AppleTV mental anguish

djintxdjintx
Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
I am having info withdrawals regarding the new AppleTV. I know they already unveiled it and announced features, and several sites posted quick hands-on impressions. So we pretty much know what to expect. But I still find myself needing more.



I am bored at work, my boss is gone for the day, and I need some intellectual stimulation, hopefully on this topic. Sometimes I just feel voracious and want to consume mass amounts of information on a given topic, but lately, I am finding nothing to satiate my needs. I think I need help.



Anyone else get this way?





(I'm not sure if a post like this is considered spam or useless or off-topic, and who knows maybe a mod will move it or delete it altogether, but I just had to get it off my chest. Maybe others out there can identify with my condition.)

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    mikemikebmikemikeb Posts: 113member
    Whenever I get that, I find a way to get something of what I'm looking for. Sometimes I'll google something, or search Wikipedia, or check out other sites in the sector I'm interested in (in your case, tech sites). Often, I think of, or find, something else, entirely, and read about it. The process seems kind of organic to me, so much so that I really couldn't give you a super-detailed description of exactly how I do it.



    But often, I'll suddenly get a fleeting thought mid-search, and decide to search it. For instance, I got a desire to look at UMTS 3G coverage maps of other countries. UMTS coverage in China is shockingly sparing. If my source is right, it's not even available at Beijing's international airport.
  • Reply 2 of 4
    djintxdjintx Posts: 454member
    Hmmm, maybe I will have to try your method. I know I have exhaustively looked for info about the new ATV so there is nothing left along that path for awhile. Maybe I should try to focus on something else for a couple of weeks. Perhaps I need to learn more about previous model Apple TV modifications. Not only would it be interesting, but it could also turn useful given what the iPhone dev team has been able to do with iOS. Maybe they have some cool things planned for the AppleTV.
  • Reply 3 of 4
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,326moderator
    I think with any TV product, it's going to be difficult to find anything sufficiently interesting. That market has pretty much reached the saturation point for innovation. Once you have a big flat screen on the wall and a box to feed you content, you're only going to iterate on top of that model and we've already had incarnations of this setup for years.



    The only hack people will be interested in would be to be able to stream non-iTunes media formats and loads of other TV boxes do this already. A VNC app might work ok though.



    The phone market will go the same way. When you just have a screen in your pocket and a perpetual network connection to get you to content, that's all there needs to be. All that happens next is the boring cycle of faster, smaller, cheaper.
  • Reply 4 of 4
    djintxdjintx Posts: 454member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post


    I think with any TV product, it's going to be difficult to find anything sufficiently interesting. That market has pretty much reached the saturation point for innovation. Once you have a big flat screen on the wall and a box to feed you content, you're only going to iterate on top of that model and we've already had incarnations of this setup for years.



    The only hack people will be interested in would be to be able to stream non-iTunes media formats and loads of other TV boxes do this already. A VNC app might work ok though.



    The phone market will go the same way. When you just have a screen in your pocket and a perpetual network connection to get you to content, that's all there needs to be. All that happens next is the boring cycle of faster, smaller, cheaper.



    I know a lot of tech companies seem to be stagnating in the TV arena, but I definitely think that Apple has some innovative ideas for the living room and AppleTV. Of course, what these ideas are and if they ever see the light of day is anyone's guess. So much of this hinges on the Cable companies death grip on content and subscriber base, and the ability to make agreements with the various TV networks and movie studios. It will likely be several years, but I have to think that at some point TV, Internet, and phone will all converge into one online service. If the cable companies were smart they would start investing in this conversion so that they are part of the solution and can survive, instead of fighting it and eventually dying out.



    On the other side of the coin is what the hacker/jailbreaker community can come up with in the mean time. I realize there are other boxes that can already do alot of this stuff, but more than anything, I am interested in the Apple ecosystem and it's potential for a unified solution. Apple may be able to eventually provide me with most of what I want, and they may not. But if they don't I bet someone will find a way to deliver interesting content.



    Apple's announced plans aren't revolutionary yet, but I will settle for some evolution for now to tide me over.
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