Any Apple HDTV would have to be CHEAPER than competitors' models, and I just don't see how that'd happen and keep the usual Apple hardware flair.
And the usual Apple hardware profit margins.
Oh really? You do know that Apple is already the world's largest consumer of NAND memory, and thus gets the best component prices? And that Apple has signed contracts with Toshiba and other LCD panel manufacturers, right? And that Apple uses their own customized ARM chip instead of buying off-the-shelf Intel chips, right?
Do you see how iPad was cheaper than competitors' models with "the usual Apple hardware flair"? Apple did that by using their component purchasing leverage to negotiate lower prices. Hence their 40% hardware margin. Same thing in TVs.
And no, Apple wouldn't need to make their television cheaper. Same price or slightly higher and they'll sell just as many.
My dad, an old adman, use to say that TV shows were just filler for the commercials. If Apple controls the programming then they would own the ad revenue too. Seems to work well for Google and their searches.
My dad, an old adman, use to say that TV shows were just filler for the commercials. If Apple controls the programming then they would own the ad revenue too. Seems to work well for Google and their searches.
You just upped the stakes considerably. If all content goes through Apple, bypassing the traditional middlemen and handing much of the advertising delivery over to Apple it would indeed revolutionize the industry. Apple would have to to some very shrewd manoeuvring to pull something like that off.
As terrible as TV remotes and interfaces are, the key problem here is the content oligopoly of the TV networks and carriers. The reason TV interfaces are bad is because they have so much control. It's not because OEMs could not make smarter TVs. OEMs like Samsung are already adding apps that make their smartphone smart remotes for their TVs.
This is the reason Google TV never took off. Google wasn't trying to compete with Apple TV. Their vision was much bigger than that. They wanted to dumb down cable to just information/entertainment option among many services. The cablecos didn't like that.
No doubt it will have an Apple Remote, which I hate. There is no way on earth they will make a full remote, you will need to use an App and who wants to find their iOS device/ launch an app to change channel.
I like the Apple Remote. It's a thing of beauty. Minimalist, clean design, essential functionality, very similar to the click wheel on the iPods (would be awesome if it HAD a click wheel). I use it with Front Row. The remote itself appears cast from a single solid block of aluminum with no visible seams or cutlines. No one else makes a solid metal remote.
I work in the Vision department at a well-known electrical retailer in the UK and I'm starting to get bored of selling Samsung/Sony/Panasonic 3D LED Smart TV's.
Whilst these TV's (especially the Samsung TV's) look stunning, the Smart TV interface on these sets look clunky and awkward. Although customers like the idea of streaming content from different devices to a TV and accessing the Internet, no one has managed to do this in a compelling way yet as far as I'm concerned. I really do get frustrated demoing them sometimes.
I guess being an Apple fan I've been spoilt with beautifully made hardware/software and fantastic user experience!!
With iOS interface, SIRI and the iTunes/App store ecosystem (and the fact that a lot of customers own iPhones/iPod Touches) Apple could really do something amazing.
Although price is an important factor for many customers, there are still enough customers who are prepared to pay a premium price for a premium product. Apple could easily own this space.
My gut feeling though is that we will see another set-top-box instead...
1) Apple has a long history of focusing on the US market first, and then growing their brand. The US is still their largest single country for sales. I don't see Apple ignoring the US market for a product.
2) I've thought of a lot of ways this could work, all trying to think of how this nut could be cracked. Doing what all others are doing isn't cracking anything, it's just following in the footsteps of your competitors. I can't see Jobs saying that he figured out he needs to step in the footsteps of Samsung with a TV.
3) Logistics and physics are important. You can't put a $1000 50" HDTV in the space of a $2000 15" MBP. The items don't scale or work the same way. You also need to consider the revenue and profit. Look at how the iPod has been deprecated with this last special event as it becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of Apple's business. Are HDTVs likely to rival their iPad and iPhone business. Is sacrificing sales of them to store TVs in stores going to make sense?
4) Cable is an issue! These are a standard utility in the US. Furthermore, they are intertwined with the stations and networks very tightly. You can't simply say you'll stream all content over the internet when the cable internet service you're using is already paying huge lump sums for the access. These are important payments for the networks. Why do you think GoogleTV felt like such a threat? Of all the nuts this is the toughest to crack. Ignoring it will not solve it. I'm sure one day this union will falter and it won't be pretty but as of yet no one has come with a solution to break it apart. Well, maybe Jobs, but has yet to be seen, but slapping an Apple logo on a few TVs isn't going to cut it.
5) Putting a box inside another box isn't thinking outside the box. I'm not against Apple entering this market. I'm all for it, I just haven't heard much "out of the box thinking" that would revolutionize the market, outside of Siri integration.
Well you are a smart person and I respect your opinion, but I disagree with almost everything you've wrote here. I think you are not only wrong, you are "crazy wrong" on this. I don't understand why you can't see it.
No way in a million years would any Apple branded TV deal with cable TV and the networks as they exist today. That would be half the point of the reinvention.
No way in a million years would any Apple branded TV deal with cable TV and the networks as they exist today. That would be half the point of the reinvention.
Yet I'm the one who has repeatedly stated that it can't exist with the today's market until that is cracked. You and others seem to be defending the point that slapping an AppleTV in a TV would inherently make it great.
I've been asking since this rumour appears how they could change this tightly integrated relationships yet all I ever get is that an Apple branded TV would be awesome because it would have an Apple logo or reduce the clutter of one device. That isn't revolutionary at all and GoogleTV has shown that the networks are willing to fight swiftly and fiercely for their guaranteed revenue streams when threatened.
Where is the scenario that makes shows how Apple could possibly achieve this goal of reinventing the way content distributers, content providers, content owners, and content supporters (ad revenue) all interact with each other that a TV OEM would be able to take pole position in this business. I don't see a potential path to victory in this entire thread.
I'm asking for a potential solution. A framework. A "what if" sequence of events that, even if just on paper in a perfect world, could demonstrate how this could be tackled by a company with the resources and bargaining power of Apple. And as I've clearly stated many times, I'd love for Apple to accomplish this, so if I'm crazy for wanting this then so is everyone else.
The difference here lies in the age of the market, the mindset of what a television "is", and the fact that no one really wants to buy a $5,000 42" TV anymore.
To date I've argued against the idea of Apple making a TV, but just to play devil's advocate, why would it need to cost $5,000? Apple could certainly engineer a basic, high quality LCD TV that would be reasonably cost competitive with higher end offerings from, for instance, Samsung or Sony. Add to that the necessary hardware/software to make the thing compelling-- a somewhat souped up Apple TV, sans case and power supply, plus specialized iOS software for DVR and UI duties.
Since the Apple TV retails for $99, I think Apple could easily build in quite a bit of functionality for a few hundred dollars, accounting for say a 64GB flash drive for recording and storage.
Right? Take the price of one of Samsung's higher end TVs and add say $300. Let's say $2000-$2500 for a 55" LED LCD set.
If it really does everything people are imagining-- if it can record, subscribe to some kind of iTunes pass, display all your iCloud pictures and movies, play all your iCloud music, run Netflix streaming as well as the usual other services, run iOS apps and games, and do all that with a dead simple Apple UI that possibly includes Siri, then I think plenty of folks would be willing to pay that. Or quite a bit less for a 46" similarly equipped.
EDIT: Posted before I saw Soli's post above-- I'm probably the wrong one to figure out a winning path here, since I've always been an Apple branded TV skeptic, but I guess if you had all of the above plus just simple channel switching and basic search (which could after all just be a Siri hook to an existing internet TV listing) and it didn't cost a great deal more than comparable, less equipped sets, then Apple could sell a lot of them. I don't know if that means they'd want to, but I think they could.
I think Google TV ran athwart of the content providers because it tried to turn TV content into part of Google's web search paradigm. Apple needn't do that, they could just marry a very easy to use conventional cable ready TV with a built in DVR and super intuitive voice control for scheduling and search, plus all that iOS goodness and iCloud access to your own media. I don't think the content providers could object to that, Apple isn't demanding that they make their stuff available via some ad revenue denying roundabout way. iCloud works very nicely with iTunes video sales, which plays nice with the content providers rights. Apple has a much more content owner friendly setup than Google, who seems determined to make everything into freely accessible web properties that they can monetize with ad sales.
With the addition of iCloud and Siri voice control, Munster believes Apple is even more prepared to launch an HDTV in the coming years. With iCloud, users could access TV shows, pictures, and potentially moves, while Siri could "simplify the chore of inputting information like show titles, or actor names, into a TV."
I think Siri is a great UI choice for an Apple TV. It would have that "magical" feel that made iPods (click-wheel) & iPhones (multi-touch) dominant. However, because Siri is still in beta, I doubt that Apple's TV will be ready in 2012. Maybe another year to polish the tech to a glossy finish.
Content is also important. I don't think Apple will (or should) release a TV until they can get a majority of broadcast content onto the device. You won't be 'wowed' by it if you ask it to play the latest episode of your favorite TV show and you get "Sorry Dave, I can't do that" in response. Apple needs to announce deals with enough TV networks (like they did with the record labels) to make the the other ones jump aboard too.
Right? Take the price of one of Samsung's higher end TVs and add say $300. Let's say $2000-$2500 for a 55" LED LCD set.
They could even come in under the cost of a comparable Samsung SmartTV with the lowered R&D costs for an iOS/Apple A-chip-based system.
I can't see them getting rid of the stand alone AppleTV as it's doubtful they would meet the needs of all TV sizes, features, and designs that people have throughout their homes. People here seem to be thinking only of the HEC and only of the biggest possible sets when I think any real solution would look to put an AppleTV into every room you have a TV.
Quote:
If it really does everything people are imagining-- if it can record, subscribe to some kind of iTunes pass, display all your iCloud pictures and movies, play all your iCloud music, run Netflix streaming as well as the usual other services, run iOS apps and games, and do all that with a dead simple Apple UI that possibly includes Siri, then I think plenty of folks would be willing to pay that. Or quite a bit less for a 46" similarly equipped.
If it's going to record then 64GB NAND isn't going to cut it, and that is already a pricey option that no SmartTV I'm aware has.
If there is a built-in DVR that also gets pricey, but has integrated DVR, VCR, or DVD/BRDs ever been a hit with TVs? These seem to be updated a lot more frequently than the sets themselves and one of the biggest complaints about iMacs from desktop users is that you can't get a new computer without having to replace the perfectly fine monitor.
If we're talking about server-side DVR that is currently available from service providers as On Demand services... and it's not good. I don't see how Apple could make it better than a cable company ting in directly to their node-accessed servers for On Demand content. It's painfully slow.
Siri is the only good idea I've seen for making the current experience better, but that doesn't have to be a TV, that could be done from an attached device.
I think Siri is a great UI choice for an Apple TV. It would have that "magical" feel that made iPods (click-wheel) & iPhones (multi-touch) dominant. However, because Siri is still in beta, I doubt that Apple's TV will be ready in 2012. Maybe another year to polish the tech to a glossy finish.
Content is also important. I don't think Apple will (or should) release a TV until they can get a majority of broadcast content onto the device. You won't be 'wowed' by it if you ask it to play the latest episode of your favorite TV show and you get "Sorry Dave, I can't do that" in response. Apple needs to announce deals with enough TV networks (like they did with the record labels) to make the the other ones jump aboard too.
I'm not so sure about how long it will take Siri to go full on release-- what Apple has done with this "beta" release is to open the floodgates for the very data collection that they can use to rapidly improve the service. The more Siri hears, the smarter Siri gets, in effect.
That, and of course that even limited to the 4s the use levels have tested Apple servers. Better to get that all sorted, make sure they can handle the load, accrue all that user data, then open it up to devs to get more services included.
Those services, of course, would included entities like MLB, the NFL, broadcast and cable properties, and movie and television show data bases.
Comments
oh and maybe the Apple Remote will distinguish between devices? My MBP listens to the same one as my AppleTV, is there anyway to fix that?
Yes. You have to turn it off on the computer via the preferences.
I still am. I will be until Cook gets on stage and announces one. Until then (and for a long time after) it's abject nonsense.
Yes, it is. Your definition of 'television' is wrong. Or, rather, old. That's the only problem.
Apple HDTV launching in December 2011
Apple HDTV launching in December 2011
oh and maybe the Apple Remote will distinguish between devices? My MBP listens to the same one as my AppleTV, is there anyway to fix that?
Someone may already have answered but yes there is a way to fix that.
at least I seem to recall a way to pair the remote with a specific computer so that only that computer replies to a given remote.
Ugh?
Any Apple HDTV would have to be CHEAPER than competitors' models, and I just don't see how that'd happen and keep the usual Apple hardware flair.
And the usual Apple hardware profit margins.
Oh really? You do know that Apple is already the world's largest consumer of NAND memory, and thus gets the best component prices? And that Apple has signed contracts with Toshiba and other LCD panel manufacturers, right? And that Apple uses their own customized ARM chip instead of buying off-the-shelf Intel chips, right?
Do you see how iPad was cheaper than competitors' models with "the usual Apple hardware flair"? Apple did that by using their component purchasing leverage to negotiate lower prices. Hence their 40% hardware margin. Same thing in TVs.
And no, Apple wouldn't need to make their television cheaper. Same price or slightly higher and they'll sell just as many.
My dad, an old adman, use to say that TV shows were just filler for the commercials. If Apple controls the programming then they would own the ad revenue too. Seems to work well for Google and their searches.
You just upped the stakes considerably. If all content goes through Apple, bypassing the traditional middlemen and handing much of the advertising delivery over to Apple it would indeed revolutionize the industry. Apple would have to to some very shrewd manoeuvring to pull something like that off.
However, if Apple got into the bathroom mirror business...
This is the reason Google TV never took off. Google wasn't trying to compete with Apple TV. Their vision was much bigger than that. They wanted to dumb down cable to just information/entertainment option among many services. The cablecos didn't like that.
Full computer facilities, DVD playback, facebook, browser, wireless keyboard & mouse - shop around and this should not cost much more than £?$1,100
No doubt it will have an Apple Remote, which I hate. There is no way on earth they will make a full remote, you will need to use an App and who wants to find their iOS device/ launch an app to change channel.
I like the Apple Remote. It's a thing of beauty. Minimalist, clean design, essential functionality, very similar to the click wheel on the iPods (would be awesome if it HAD a click wheel). I use it with Front Row. The remote itself appears cast from a single solid block of aluminum with no visible seams or cutlines. No one else makes a solid metal remote.
I work in the Vision department at a well-known electrical retailer in the UK and I'm starting to get bored of selling Samsung/Sony/Panasonic 3D LED Smart TV's.
Whilst these TV's (especially the Samsung TV's) look stunning, the Smart TV interface on these sets look clunky and awkward. Although customers like the idea of streaming content from different devices to a TV and accessing the Internet, no one has managed to do this in a compelling way yet as far as I'm concerned. I really do get frustrated demoing them sometimes.
I guess being an Apple fan I've been spoilt with beautifully made hardware/software and fantastic user experience!!
With iOS interface, SIRI and the iTunes/App store ecosystem (and the fact that a lot of customers own iPhones/iPod Touches) Apple could really do something amazing.
Although price is an important factor for many customers, there are still enough customers who are prepared to pay a premium price for a premium product. Apple could easily own this space.
My gut feeling though is that we will see another set-top-box instead...
Either way, 2012 is going to an exciting time!
1) Apple has a long history of focusing on the US market first, and then growing their brand. The US is still their largest single country for sales. I don't see Apple ignoring the US market for a product.
2) I've thought of a lot of ways this could work, all trying to think of how this nut could be cracked. Doing what all others are doing isn't cracking anything, it's just following in the footsteps of your competitors. I can't see Jobs saying that he figured out he needs to step in the footsteps of Samsung with a TV.
3) Logistics and physics are important. You can't put a $1000 50" HDTV in the space of a $2000 15" MBP. The items don't scale or work the same way. You also need to consider the revenue and profit. Look at how the iPod has been deprecated with this last special event as it becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of Apple's business. Are HDTVs likely to rival their iPad and iPhone business. Is sacrificing sales of them to store TVs in stores going to make sense?
4) Cable is an issue! These are a standard utility in the US. Furthermore, they are intertwined with the stations and networks very tightly. You can't simply say you'll stream all content over the internet when the cable internet service you're using is already paying huge lump sums for the access. These are important payments for the networks. Why do you think GoogleTV felt like such a threat? Of all the nuts this is the toughest to crack. Ignoring it will not solve it. I'm sure one day this union will falter and it won't be pretty but as of yet no one has come with a solution to break it apart. Well, maybe Jobs, but has yet to be seen, but slapping an Apple logo on a few TVs isn't going to cut it.
5) Putting a box inside another box isn't thinking outside the box. I'm not against Apple entering this market. I'm all for it, I just haven't heard much "out of the box thinking" that would revolutionize the market, outside of Siri integration.
Well you are a smart person and I respect your opinion, but I disagree with almost everything you've wrote here. I think you are not only wrong, you are "crazy wrong" on this. I don't understand why you can't see it.
No way in a million years would any Apple branded TV deal with cable TV and the networks as they exist today. That would be half the point of the reinvention.
No way in a million years would any Apple branded TV deal with cable TV and the networks as they exist today. That would be half the point of the reinvention.
Yet I'm the one who has repeatedly stated that it can't exist with the today's market until that is cracked. You and others seem to be defending the point that slapping an AppleTV in a TV would inherently make it great.
I've been asking since this rumour appears how they could change this tightly integrated relationships yet all I ever get is that an Apple branded TV would be awesome because it would have an Apple logo or reduce the clutter of one device. That isn't revolutionary at all and GoogleTV has shown that the networks are willing to fight swiftly and fiercely for their guaranteed revenue streams when threatened.
Where is the scenario that makes shows how Apple could possibly achieve this goal of reinventing the way content distributers, content providers, content owners, and content supporters (ad revenue) all interact with each other that a TV OEM would be able to take pole position in this business. I don't see a potential path to victory in this entire thread.
I'm asking for a potential solution. A framework. A "what if" sequence of events that, even if just on paper in a perfect world, could demonstrate how this could be tackled by a company with the resources and bargaining power of Apple. And as I've clearly stated many times, I'd love for Apple to accomplish this, so if I'm crazy for wanting this then so is everyone else.
Yeah, they've been saying that.
The difference here lies in the age of the market, the mindset of what a television "is", and the fact that no one really wants to buy a $5,000 42" TV anymore.
To date I've argued against the idea of Apple making a TV, but just to play devil's advocate, why would it need to cost $5,000? Apple could certainly engineer a basic, high quality LCD TV that would be reasonably cost competitive with higher end offerings from, for instance, Samsung or Sony. Add to that the necessary hardware/software to make the thing compelling-- a somewhat souped up Apple TV, sans case and power supply, plus specialized iOS software for DVR and UI duties.
Since the Apple TV retails for $99, I think Apple could easily build in quite a bit of functionality for a few hundred dollars, accounting for say a 64GB flash drive for recording and storage.
Right? Take the price of one of Samsung's higher end TVs and add say $300. Let's say $2000-$2500 for a 55" LED LCD set.
If it really does everything people are imagining-- if it can record, subscribe to some kind of iTunes pass, display all your iCloud pictures and movies, play all your iCloud music, run Netflix streaming as well as the usual other services, run iOS apps and games, and do all that with a dead simple Apple UI that possibly includes Siri, then I think plenty of folks would be willing to pay that. Or quite a bit less for a 46" similarly equipped.
EDIT: Posted before I saw Soli's post above-- I'm probably the wrong one to figure out a winning path here, since I've always been an Apple branded TV skeptic, but I guess if you had all of the above plus just simple channel switching and basic search (which could after all just be a Siri hook to an existing internet TV listing) and it didn't cost a great deal more than comparable, less equipped sets, then Apple could sell a lot of them. I don't know if that means they'd want to, but I think they could.
I think Google TV ran athwart of the content providers because it tried to turn TV content into part of Google's web search paradigm. Apple needn't do that, they could just marry a very easy to use conventional cable ready TV with a built in DVR and super intuitive voice control for scheduling and search, plus all that iOS goodness and iCloud access to your own media. I don't think the content providers could object to that, Apple isn't demanding that they make their stuff available via some ad revenue denying roundabout way. iCloud works very nicely with iTunes video sales, which plays nice with the content providers rights. Apple has a much more content owner friendly setup than Google, who seems determined to make everything into freely accessible web properties that they can monetize with ad sales.
With the addition of iCloud and Siri voice control, Munster believes Apple is even more prepared to launch an HDTV in the coming years. With iCloud, users could access TV shows, pictures, and potentially moves, while Siri could "simplify the chore of inputting information like show titles, or actor names, into a TV."
I think Siri is a great UI choice for an Apple TV. It would have that "magical" feel that made iPods (click-wheel) & iPhones (multi-touch) dominant. However, because Siri is still in beta, I doubt that Apple's TV will be ready in 2012. Maybe another year to polish the tech to a glossy finish.
Content is also important. I don't think Apple will (or should) release a TV until they can get a majority of broadcast content onto the device. You won't be 'wowed' by it if you ask it to play the latest episode of your favorite TV show and you get "Sorry Dave, I can't do that" in response. Apple needs to announce deals with enough TV networks (like they did with the record labels) to make the the other ones jump aboard too.
Right? Take the price of one of Samsung's higher end TVs and add say $300. Let's say $2000-$2500 for a 55" LED LCD set.
They could even come in under the cost of a comparable Samsung SmartTV with the lowered R&D costs for an iOS/Apple A-chip-based system.
I can't see them getting rid of the stand alone AppleTV as it's doubtful they would meet the needs of all TV sizes, features, and designs that people have throughout their homes. People here seem to be thinking only of the HEC and only of the biggest possible sets when I think any real solution would look to put an AppleTV into every room you have a TV.
If it really does everything people are imagining-- if it can record, subscribe to some kind of iTunes pass, display all your iCloud pictures and movies, play all your iCloud music, run Netflix streaming as well as the usual other services, run iOS apps and games, and do all that with a dead simple Apple UI that possibly includes Siri, then I think plenty of folks would be willing to pay that. Or quite a bit less for a 46" similarly equipped.
If it's going to record then 64GB NAND isn't going to cut it, and that is already a pricey option that no SmartTV I'm aware has.
If there is a built-in DVR that also gets pricey, but has integrated DVR, VCR, or DVD/BRDs ever been a hit with TVs? These seem to be updated a lot more frequently than the sets themselves and one of the biggest complaints about iMacs from desktop users is that you can't get a new computer without having to replace the perfectly fine monitor.
If we're talking about server-side DVR that is currently available from service providers as On Demand services... and it's not good. I don't see how Apple could make it better than a cable company ting in directly to their node-accessed servers for On Demand content. It's painfully slow.
Siri is the only good idea I've seen for making the current experience better, but that doesn't have to be a TV, that could be done from an attached device.
I think Siri is a great UI choice for an Apple TV. It would have that "magical" feel that made iPods (click-wheel) & iPhones (multi-touch) dominant. However, because Siri is still in beta, I doubt that Apple's TV will be ready in 2012. Maybe another year to polish the tech to a glossy finish.
Content is also important. I don't think Apple will (or should) release a TV until they can get a majority of broadcast content onto the device. You won't be 'wowed' by it if you ask it to play the latest episode of your favorite TV show and you get "Sorry Dave, I can't do that" in response. Apple needs to announce deals with enough TV networks (like they did with the record labels) to make the the other ones jump aboard too.
I'm not so sure about how long it will take Siri to go full on release-- what Apple has done with this "beta" release is to open the floodgates for the very data collection that they can use to rapidly improve the service. The more Siri hears, the smarter Siri gets, in effect.
That, and of course that even limited to the 4s the use levels have tested Apple servers. Better to get that all sorted, make sure they can handle the load, accrue all that user data, then open it up to devs to get more services included.
Those services, of course, would included entities like MLB, the NFL, broadcast and cable properties, and movie and television show data bases.