@solipsism... I think REC is more right than he is wrong. Both of you make sense though. However, IMO, I think Apple is really after an Interactive pseudo-TV experience. TV content would not be the main selling point.
Game playing with friends or others (maybe mobileMe users), all sorts of dedicated Apps, and Facetime as a social/family network and or business conferencing, projector etc. All connect to the Apple's cloud and ecosystem. Put this together with Apple's software expertise and it would be hard to beat. It would reinvent TV "usage" without fighting the TV/Movie Studios. But they'll soon come running to Apple for a piece of the action. I bet TWC and Cablevision (if they win their lawsuits) are just waiting for Apple to make its move at the focal point of the living room.
Save for FaceTime all that can be served from the current AppleTV. A device that is considerably more affordable than an HDTV. A device that can be updated and re-purchased often. A device that will work with any monitor that accepts HDMI. I?m just not seeing a business model that is more profitable than the AppleTV.
I?ve even made mention of a device that has CableCard options, an Apple Home Server, directly or remotely attached that can be used a DVR, a passthrough (HDMI-input) on the AppleTV so you can use your current sat/cable setup with the AppleTV UI as the primary interface, deals with networks, and deals with TV vendors for incorporating the AppleTV into it. There has to be a path to profit. Where is it?
"Take your WORD for it?" Nowhere near good enough. FAIL.
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Originally Posted by REC
Think of it more as a computer than a TV set. It will be multifunction in the designed and targeted ways Apple likes to add functionality.
Empty jargon that means nothing and tells me zip about WHY Apple thinks it will make a profit on this. FAIL.
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Originally Posted by REC
Emphasis on Facetime, since building in a camera to the panel in the right spot is important to the experience.
Yeah, people will buy a new $1000-2000 TV because it has a camera on top. 'Cause it's not like they're built into, oh I don't know, everything ELSE they own at this point. Ow, my sides hurt from laughing. FAIL.
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Originally Posted by REC
Emphasis on apps and a new platform for app development.
Which could be accomplished right now, via the existing AppleTV box. FAIL.
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Originally Posted by REC
It's a television set and a computer. For some people this could potentially be their only PC, just like any other iOS device.
Yeah, there's no end of people ready to do their word processing and Photoshop work on their couch, using a screen across the room. BIG FAT FAIL.
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Originally Posted by REC
As with everything Apple has been doing, is doing and will do, the point of this beast is to basically replace another Windows PC.
:sigh: he's off his meds. FAIL.
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Originally Posted by REC
It will not be for everyone, and if you're about to criticize my post out of some kind of nerd-rage self interest, it's not for you. I'm right, you're wrong, bookmark it.
"I'm right, you're wrong". Gee, who can argue with that kind of logic?
I'll tell you who: Anyone with half a brain. FAIL.
Apple blew up the mediacentre/AppleTV/googleTV market (however young and small it is).
Apple blew up the tablet market.
Apple even blew up the way people BUY products with their huge stores that pull in the highest per square foot sales of any retail chain and their online store that ships custom built products in just 24 hours. Its unparalleled.
Not everything Apple does is a success (uhm, Ping), but they do have a history of some very big successes in markets that were previously very dominated by other very big players.
The TV market is big, growing, fragmented, and full of mediocre companies with mediocre products. Its ripe for plucking.
Not everything Apple does is a success (uhm, Ping), but they do have a history of some very big successes in markets that were previously very dominated by other very big players.
So can they or can’t they? You say they go on to agree with my point that not everything they do turns out to be a market success.
You are failing to see that owning a market takes a lot of work. Apple can’t just walk in and say, “We’re here, give us all the monies!” This takes a lot of work and planning and you need to have your what, why, how and when pre-planned.
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The TV market is big, growing, fragmented, and full of mediocre companies with mediocre products. Its ripe for plucking.
Then detail it for us. Tell us how cable/sat and DVRs work into what I think is an indescribable product concept.
Folks have mentioned aTV like a dozen times in this thread and no one yet has pointed to anything (beyond camera placement for facetime) as ANY sort of reason to make a "smart hdtv" vs a aTV/HDTV combo. There are all sorts of downsides and currently no upsides.
You missed it, but it was there. A few people have already mentioned wanting a more sensible TV user interface and less clutter, meaning fewer devices, fewer wires and fewer remotes. Whether that's enough, or whether there are other possibilities that can make it compelling at typical Apple margins and wrangle the media companies into accepting it is a very different question. I do think TV user interfaces in general do need a swift kick in the butt, they're usually clunky, ugly and counterintuitive, making it frustrating. Apple seems to be the only prospective party that can do that. As much as I'd like to see them do that, I think the proponents should acknowledge there are pieces of the proposition that are daunting and possibly intractable in terms of making it a successful product.
Second, any prediction that Apple will develop a HDTV offering will be like stating that Apple will develop a smartphone offering and postulating a Blackberry like device. If they DO make a TV at some point it'll be equally NOT what folks are imagining as an Apple branded HDTV with an embedded aTV inside.
You missed it, but it was there. A few people have already mentioned wanting a more sensible TV user interface and less clutter, meaning fewer devices, fewer wires and fewer remotes. Whether that's enough, or whether there are other possibilities that can make it compelling at typical Apple margins and wrangle the media companies into accepting it is a very different question. I do think TV user interfaces in general do need a swift kick in the butt, they're usually clunky, ugly and counterintuitive, making it frustrating. Apple seems to be the only prospective party that can do that. As much as I'd like to see them do that, I think the proponents should acknowledge there are pieces of the proposition that are daunting and possibly intractable in terms of making it a successful product.
Correct. This above all other reasons is why they can succeed in doing this. This is where the opportunity is.
I cannot see the correlation between Mac market share having to directly do with Photoshop and MS Office. When Photoshop and MS Office can be used on a wide variety of computers.
That is the point of the iTunes ecosystem.
The wording of this question is confusing? Are you asking what percentage of the apps are driving the success of iOS? Or what percentage of iOS apps made by Apple drive the success of iOS?
Can you name an American computer company that actually physically manufactures its own computers?
You expecting Apple do build and run its own manufacturing facilities when no one else does?
What other mobile phone manufacturer doesn't need all of the world wide wireless partners?
You expect Apple to build and maintain a world wide wireless communications network when no one else does?
Apple is primarily a hardware company that creates its own software, software development platform and content distribution services to support its hardware.
Traditional broadcast and cable companies are all fighting to maintain that their business models and profits are not upset by a newer distribution model that they cannot directly control.
If Apple were to offer its own television Apple would want to offer its own unique content service. Apple would not collude with traditional broadcasters or cable television.
The majority of these entities would not agree to cooperate with Apple in doing anything radically different from what is already being done.
My original post was a reply to a post by AppleStud saying that Apple is dependent on no one else for their success. If you picked up only the part quoted by Gatorguy, you missed my entire thrust, i.e., your comments were all relevant on their own, but none was in response to the point I was making.
So won't go bullet by bullet, but a few points do deserve a bit of fleshing out for those who haven't been around for whole 35 year ride or haven't studied it in depth. Looking at your post total, and having read you many times, I know that doesn't include you, i.e., this is for general consumption, and not a slam at you.
Photoshop: For example, PS was originally developed for the Mac and was one of the "killer apps" that made it viable by capturing a good chunk of the image-making market, even tho' Adobe later dropped Apple to second class status during their darkest days and began bringing out new releases on Windows first. And it was well into the Mac revival before they finally brought out a Cocoa version to bring comparative performance back up to par.
But when Apple was clinging to the artist, enthusiast and K-12 markets as last bastions, Photoshop was a major prop holding the company up.
Office: MS agreed to keep developing Office on the Mac for "at least 5 years" (much more than 5 years ago now) and dropped a $150M cash infusion into the company around the same time. They did this not out of the philanthropic reasons that led to today's "Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation," but so that Apple would not go out of business at a time when the Justice Department was actively considering major anti-trust action against Microsoft, and helping keep Apple "relevant" was MS's best way to show that there was still "meaningful competition" in the PC market.
Lacking Office - and mainly lacking compatibility with its file formats - Apple would have dropped from view in the small business and professional markets and become useless in the few larger corporations where it maintained a presence in a few departments.
Both products persist today - on both platforms, and finally with near parity between Office for Win and Mac - not out of love - as there are many sore spots between Apple and Adobe and between Apple and MS - but because Apple not only did not founder, but has become again an important platform (and profit source) neither can afford NOT to be on.
Still, this in no way negates the fact that Apple never was and is not now (nor will ever be for that matter) totally independent of other companies.
Apps: As for mobile devices, beyond the core functions, Apple makes relatively few of the "hundreds of thousands of apps" that have helped create the perception that iOS is the place for ISV's - and therefore for users - to be today. This is key, even if most users only download a few free or low-cost apps (or none at all). Still, the fact is that most mobile app developers who are making money are making most of it on iOS. iPhone users are far more avid about buying apps than Android users. (Despite Android's geek sub-base which loves to bash iOS for being "closed" and a "toy," Android users as a whole are arguably cheaper and less sophisticated than iOS users.)
So again, third parties have been, are and will be instrumental to Apple's success in this arena.
Outsourced manufacture: We all know that American tech widget companies have ceded actual manufacturing to Asia. (I personally think there will be a [high] price to pay for that down the road - and not just for Apple - for a number of reasons, but that's another topic for another time.)
Still, if Apple hadn't been able to get the quality of manufacture it needed at a feasible price from third parties..... ...again, the point is that no Apple (or any other really major tech company) is an island. Etc., etc. re your other comments.
Apple and all of us are enmeshed in more than one kind of "web."
So having made that point, I then went on to speculate about what those interdependencies might - in my amateur opinion - might augur about whether launching a line of one or two models of TV into the vast commodity-centered home screen market makes sense at the moment, and concluded they'd be better off for the moment piggy-backing on the thousands of models already in people's living room with $99-$399 companion devices that make all those screens iOS-friendly. Including for reasons you yourself make in your last three paragraphs.
So can they or can?t they? You say they go on to agree with my point that not everything they do turns out to be a market success.
Regarding TVs, yes I think they can. Ping sucks because it has no value prop and does LESS than competing services. I don't think they ever should have released Ping. An Apple TV could easily do everything current TVs so and much MORE. Thats why I think it could be very successful.
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You are failing to see that owning a market takes a lot of work. Apple can?t just walk in and say, ?We?re here, give us all the monies!? This takes a lot of work and planning and you need to have your what, why, how and when pre-planned.
Which is why Apple has been working on it for years. Every new product Apple releases was conceived years before. They aren't suddenly deciding to release a TV because they sold a million Apple TV boxes. They sold a million Apple TV boxes because they want to release a TV.
And normally I would agree with you that a company can't just open their doors, say "we're here" and expect people to come running, but lately Apple has been an exception. The iPhone was pitched to AT&T and without ever seeing it AT&T snapped it up. The moment Apple unveiled the iPhone customers around the world were begging their carriers to release it. Apple can't make enough of them. Same thing with the iPad. I don't know of any other company that has ever accomplished this on such a large scale.
A lot of work goes into the product and the strategy, but when it finally makes it to market customers come running because its just too good and everything else is just too mediocre.
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Then detail it for us. Tell us how cable/sat and DVRs work into what I think is an indescribable product concept.
Cable/sat tuners are done. They're old news and although people still buy and use them if we look several years into the future we can see a huge shift happening. Whereas currently the tuner is the center of the home theatre, in the future smart/connected TVs will be the center. Tuners will be relegated to peripheral status. They will be used occasionally instead of consistently. They represent they way things were done and are done, but not the way things will be done.
As you can probably tell I'm a bit of a futurist, which is why its so easy for me to look past current confines and see future possibilities. There is almost nothing that cannot be torn down and replaced, and its easiest to do when people deny that its possible. Thats when they are most vulnerable
You missed it, but it was there. A few people have already mentioned wanting a more sensible TV user interface and less clutter, meaning fewer devices, fewer wires and fewer remotes.
You?re talking ONE less cable and ONE less device that only takes up 4?x4?x1? just so you can have a nice UI for your monitor settings? How often are people jumping into their TVs settings anyway? The only common usage should be the Input and Volume, both of which are overlays, not internal menus.
You still have all those other devices connected to the TV which won?t go away simply from combining the AppleTV with an HDTV. You still have a very expensive AppleTV that will now be without annually or bi-annually AppleTV HW upgrades on the cheap. You still having no reason why people would pay $1,999 over $99 for a device that only reduces ONE cable and ONE tiny box.
In today's new multiscreen wordl I don't know why people put only one tv on their wall. I'd mount and use two or even four screens for a kickass experience and maybe find a way to integrate both/all four if I want.
You have to acknowledge why these efforts are not very successful to understand what Apple would need to do to gain success. Beginning with the fact that few people desire to have Facebook and Twitter on their television.
Sure people have failed trying to do the same things I've predicted. But if it can be done Apple has the Brand Loyalty within its ecosystem and the expertise to make it profitable to there hardware division.
Like iTunes they don't have to make money on TVs.
As for wanting Facebook or Twitter on a TV, I agree, and I wouldn't trust those entities with my privacy. However, I would trust Apple with my privacy. MobileMe can be in my TV anytime. Those who respect Apple's vision and wall-garden ecosystem do have the brand loyalty and trust to make this profitable to Apple. There are tens of millions of us just waiting for this to happen.
Which is why Apple has been working on it for years. Every new product Apple releases was conceived years before. They aren't suddenly deciding to release a TV because they sold a million Apple TV boxes. They sold a million Apple TV boxes because they want to release a TV.
That is fanciful conjecture, not factual.
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And normally I would agree with you that a company can't just open their doors, say "we're here" and expect people to come running, but lately Apple has been an exception.
Apple?s been the exception because they have been exceptional. When the weren?t exceptional their offerings have failed to overtake a market so saying they will succeed because they are Apple is not any way accurate. They work hard to succeed and just like they say about knowing what not to include in their products, they also have a good track record of knowing what markets not to enter before they have a viable plan.
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The iPhone was pitched to AT&T and without ever seeing it AT&T snapped it up.
It was Cingular and they were apparently not the first. If you what you say is true about Apple?s Midas touch in business then Verizon wouldn?t have turned them down.
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The moment Apple unveiled the iPhone customers around the world were begging their carriers to release it. Apple can't make enough of them. Same thing with the iPad. I don't know of any other company that has ever accomplished this on such a large scale.
They accomplished this by knowing when and how to enter the market, not simply by entering the market. It?s ludicrous to think otherwise!
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Cable/sat tuners are done. They're old news and although people still buy and use them if we look several years into the future we can see a huge shift happening. Whereas currently the tuner is the center of the home theatre, in the future smart/connected TVs will be the center. Tuners will be relegated to peripheral status. They will be used occasionally instead of consistently. They represent they way things were done and are done, but not the way things will be done.
Show us proof. I don?t see these appliances as being ?done? in any way. Your plan means that I won?t be able to watch my HBO and Showtime original programming unless I rent/buy it from iTS or wait for Netflx to get the DVD/streaming rights.
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As you can probably tell I'm a bit of a futurist, which is why its so easy for me to look past current confines and see future possibilities. There is almost nothing that cannot be torn down and replaced, and its easiest to do when people deny that its possible. Thats when they are most vulnerable
You?re not being futuristic, your just excited about the prospect of replacing a bunch of boxes for a single monitor in your living room.
Photoshop: For example, PS was originally developed for the Mac and was one of the "killer apps" that made it viable by capturing a good chunk of the image-making market,
Lacking Office - and mainly lacking compatibility with its file formats - Apple would have dropped from view in the small business and professional markets and become useless in the few larger corporations where it maintained a presence in a few departments.
From the tone of your post. It sounds as if your over all point is that Apple needs Photoshop and MS Office more than they need Apple. I think that misses the point that the Mac was the most organized platform to develop for when Word and Photoshop were originally launched.
Adobe and MS are not developing applications for the Mac to help Apple. The only reason they are doing it is because it is profitable for them.
As far as the money MS invested in Apple it was only a token gesture. Apple was holding over a billion in cash at the time.
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Still, this in no way negates the fact that Apple never was and is not now (nor will ever be for that matter) totally independent of other companies.
Yeah I'm not sure why this point needed to be made, as no company can operate totally independent of other companies.
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Apps: As for mobile devices, beyond the core functions, Apple makes relatively few of the "hundreds of thousands of apps" that have helped create the perception that iOS is the place for ISV's - and therefore for users - to be today.
So again, third parties have been, are and will be instrumental to Apple's success in this arena.
Apple sold roughly 12 million iPhone's before the App Store existed. While I agree 3rd party apps certainly help grow the functionality and usefulness of the iPhone. The iPhone was successful before 3rd party apps were available for it.
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So having made that point, I then went on to speculate about what those interdependencies might - in my amateur opinion - might augur about whether launching a line of one or two models of TV into the vast commodity-centered home screen market makes sense at the moment, and concluded they'd be better off for the moment piggy-backing on the thousands of models already in people's living room with $99-$399 companion devices that make all those screens iOS-friendly. Including for reasons you yourself make in your last three paragraphs.
Offered respectfully....
I agree. At this point its more productive and profitable for Apple to openly license AirPlay and allow every audio/visual device on the market to stream content from iOS. Than to get into the television business themselves.
This is thread is overly ridiculous. Sure, they aren?t required to make a profit, but to assume they would go to all this trouble just to lose money makes no sense.
Oh, and they had $1.1B in iTunes revenue last quarter. No idea of the profit but I have to assume there is a decent profit in there.
Why: Perhaps because the money isn't in TVs but in the content that TVs display.
For example, printer manufacturers rake it in selling cartridges, not printers.
Apple pulled a fast-one on the entire music industry by first only making iPods that were compatible with Macs. It allowed them to sell the idea to the music industry as a way to prevent copying, since mac marketshare is relatively small. But it's Apple who got complete control.
The complexity in TVs isn't an obstacle to market; it's an incentive. Anyone who can do with video content what Apple did with music will be sitting pretty for a long time.
Further, people actually buy TVs. They may not buy them with the regularity "commodity" manufacturers may like, but they buy them. Who buys Apple TVs--the $99 doohickey thing? It doesn't matter if ATV is a great TV and can do a million things--if nobody buys them. Heck, I argued for a long time that Apple should just drop bluray into ATV--to give someone a reason to buy one. But that would defeat the point for Apple which is to sell iTunes content.
If the iTunes content were embedded in the TV, then people would buy the TV for the TV; they wouldn't care about iTunes just like they don't care about ATV. The TVs would sell better than ATVs. More people would be exposed to iTunes content and use it, meeting Apple's intended end, even if it were an accidental byproduct of the TV purchaser.
Save for FaceTime all that can be served from the current AppleTV. A device that is considerably more affordable than an HDTV. A device that can be updated and re-purchased often. A device that will work with any monitor that accepts HDMI. I’m just not seeing a business model that is more profitable than the AppleTV.
I’ve even made mention of a device that has CableCard options, an Apple Home Server, directly or remotely attached that can be used a DVR, a passthrough (HDMI-input) on the AppleTV so you can use your current sat/cable setup with the AppleTV UI as the primary interface, deals with networks, and deals with TV vendors for incorporating the AppleTV into it. There has to be a path to profit. Where is it?
I don't have your experience in technology and my opinions are my own. You maybe right from a business sense. Business needs to feed their stockholders and Apple is no different. But Apple didn't make profit when they bought SoundJam and many people didn't see the vision behind it.
Apple believes it makes more money indirectly from creating magic that people want. Consumers want stability, a trusted brand, platform security, and ease of use. TV are easy and popular, in part, because you just turn it on and it works. Even if Apple just made a cheap screen with a tuner, stick in some local storage, and that AppleTV box (which it could still sell for choice) to control everything including DVR, I know of many people who would jump at it. I know I would, and I believe Apple will do it even better than that and they could absorb the low margins with their economy of scale.
Remember, many in business said "Nobody wants an ALL-In- Computer," but the iMac showed them wrong. My guess is Apple won't actually make a TV. Just a much much bigger and more functional iPad that people will think is a TV and hang it on the wall.
Comments
@solipsism... I think REC is more right than he is wrong. Both of you make sense though. However, IMO, I think Apple is really after an Interactive pseudo-TV experience. TV content would not be the main selling point.
Game playing with friends or others (maybe mobileMe users), all sorts of dedicated Apps, and Facetime as a social/family network and or business conferencing, projector etc. All connect to the Apple's cloud and ecosystem. Put this together with Apple's software expertise and it would be hard to beat. It would reinvent TV "usage" without fighting the TV/Movie Studios. But they'll soon come running to Apple for a piece of the action. I bet TWC and Cablevision (if they win their lawsuits) are just waiting for Apple to make its move at the focal point of the living room.
Save for FaceTime all that can be served from the current AppleTV. A device that is considerably more affordable than an HDTV. A device that can be updated and re-purchased often. A device that will work with any monitor that accepts HDMI. I?m just not seeing a business model that is more profitable than the AppleTV.
I?ve even made mention of a device that has CableCard options, an Apple Home Server, directly or remotely attached that can be used a DVR, a passthrough (HDMI-input) on the AppleTV so you can use your current sat/cable setup with the AppleTV UI as the primary interface, deals with networks, and deals with TV vendors for incorporating the AppleTV into it. There has to be a path to profit. Where is it?
Apple is doing this, take my word for it.
"Take your WORD for it?" Nowhere near good enough. FAIL.
Think of it more as a computer than a TV set. It will be multifunction in the designed and targeted ways Apple likes to add functionality.
Empty jargon that means nothing and tells me zip about WHY Apple thinks it will make a profit on this. FAIL.
Emphasis on Facetime, since building in a camera to the panel in the right spot is important to the experience.
Yeah, people will buy a new $1000-2000 TV because it has a camera on top. 'Cause it's not like they're built into, oh I don't know, everything ELSE they own at this point. Ow, my sides hurt from laughing. FAIL.
Emphasis on apps and a new platform for app development.
Which could be accomplished right now, via the existing AppleTV box. FAIL.
It's a television set and a computer. For some people this could potentially be their only PC, just like any other iOS device.
Yeah, there's no end of people ready to do their word processing and Photoshop work on their couch, using a screen across the room. BIG FAT FAIL.
As with everything Apple has been doing, is doing and will do, the point of this beast is to basically replace another Windows PC.
:sigh: he's off his meds. FAIL.
It will not be for everyone, and if you're about to criticize my post out of some kind of nerd-rage self interest, it's not for you. I'm right, you're wrong, bookmark it.
"I'm right, you're wrong". Gee, who can argue with that kind of logic?
I'll tell you who: Anyone with half a brain. FAIL.
Apple can?t just walk in and make a market work.
Apparently Apple disagrees with you.
Apple blew up the MP3 player market.
Apple blew up the digital music market.
Apple blew up the mobile phone market.
Apple blew up the laptop market.
Apple blew up the all-in-one desktop market.
Apple blew up the mediacentre/AppleTV/googleTV market (however young and small it is).
Apple blew up the tablet market.
Apple even blew up the way people BUY products with their huge stores that pull in the highest per square foot sales of any retail chain and their online store that ships custom built products in just 24 hours. Its unparalleled.
Not everything Apple does is a success (uhm, Ping), but they do have a history of some very big successes in markets that were previously very dominated by other very big players.
The TV market is big, growing, fragmented, and full of mediocre companies with mediocre products. Its ripe for plucking.
Apple can’t just walk in and make a market work.
Apparently Apple disagrees with you.
[…]
Not everything Apple does is a success (uhm, Ping), but they do have a history of some very big successes in markets that were previously very dominated by other very big players.
So can they or can’t they? You say they go on to agree with my point that not everything they do turns out to be a market success.
You are failing to see that owning a market takes a lot of work. Apple can’t just walk in and say, “We’re here, give us all the monies!” This takes a lot of work and planning and you need to have your what, why, how and when pre-planned.
The TV market is big, growing, fragmented, and full of mediocre companies with mediocre products. Its ripe for plucking.
Then detail it for us. Tell us how cable/sat and DVRs work into what I think is an indescribable product concept.
Folks have mentioned aTV like a dozen times in this thread and no one yet has pointed to anything (beyond camera placement for facetime) as ANY sort of reason to make a "smart hdtv" vs a aTV/HDTV combo. There are all sorts of downsides and currently no upsides.
You missed it, but it was there. A few people have already mentioned wanting a more sensible TV user interface and less clutter, meaning fewer devices, fewer wires and fewer remotes. Whether that's enough, or whether there are other possibilities that can make it compelling at typical Apple margins and wrangle the media companies into accepting it is a very different question. I do think TV user interfaces in general do need a swift kick in the butt, they're usually clunky, ugly and counterintuitive, making it frustrating. Apple seems to be the only prospective party that can do that. As much as I'd like to see them do that, I think the proponents should acknowledge there are pieces of the proposition that are daunting and possibly intractable in terms of making it a successful product.
Second, any prediction that Apple will develop a HDTV offering will be like stating that Apple will develop a smartphone offering and postulating a Blackberry like device. If they DO make a TV at some point it'll be equally NOT what folks are imagining as an Apple branded HDTV with an embedded aTV inside.
What?
You missed it, but it was there. A few people have already mentioned wanting a more sensible TV user interface and less clutter, meaning fewer devices, fewer wires and fewer remotes. Whether that's enough, or whether there are other possibilities that can make it compelling at typical Apple margins and wrangle the media companies into accepting it is a very different question. I do think TV user interfaces in general do need a swift kick in the butt, they're usually clunky, ugly and counterintuitive, making it frustrating. Apple seems to be the only prospective party that can do that. As much as I'd like to see them do that, I think the proponents should acknowledge there are pieces of the proposition that are daunting and possibly intractable in terms of making it a successful product.
Correct. This above all other reasons is why they can succeed in doing this. This is where the opportunity is.
Correct. This above all other reasons is why they can succeed in doing this. This is where the opportunity is.
All you?re saying is they will succeed because they haven?t done it yet. That isn?t a business model. That isn?t a plan.
A few people have already mentioned wanting a more sensible TV user interface... Apple seems to be the only prospective party that can do that.
TiVo. Next case.
I cannot see the correlation between Mac market share having to directly do with Photoshop and MS Office. When Photoshop and MS Office can be used on a wide variety of computers.
That is the point of the iTunes ecosystem.
The wording of this question is confusing? Are you asking what percentage of the apps are driving the success of iOS? Or what percentage of iOS apps made by Apple drive the success of iOS?
Can you name an American computer company that actually physically manufactures its own computers?
You expecting Apple do build and run its own manufacturing facilities when no one else does?
What other mobile phone manufacturer doesn't need all of the world wide wireless partners?
You expect Apple to build and maintain a world wide wireless communications network when no one else does?
Apple is primarily a hardware company that creates its own software, software development platform and content distribution services to support its hardware.
Traditional broadcast and cable companies are all fighting to maintain that their business models and profits are not upset by a newer distribution model that they cannot directly control.
If Apple were to offer its own television Apple would want to offer its own unique content service. Apple would not collude with traditional broadcasters or cable television.
The majority of these entities would not agree to cooperate with Apple in doing anything radically different from what is already being done.
My original post was a reply to a post by AppleStud saying that Apple is dependent on no one else for their success. If you picked up only the part quoted by Gatorguy, you missed my entire thrust, i.e., your comments were all relevant on their own, but none was in response to the point I was making.
So won't go bullet by bullet, but a few points do deserve a bit of fleshing out for those who haven't been around for whole 35 year ride or haven't studied it in depth. Looking at your post total, and having read you many times, I know that doesn't include you, i.e., this is for general consumption, and not a slam at you.
Photoshop: For example, PS was originally developed for the Mac and was one of the "killer apps" that made it viable by capturing a good chunk of the image-making market, even tho' Adobe later dropped Apple to second class status during their darkest days and began bringing out new releases on Windows first. And it was well into the Mac revival before they finally brought out a Cocoa version to bring comparative performance back up to par.
But when Apple was clinging to the artist, enthusiast and K-12 markets as last bastions, Photoshop was a major prop holding the company up.
Office: MS agreed to keep developing Office on the Mac for "at least 5 years" (much more than 5 years ago now) and dropped a $150M cash infusion into the company around the same time. They did this not out of the philanthropic reasons that led to today's "Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation," but so that Apple would not go out of business at a time when the Justice Department was actively considering major anti-trust action against Microsoft, and helping keep Apple "relevant" was MS's best way to show that there was still "meaningful competition" in the PC market.
Lacking Office - and mainly lacking compatibility with its file formats - Apple would have dropped from view in the small business and professional markets and become useless in the few larger corporations where it maintained a presence in a few departments.
Both products persist today - on both platforms, and finally with near parity between Office for Win and Mac - not out of love - as there are many sore spots between Apple and Adobe and between Apple and MS - but because Apple not only did not founder, but has become again an important platform (and profit source) neither can afford NOT to be on.
Still, this in no way negates the fact that Apple never was and is not now (nor will ever be for that matter) totally independent of other companies.
Apps: As for mobile devices, beyond the core functions, Apple makes relatively few of the "hundreds of thousands of apps" that have helped create the perception that iOS is the place for ISV's - and therefore for users - to be today. This is key, even if most users only download a few free or low-cost apps (or none at all). Still, the fact is that most mobile app developers who are making money are making most of it on iOS. iPhone users are far more avid about buying apps than Android users. (Despite Android's geek sub-base which loves to bash iOS for being "closed" and a "toy," Android users as a whole are arguably cheaper and less sophisticated than iOS users.)
So again, third parties have been, are and will be instrumental to Apple's success in this arena.
Outsourced manufacture: We all know that American tech widget companies have ceded actual manufacturing to Asia. (I personally think there will be a [high] price to pay for that down the road - and not just for Apple - for a number of reasons, but that's another topic for another time.)
Still, if Apple hadn't been able to get the quality of manufacture it needed at a feasible price from third parties..... ...again, the point is that no Apple (or any other really major tech company) is an island. Etc., etc. re your other comments.
Apple and all of us are enmeshed in more than one kind of "web."
So having made that point, I then went on to speculate about what those interdependencies might - in my amateur opinion - might augur about whether launching a line of one or two models of TV into the vast commodity-centered home screen market makes sense at the moment, and concluded they'd be better off for the moment piggy-backing on the thousands of models already in people's living room with $99-$399 companion devices that make all those screens iOS-friendly. Including for reasons you yourself make in your last three paragraphs.
Offered respectfully....
So can they or can?t they? You say they go on to agree with my point that not everything they do turns out to be a market success.
Regarding TVs, yes I think they can. Ping sucks because it has no value prop and does LESS than competing services. I don't think they ever should have released Ping. An Apple TV could easily do everything current TVs so and much MORE. Thats why I think it could be very successful.
You are failing to see that owning a market takes a lot of work. Apple can?t just walk in and say, ?We?re here, give us all the monies!? This takes a lot of work and planning and you need to have your what, why, how and when pre-planned.
Which is why Apple has been working on it for years. Every new product Apple releases was conceived years before. They aren't suddenly deciding to release a TV because they sold a million Apple TV boxes. They sold a million Apple TV boxes because they want to release a TV.
And normally I would agree with you that a company can't just open their doors, say "we're here" and expect people to come running, but lately Apple has been an exception. The iPhone was pitched to AT&T and without ever seeing it AT&T snapped it up. The moment Apple unveiled the iPhone customers around the world were begging their carriers to release it. Apple can't make enough of them. Same thing with the iPad. I don't know of any other company that has ever accomplished this on such a large scale.
A lot of work goes into the product and the strategy, but when it finally makes it to market customers come running because its just too good and everything else is just too mediocre.
Then detail it for us. Tell us how cable/sat and DVRs work into what I think is an indescribable product concept.
Cable/sat tuners are done. They're old news and although people still buy and use them if we look several years into the future we can see a huge shift happening. Whereas currently the tuner is the center of the home theatre, in the future smart/connected TVs will be the center. Tuners will be relegated to peripheral status. They will be used occasionally instead of consistently. They represent they way things were done and are done, but not the way things will be done.
As you can probably tell I'm a bit of a futurist, which is why its so easy for me to look past current confines and see future possibilities. There is almost nothing that cannot be torn down and replaced, and its easiest to do when people deny that its possible. Thats when they are most vulnerable
You missed it, but it was there. A few people have already mentioned wanting a more sensible TV user interface and less clutter, meaning fewer devices, fewer wires and fewer remotes.
You?re talking ONE less cable and ONE less device that only takes up 4?x4?x1? just so you can have a nice UI for your monitor settings? How often are people jumping into their TVs settings anyway? The only common usage should be the Input and Volume, both of which are overlays, not internal menus.
You still have all those other devices connected to the TV which won?t go away simply from combining the AppleTV with an HDTV. You still have a very expensive AppleTV that will now be without annually or bi-annually AppleTV HW upgrades on the cheap. You still having no reason why people would pay $1,999 over $99 for a device that only reduces ONE cable and ONE tiny box.
What you describe is already being attempted with little sign of success.
Google TV
Samsung Internet Television
Sony/Google TV
You have to acknowledge why these efforts are not very successful to understand what Apple would need to do to gain success. Beginning with the fact that few people desire to have Facebook and Twitter on their television.
Sure people have failed trying to do the same things I've predicted. But if it can be done Apple has the Brand Loyalty within its ecosystem and the expertise to make it profitable to there hardware division.
Like iTunes they don't have to make money on TVs.
As for wanting Facebook or Twitter on a TV, I agree, and I wouldn't trust those entities with my privacy. However, I would trust Apple with my privacy. MobileMe can be in my TV anytime. Those who respect Apple's vision and wall-garden ecosystem do have the brand loyalty and trust to make this profitable to Apple. There are tens of millions of us just waiting for this to happen.
Which is why Apple has been working on it for years. Every new product Apple releases was conceived years before. They aren't suddenly deciding to release a TV because they sold a million Apple TV boxes. They sold a million Apple TV boxes because they want to release a TV.
That is fanciful conjecture, not factual.
And normally I would agree with you that a company can't just open their doors, say "we're here" and expect people to come running, but lately Apple has been an exception.
Apple?s been the exception because they have been exceptional. When the weren?t exceptional their offerings have failed to overtake a market so saying they will succeed because they are Apple is not any way accurate. They work hard to succeed and just like they say about knowing what not to include in their products, they also have a good track record of knowing what markets not to enter before they have a viable plan.
The iPhone was pitched to AT&T and without ever seeing it AT&T snapped it up.
It was Cingular and they were apparently not the first. If you what you say is true about Apple?s Midas touch in business then Verizon wouldn?t have turned them down.
The moment Apple unveiled the iPhone customers around the world were begging their carriers to release it. Apple can't make enough of them. Same thing with the iPad. I don't know of any other company that has ever accomplished this on such a large scale.
They accomplished this by knowing when and how to enter the market, not simply by entering the market. It?s ludicrous to think otherwise!
Cable/sat tuners are done. They're old news and although people still buy and use them if we look several years into the future we can see a huge shift happening. Whereas currently the tuner is the center of the home theatre, in the future smart/connected TVs will be the center. Tuners will be relegated to peripheral status. They will be used occasionally instead of consistently. They represent they way things were done and are done, but not the way things will be done.
Show us proof. I don?t see these appliances as being ?done? in any way. Your plan means that I won?t be able to watch my HBO and Showtime original programming unless I rent/buy it from iTS or wait for Netflx to get the DVD/streaming rights.
As you can probably tell I'm a bit of a futurist, which is why its so easy for me to look past current confines and see future possibilities. There is almost nothing that cannot be torn down and replaced, and its easiest to do when people deny that its possible. Thats when they are most vulnerable
You?re not being futuristic, your just excited about the prospect of replacing a bunch of boxes for a single monitor in your living room.
Photoshop: For example, PS was originally developed for the Mac and was one of the "killer apps" that made it viable by capturing a good chunk of the image-making market,
Lacking Office - and mainly lacking compatibility with its file formats - Apple would have dropped from view in the small business and professional markets and become useless in the few larger corporations where it maintained a presence in a few departments.
From the tone of your post. It sounds as if your over all point is that Apple needs Photoshop and MS Office more than they need Apple. I think that misses the point that the Mac was the most organized platform to develop for when Word and Photoshop were originally launched.
Adobe and MS are not developing applications for the Mac to help Apple. The only reason they are doing it is because it is profitable for them.
As far as the money MS invested in Apple it was only a token gesture. Apple was holding over a billion in cash at the time.
Still, this in no way negates the fact that Apple never was and is not now (nor will ever be for that matter) totally independent of other companies.
Yeah I'm not sure why this point needed to be made, as no company can operate totally independent of other companies.
Apps: As for mobile devices, beyond the core functions, Apple makes relatively few of the "hundreds of thousands of apps" that have helped create the perception that iOS is the place for ISV's - and therefore for users - to be today.
So again, third parties have been, are and will be instrumental to Apple's success in this arena.
Apple sold roughly 12 million iPhone's before the App Store existed. While I agree 3rd party apps certainly help grow the functionality and usefulness of the iPhone. The iPhone was successful before 3rd party apps were available for it.
So having made that point, I then went on to speculate about what those interdependencies might - in my amateur opinion - might augur about whether launching a line of one or two models of TV into the vast commodity-centered home screen market makes sense at the moment, and concluded they'd be better off for the moment piggy-backing on the thousands of models already in people's living room with $99-$399 companion devices that make all those screens iOS-friendly. Including for reasons you yourself make in your last three paragraphs.
Offered respectfully....
I agree. At this point its more productive and profitable for Apple to openly license AirPlay and allow every audio/visual device on the market to stream content from iOS. Than to get into the television business themselves.
Like iTunes they don't have to make money on TVs.
This is thread is overly ridiculous. Sure, they aren?t required to make a profit, but to assume they would go to all this trouble just to lose money makes no sense.
Oh, and they had $1.1B in iTunes revenue last quarter. No idea of the profit but I have to assume there is a decent profit in there.
For example, printer manufacturers rake it in selling cartridges, not printers.
Apple pulled a fast-one on the entire music industry by first only making iPods that were compatible with Macs. It allowed them to sell the idea to the music industry as a way to prevent copying, since mac marketshare is relatively small. But it's Apple who got complete control.
The complexity in TVs isn't an obstacle to market; it's an incentive. Anyone who can do with video content what Apple did with music will be sitting pretty for a long time.
Further, people actually buy TVs. They may not buy them with the regularity "commodity" manufacturers may like, but they buy them. Who buys Apple TVs--the $99 doohickey thing? It doesn't matter if ATV is a great TV and can do a million things--if nobody buys them. Heck, I argued for a long time that Apple should just drop bluray into ATV--to give someone a reason to buy one. But that would defeat the point for Apple which is to sell iTunes content.
If the iTunes content were embedded in the TV, then people would buy the TV for the TV; they wouldn't care about iTunes just like they don't care about ATV. The TVs would sell better than ATVs. More people would be exposed to iTunes content and use it, meeting Apple's intended end, even if it were an accidental byproduct of the TV purchaser.
What?
He?s saying they?ll reinvent the market, not play follow the leader.
Save for FaceTime all that can be served from the current AppleTV. A device that is considerably more affordable than an HDTV. A device that can be updated and re-purchased often. A device that will work with any monitor that accepts HDMI. I’m just not seeing a business model that is more profitable than the AppleTV.
I’ve even made mention of a device that has CableCard options, an Apple Home Server, directly or remotely attached that can be used a DVR, a passthrough (HDMI-input) on the AppleTV so you can use your current sat/cable setup with the AppleTV UI as the primary interface, deals with networks, and deals with TV vendors for incorporating the AppleTV into it. There has to be a path to profit. Where is it?
I don't have your experience in technology and my opinions are my own. You maybe right from a business sense. Business needs to feed their stockholders and Apple is no different. But Apple didn't make profit when they bought SoundJam and many people didn't see the vision behind it.
Apple believes it makes more money indirectly from creating magic that people want. Consumers want stability, a trusted brand, platform security, and ease of use. TV are easy and popular, in part, because you just turn it on and it works. Even if Apple just made a cheap screen with a tuner, stick in some local storage, and that AppleTV box (which it could still sell for choice) to control everything including DVR, I know of many people who would jump at it. I know I would, and I believe Apple will do it even better than that and they could absorb the low margins with their economy of scale.
Remember, many in business said "Nobody wants an ALL-In- Computer," but the iMac showed them wrong. My guess is Apple won't actually make a TV. Just a much much bigger and more functional iPad that people will think is a TV and hang it on the wall.