posts: 366member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post





    The Apple automobile

    The Apple personal water craft

    The Apple biplane

    The Apple space shuttle

    The Apple sex doll

    The Apple fashion accessories

    The Apple living room sofa

    There's no end to the kind of silly rumors that people could start.


     


    Pretty sure they have that, its called the iPhone.

  • Reply 50 of 160

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


     


    Apple gets 30% of all transactions. As it's their standard contract, no one can do squat about it.


     


    Apple singlehandedly pays off the entirety of the national debt less than a year later. That's WITH the Medicare stuff they never report (the hundred trillion we actually owe).



     


    Apple gets 30% from the seller of the stuff...


     


    Add banking... Apple can also get another 1-3% from the merchant if they become the funding clearing house (Visa).   And/or they can issue an 'Apple Card' and front you the money at 12%APR  interest (better than the 1% they are getting now on their idle cash).   'Apple Finance' now takes say $25Billion of their cash reserves and loans you the money as well for your NFC, iTMS, AppStore, Passbook purchases.


     


    If they earn 10% APR on that $25Billion... plus the 1-3% bypassing Visa for big players (Ticket Master, Starbucks, whatever is in China, Europe) that's 2.5-3B a year.  better than what they are getting now with that money.

  • Reply 51 of 160
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Patranus View Post

    Pretty sure they have that, its called the iPhone.


     


    image

  • Reply 52 of 160
    galbigalbi Posts: 968member


    The TV is for watching.


     


    Not navigating.


     


    It doesnt matter whether someone has "cracked" the UI.

     


    Most of the time the viewer is watching the programs rather than navigating to get to the content itself.


     


    Therefore, the bigger importance is the picture quality and the set design rather than the UI.

  • Reply 53 of 160


    Talking of the occasional company failure... the 1994 QuickTake series of digital cameras were none-too successful for Apple with only a three-year production run... but it could be a sector for Apple to revisit (with their undoubted "halo effect") for a mid-to-high-end camera developed with their superb technology and cool design team. Nothing out-and-out professional (heavy and tough), nor soccer-mom (compact with a wide-range zoom), but a DSLR with a useful range of lenses appealing to the advanced amateur / semi-pro user. Strangely, Samsung created a "different looking" DSLR, starting with their NX10, a couple of years ago - which would not be confused by lawyers at ten paces with any other DSLR camera on the market - and which should have done much better than sales show... however neither does their publicity machine appear to want to promote it, nor major retailers stock it. Pity really, it's a product with many positive reviews.

     

  • Reply 54 of 160
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Galbi View Post

    Therefore, the bigger importance is the picture quality and the set design rather than the UI.


     


    Those are the two least important aspects of any change to television.

  • Reply 55 of 160
    anonymouseanonymouse Posts: 6,857member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Wovel View Post


    Collusion with the stated intent of thwarting competition.  What could go wrong?



     


    I guess the DoJ will be all over this, any second now.

  • Reply 56 of 160
    galbigalbi Posts: 968member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


     


    Those are the two least important aspects of any change to television.





    Right, because after the advent of the interactive menu system on newer TV's, people jumped into the HDTV realm.


     


    I'm sorry to say that you are wrong on this one.


     


    People switched in mass to HDTV due to PICTURE QUALITY improvement.


     


    That was and is there biggest reason (followed by picture size) in changing their television.


     


    The only people willing to make the switch will be those who are four legged, white furs used for textiles industry and make the sound "meeh" over and over again.


     


     


     


    Regarding, AI's misleading title, the only major television manufacturer who formed this "alliance" was LG.


     


    The title should read, LG forms TV alliance, not "TV makers" with a plural.

  • Reply 57 of 160
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    I was thinking about that last night....

    Actually, it's likely the payment card industry.   The ultimate smart card is a smart phone.  PIN enabled, Internet connected.  If Apple can disintermediate the cards and go right to the banks... Apple disintermediates PayPal, Amazon, Visa and Mastercard.  gets their 'float' and say, half of the 2-3% per purchase the Payment cards charge the 'merchants' and sends the other half to the banks.... With the advent of passbook and NFC, big money.

    It's a pretty simple app to generate a 'single use' credit card number for purchases which points to your AppleID iTunes account.   Apple then goes right to the bank with nightly debits to your bank account, manages a line of credit for you...

    In a couple years, Apple will be approaching 'big bank' status with the amount of cash reserves.  If they started to offer a 'credit card' (at 11.7% interest)... that's a pretty good rate of return on that idle cash.

    I totally agree.
  • Reply 58 of 160
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    image


     


     


    EDIT: Uh… hello? Huddler? Animated GIF? So… animate it… 


     


    EDIT: Ugh… Do I like that the new editor works with Safari 6 again? Sure. Would I trade all of those features away to have the old image uploader back? The one that actually works? …Maybe.



    When you upload an image it creates a poster image and links it to the actual upload. If you want the actual upload in the message you need to edit the post and drag the real image into it. Kind of a hassle....

  • Reply 59 of 160

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Shaun, UK View Post


    You can already buy voice and motion controlled smart TVs today from some very well respected TV manufacturers. It will be interesting to see how Apple differentiates their Apple TV offering. It's not like the iPhone or iPad were there wasn't any real competition because Apple was ahead of the curve, unless of course they come up with something totally ground breaking.



     


    You can't name a manufacturer in your quote.  As I stated earlier... I don't think the TV will be the differentiator.  It will be how you get media to the TV.


     


    At the time of the iPod they said that it was 'lame'  (/. CmdrTaco), in that the market had 'better' solutions available.


     


    At the time of iTMS,  people said no one would buy music that was DRMed.


     


    At the time of the iPhone, there was Nokia, Microsoft, Palm, and RIM all stating that Apple couldn't sell a smart phone.


     


    At the time of the iPad, HP, Microsoft, RIM were were stating that Apple couldn't sell a 'tablet' (and they didn't).


     


    Almost every time... it wasn't so much 'groundbreaking' as it was a 'compelling experience for the common person.'  My 80yo mother can use a Mac, her iPod, and her iPad.  She learned all of this after the age of 65.   Before then, she was scared of PCs, using an electric typewriter.  I don't support her anymore... my 12yo nephew is her tech support for her iPad and Mac.


     


    My parents don't have cable... why... too many channels.  But they watch their news on their iPad.   I see the 'touch with finger and get' interface of the iPad making their TV life much easier.  It's balancing Boxee/NetFlix/Roku/SlingBox/ITMS together with the ability to DVR 'local/live' stuff.     Seems like a no brainer for a TV with a couple of processors and a Antenna, knowledge of your connection (Cable plan, and OTA channels), a bit of intelligence to find when shows 'start', and a couple of GB of local storage for local live, and cloud storage for 'national-live' and agreements for content for the rest.


     


    Samsung ain't gonna do that.   Nor is LG, or Sony.   Because they don't _care_ about  end to end experience. 

  • Reply 60 of 160
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Galbi View Post

    Right, because after the advent of the interactive menu system on newer TV's, people jumped into the HDTV realm.


     


    People switched in mass to HDTV due to PICTURE QUALITY improvement.


     


    That was and is there biggest reason (followed by picture size) in changing their television.



     


    But people can't see the difference between 720 and 1080. It doesn't matter how big the TV is, and even larger qualities are useless, so that can't be it.


     


    Or so I'm told.


     


    I'm saying nowhere that a revamped UI will be the big draw. It's important, more so than what you've said, but less than the real reason to bother with reinventing the concept of television.

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