It may also simply be revealing the fact that your imagination is lacking (relative to Apple's).
Just because someone has not imagined what Apple has does not mean their imagination is lacking. After all, non-Apple folks might not spend 24/7 x 365 contriving means to revolutionize the TV market. In other words, no need to take a shot at someone for an innocuous comment.
On the topic of imagination - I understand that while Siri is trendy, we are all inclined to link it to all future Apple products. But the idea of shouting at the TV does not sound more intuitive or convenient than a remote, at least not by leaps and bounds. I'd be disappointed if that is the essence of AppleTV or iTV, or whatever.
Just because someone has not imagined what Apple has does not mean their imagination is lacking. After all, non-Apple folks might not spend 24/7 x 365 contriving means to revolutionize the TV market. In other words, no need to take a shot at someone for an innocuous comment.
He "did" say "relative to Apple" which softens the blow. Most of us don't sit around brainstorming the next product path. It doesn't mean that we lack imagination but in relation to the effort that Apple's brain trust is approaching the solutions clearly we're not extending the same level of effort.
It would probably have a single connector for a cable box so the old folks can connect their stuff if they want to but I would imagine that the whole thrust of the thing would be away from old-school cable TV.
I see no connectors to anything. There is no need. The entire point is to replace the cable box with proprietary, paid content, seamlessly streamed from any Apple device or paid data source.
TV is absolute crap nowadays, both the devices and the content.
Todays TV sets are the best in history. It is nothing short of astounding how good a picture one can get for the money.
Today's TV programming is some of the best in history. HBO, for example, produces series and mini-series that are excellent in every respect. Currently, Boardwalk Empire stands out.
Get a grip. Get a good TV and then calibrate it to correct the color. Look into the Sharp and Samsung higher-end sets.
Buy Blu-ray content, get a good sound system (which costs multiples of the price of everything else).
And then enjoy it. As much as possible, given the inevitable disappointment that it "should" be better.
it's not pointless, it's just pointless for you. I'm in the market for such a TV right now and it pisses me off that I have to buy some other piece of crap as a stopgap device knowing that in a year or two Apple will come out with this.
The advantages over the current choices would be:
1) no cables and wires (other than a power cord)
2) no cable TV at all (yay!)
3) no "channel guide" to navigate
4) no amplifier to connect
5) no remotes (except your phone)
6) no speakers to string around your living room
7) almost certainly a far better quality picture than the crap out there now.
8) no 200 useless "features" and controls on the thing that you don't need and don't do anything anyway.
I was shopping for a TV just yesterday and they are uniformly shite IMO. There wasn't a single one that had accurate colour, and not a single one that wasn't blurry or faded, or pixelated at distances of less than ten feet.
TV is absolute crap nowadays, both the devices and the content.
I'm reasonably certain that whatever Apple ends up doing, it will be far better than what we have now.
no remotes so I need a data plan or a $200 remote / ipod?
no cables and wires so you can't hook up OTA tv or hdmi cable box / satellite box + you need wifi or 3g / g4 wait download caps are way to small to use 4g or 3g.
no speakers?? you can't real surround sound with out them and most amplifiers have more power then TV speakers much less a good woofer.
far better quality picture like full 1080p on blueray? good luck having that kind of download speed in most places. And if not live that plan on the tv having a big HDD.
What about live sports?? a lot of on line packs ARE OUT OF MARKET ONLY and are the same content you get on the cable ver of them.
Why not? The cable companies get money from the cable subscription... not the box.
Because cable companies are way more concerned with protecting themselves than providing better solutions for consumers.
If they swap out their own cable box with something from Apple they lose ownership of the customer.
I wouldn't be surprised if Apple get the same deal as Microsoft and are able to integrate some cable box like functionality into the Apple TV in the same way Microsoft has with the Xbox 360.
However I would be surprised if it was a fully featured cable box that the cable company give you the option of purchasing instead of their own box.
What is the point? We have the Apple TV already that works with any screen. Any features can be added to a similar device that works with any TV... massive sales potential that way. Making a TV itself is pointless.
As an owner of an AppleTV 2 myself, I tend to agree. I want the flexibility to pick and choose the manufacturer, size, display type, and features of the TV itself. In much the same the way one would choose a computer moniter or a Blu-Ray player. A device that enables Apple features/content and interfaces with any TV display would appear to be a better for the consumer.
In all fairness, I do enjoy the way my iMac, MacBook Pro, Airport Extreme, AppleTV 2, and iPod Touch are fully integrated when distributing and controling media 'beamed' to the plasma TV. Then again, an Apple TV would eliminate at least one of those component and associated configuration.
no remotes so I need a data plan or a $200 remote / ipod?
no cables and wires so you can't hook up OTA tv or hdmi cable box / satellite box + you need wifi or 3g / g4 wait download caps are way to small to use 4g or 3g.
no speakers?? you can't real surround sound with out them and most amplifiers have more power then TV speakers much less a good woofer.
far better quality picture like full 1080p on blueray? good luck having that kind of download speed in most places. And if not live that plan on the tv having a big HDD.
What about live sports?? a lot of on line packs ARE OUT OF MARKET ONLY and are the same content you get on the cable ver of them.
no remotes so I need a data plan or a $200 remote / ipod?
no cables and wires so you can't hook up OTA tv or hdmi cable box / satellite box + you need wifi or 3g / g4 wait download caps are way to small to use 4g or 3g.
no speakers?? you can't real surround sound with out them and most amplifiers have more power then TV speakers much less a good woofer.
far better quality picture like full 1080p on blueray? good luck having that kind of download speed in most places. And if not live that plan on the tv having a big HDD.
What about live sports?? a lot of on line packs ARE OUT OF MARKET ONLY and are the same content you get on the cable ver of them.
Some of you guys are forgetting one big picture here. ALOT of people do not like to watch there TV programs, football games , movis, etc on an iPad. They would like to watch it on there 60" plasma TV and hear it thru there nice set of Focal speakers. There are alot of viewers out there that are not into the way of Apple. That's all i'm saying...
I think if the internet providers would get there head out of there asses and start bringing us speeds and reliability that we should have had 10 years ago, then a type of streaming service would work. Right now though, no freakin way am I going to watch a football game thru an internet connection.
the red sox are on NESN non MLB network and there is no NESN 3D.
I was thinking about MLB TV. Here in the UK with the current AppleTV you can buy a MLB TV subscription and watch any game (including the Red Sox) over the internet through your AppleTV rather than having to watch it on the computer.
The point I was trying to make is that any Apple Television could for many people act as a replacement to Cable/Sat. I like baseball but the only way I can receive it through Cable/Sat in the UK is to subscribe to ESPN. But then I have to watch whatever game they are broadcasting. This way I get to watch whatever game I want.
In that sense the Apple TV could replace your cable/sat subscription if like me you only want a few extra channels over and above the free to air channels. I don't really want or need cable/sat as I don't watch much TV but I would like access to certain sports and would be willing to pay to subscribe to them as "apps" on my Apple TV.
That's assuming the cable companies which are also the broadband ISPs don't mind being dumb pipes. They are going to look to making up their loss profits from cable TV subscriptions somehow, and the only thing they would have left is charging super high data rates.
Apple would most likely have to charge $5 per channel al a carte to placate the studio content providers. So that's $50 for the 10 channels. But the ISPs will make up their loss by doubling you data fees. So you'll be ~ $100+ for those same 10 channels and you would be required to have broadband to get Apple's channels over Internet.
You will pay more than you're paying now for less channels.
Apple is not going to do anything a la carte- I don't know why people think they would. Way to many dealings with way too many networks and you don't get local sports! That's the huge thing (unless they deal with fox, Abc, NBC, CBS, TNT, fox sports).
What everyone keeps overlooking is just partnering with one or more cable services to offer ISP cable programming. There was a great article on this (that I conveniently can't find)- but mentions a Half dozen companies (Comcast, time Warner, etc) that have been doing test areas and markets for the past year or more- where you pay the cable company and they still deliver the content- which is apples biggest hurdle.
I'd love to cancel cable as much as the next guy, but I like sports too much. What this would give apple is the ability to control the UI, remotes/Siri, DVR, and maybe (more like hopefully) a Blu ray player.
All controlled with an easy to use apple interface. That's the easiest and best way to do it IMO. Could you imagine the price Fios, Uverse, or whoever would pay to get exclusivity with an iTV or connected Apple TV w/ internal hard drive to deliver and record content? And that'd be revolutionary in the process.
What everyone keeps overlooking is just partnering with one or more cable services to offer ISP cable programming. There was a great article on this (that I conveniently can't find)- but mentions a Half dozen companies (Comcast, time Warner, etc) that have been doing test areas and markets for the past year or more- where you pay the cable company and they still deliver the content- which is apples biggest hurdle.
I'd love to cancel cable as much as the next guy, but I like sports too much. What this would give apple is the ability to control the UI, remotes/Siri, DVR, and maybe (more like hopefully) a Blu ray player.
...
You are on the right track, but you just got started. Not only are local sports an issue, but local news, weather, and advertising also are issues. Partnering with a cable provider is simply not a viable solution to any problem that we have with current television. It certainly is not a viable business plan for Apple. The thing that you need to understand is that cable operates on local franchises. Each of those franchises are negotiated with the local government for that municipality. Some jurisdictions have multiple franchises. Others have only one. Some have none. In Podunk, the Smith Family has Comcast. Across the street in East Podunk, the Jones Family has Time-Warner. What is more, cable companies swap franchises. Time-Warner gave away some major franchises around my hometown to Comcast in a swap. Others spin-off large franchise territories such as Time-Warner's spin-off of its Florida franchises to create Bright House.
You seem to think that the Cingular/AT&T model that worked so well with the iPhone will also work with cable providers. There is some minor swapping of territories with cell phone providers but not enough to significantly inconvenience customers. At my current residence, I am now on my third cable provider. If Apple were to cast its lot with a single provider, then it can count on having a significant fraction of its customers left high and dry through no fault of their own.
it's not pointless, it's just pointless for you. I'm in the market for such a TV right now and it pisses me off that I have to buy some other piece of crap as a stopgap device knowing that in a year or two Apple will come out with this.
The advantages over the current choices would be:
1) no cables and wires (other than a power cord)
2) no cable TV at all (yay!)
3) no "channel guide" to navigate
4) no amplifier to connect
5) no remotes (except your phone)
6) no speakers to string around your living room
7) almost certainly a far better quality picture than the crap out there now.
8) no 200 useless "features" and controls on the thing that you don't need and don't do anything anyway.
I was shopping for a TV just yesterday and they are uniformly shite IMO. There wasn't a single one that had accurate colour, and not a single one that wasn't blurry or faded, or pixelated at distances of less than ten feet.
TV is absolute crap nowadays, both the devices and the content.
I'm reasonably certain that whatever Apple ends up doing, it will be far better than what we have now.
Step one: buy a Panasonic plasma and set it to THX mode.
Step two: don't plug anything into it and stare at the empty screen in content.
Step three: there is no step three!
The notion that you'd have to plug nothing into an Apple-branded television because they would provide all of the content you could ever want is absurd. The idea that an Apple-branded television would have superior picture and sound is equally absurd; Apple would be limited to the same display technology as everyone else and they aren't known for great display calibration (compare two iPhones of the same model and you'll likely see one looking very blue and the other very yellow). Furthermore, Apple would likely want to make the tv as thin as physically possible, which means the speakers would be downright awful.
The idea of your phone being the only remote is also a bad one; what happens when you leave the room and your spouse or children want to change the channel or adjust the volume?
Comments
I wonder how Angry Birds would look across a 55" television.
Pixelated.
It may also simply be revealing the fact that your imagination is lacking (relative to Apple's).
Just because someone has not imagined what Apple has does not mean their imagination is lacking. After all, non-Apple folks might not spend 24/7 x 365 contriving means to revolutionize the TV market. In other words, no need to take a shot at someone for an innocuous comment.
Have you ever yelled at the TV?
What if it cold yell back at you?
If it were SIRI, she would do so in a charming manner.
WRT you sig: It might read better if you called it a "crowded" fire house, in order to more closely follow the familiar quote. Just a suggestion.
Just because someone has not imagined what Apple has does not mean their imagination is lacking. After all, non-Apple folks might not spend 24/7 x 365 contriving means to revolutionize the TV market. In other words, no need to take a shot at someone for an innocuous comment.
He "did" say "relative to Apple" which softens the blow. Most of us don't sit around brainstorming the next product path. It doesn't mean that we lack imagination but in relation to the effort that Apple's brain trust is approaching the solutions clearly we're not extending the same level of effort.
It would probably have a single connector for a cable box so the old folks can connect their stuff if they want to but I would imagine that the whole thrust of the thing would be away from old-school cable TV.
I see no connectors to anything. There is no need. The entire point is to replace the cable box with proprietary, paid content, seamlessly streamed from any Apple device or paid data source.
TV is absolute crap nowadays, both the devices and the content.
Todays TV sets are the best in history. It is nothing short of astounding how good a picture one can get for the money.
Today's TV programming is some of the best in history. HBO, for example, produces series and mini-series that are excellent in every respect. Currently, Boardwalk Empire stands out.
Get a grip. Get a good TV and then calibrate it to correct the color. Look into the Sharp and Samsung higher-end sets.
Buy Blu-ray content, get a good sound system (which costs multiples of the price of everything else).
And then enjoy it. As much as possible, given the inevitable disappointment that it "should" be better.
What's going to make a $2,000 Apple-branded television any better than a $900 Panasonic Plasma connected to a $99 Apple TV?
The fact that nothing needs to be connected, and you will finally be able to get rid of all that wired crap.
it's not pointless, it's just pointless for you. I'm in the market for such a TV right now and it pisses me off that I have to buy some other piece of crap as a stopgap device knowing that in a year or two Apple will come out with this.
The advantages over the current choices would be:
1) no cables and wires (other than a power cord)
2) no cable TV at all (yay!)
3) no "channel guide" to navigate
4) no amplifier to connect
5) no remotes (except your phone)
6) no speakers to string around your living room
7) almost certainly a far better quality picture than the crap out there now.
8) no 200 useless "features" and controls on the thing that you don't need and don't do anything anyway.
I was shopping for a TV just yesterday and they are uniformly shite IMO. There wasn't a single one that had accurate colour, and not a single one that wasn't blurry or faded, or pixelated at distances of less than ten feet.
TV is absolute crap nowadays, both the devices and the content.
I'm reasonably certain that whatever Apple ends up doing, it will be far better than what we have now.
no remotes so I need a data plan or a $200 remote / ipod?
no cables and wires so you can't hook up OTA tv or hdmi cable box / satellite box + you need wifi or 3g / g4 wait download caps are way to small to use 4g or 3g.
no speakers?? you can't real surround sound with out them and most amplifiers have more power then TV speakers much less a good woofer.
far better quality picture like full 1080p on blueray? good luck having that kind of download speed in most places. And if not live that plan on the tv having a big HDD.
What about live sports?? a lot of on line packs ARE OUT OF MARKET ONLY and are the same content you get on the cable ver of them.
I get home from work and switch on my Apple TV and the fun begins...
Siri put BBC News channel on
Siri lower the volume and read my emails and play my video messages
Siri start video call to my mother (using built in FaceTime camera)
Siri access my iCloud and show comedy TV shows > next > select 24 > play episode 5
Siri play Gran Turismo > play using built in motion sensor without any remote/controller
Siri play Radio 2
Siri play MLB channel > switch to Red Sox game > switch to 3D (without galsses)
Siri access internet with current scores (picture in picture)
Siri record The Gadget Show and remind me to watch it tomorrow at 7pm
the red sox are on NESN non MLB network and there is no NESN 3D.
Why not? The cable companies get money from the cable subscription... not the box.
Because cable companies are way more concerned with protecting themselves than providing better solutions for consumers.
If they swap out their own cable box with something from Apple they lose ownership of the customer.
I wouldn't be surprised if Apple get the same deal as Microsoft and are able to integrate some cable box like functionality into the Apple TV in the same way Microsoft has with the Xbox 360.
However I would be surprised if it was a fully featured cable box that the cable company give you the option of purchasing instead of their own box.
What is the point? We have the Apple TV already that works with any screen. Any features can be added to a similar device that works with any TV... massive sales potential that way. Making a TV itself is pointless.
As an owner of an AppleTV 2 myself, I tend to agree. I want the flexibility to pick and choose the manufacturer, size, display type, and features of the TV itself. In much the same the way one would choose a computer moniter or a Blu-Ray player. A device that enables Apple features/content and interfaces with any TV display would appear to be a better for the consumer.
In all fairness, I do enjoy the way my iMac, MacBook Pro, Airport Extreme, AppleTV 2, and iPod Touch are fully integrated when distributing and controling media 'beamed' to the plasma TV. Then again, an Apple TV would eliminate at least one of those component and associated configuration.
no remotes so I need a data plan or a $200 remote / ipod?
no cables and wires so you can't hook up OTA tv or hdmi cable box / satellite box + you need wifi or 3g / g4 wait download caps are way to small to use 4g or 3g.
no speakers?? you can't real surround sound with out them and most amplifiers have more power then TV speakers much less a good woofer.
far better quality picture like full 1080p on blueray? good luck having that kind of download speed in most places. And if not live that plan on the tv having a big HDD.
What about live sports?? a lot of on line packs ARE OUT OF MARKET ONLY and are the same content you get on the cable ver of them.
Stop....stop....too.... Much..... Logic.......
the red sox are on NESN non MLB network and there is no NESN 3D.
Who gives a crap? The guys from the UK and your only slant is he got the wrong network and smacked him for getting ahead of himself with 3D.
no remotes so I need a data plan or a $200 remote / ipod?
no cables and wires so you can't hook up OTA tv or hdmi cable box / satellite box + you need wifi or 3g / g4 wait download caps are way to small to use 4g or 3g.
no speakers?? you can't real surround sound with out them and most amplifiers have more power then TV speakers much less a good woofer.
far better quality picture like full 1080p on blueray? good luck having that kind of download speed in most places. And if not live that plan on the tv having a big HDD.
What about live sports?? a lot of on line packs ARE OUT OF MARKET ONLY and are the same content you get on the cable ver of them.
The Apple remote's $20 : http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC377LL/A
With an Apple HDTV having an A5/A6 inside running iOS 5.x you'll be just fine.
I think if the internet providers would get there head out of there asses and start bringing us speeds and reliability that we should have had 10 years ago, then a type of streaming service would work. Right now though, no freakin way am I going to watch a football game thru an internet connection.
the red sox are on NESN non MLB network and there is no NESN 3D.
I was thinking about MLB TV. Here in the UK with the current AppleTV you can buy a MLB TV subscription and watch any game (including the Red Sox) over the internet through your AppleTV rather than having to watch it on the computer.
The point I was trying to make is that any Apple Television could for many people act as a replacement to Cable/Sat. I like baseball but the only way I can receive it through Cable/Sat in the UK is to subscribe to ESPN. But then I have to watch whatever game they are broadcasting. This way I get to watch whatever game I want.
In that sense the Apple TV could replace your cable/sat subscription if like me you only want a few extra channels over and above the free to air channels. I don't really want or need cable/sat as I don't watch much TV but I would like access to certain sports and would be willing to pay to subscribe to them as "apps" on my Apple TV.
That's assuming the cable companies which are also the broadband ISPs don't mind being dumb pipes. They are going to look to making up their loss profits from cable TV subscriptions somehow, and the only thing they would have left is charging super high data rates.
Apple would most likely have to charge $5 per channel al a carte to placate the studio content providers. So that's $50 for the 10 channels. But the ISPs will make up their loss by doubling you data fees. So you'll be ~ $100+ for those same 10 channels and you would be required to have broadband to get Apple's channels over Internet.
You will pay more than you're paying now for less channels.
Apple is not going to do anything a la carte- I don't know why people think they would. Way to many dealings with way too many networks and you don't get local sports! That's the huge thing (unless they deal with fox, Abc, NBC, CBS, TNT, fox sports).
What everyone keeps overlooking is just partnering with one or more cable services to offer ISP cable programming. There was a great article on this (that I conveniently can't find)- but mentions a Half dozen companies (Comcast, time Warner, etc) that have been doing test areas and markets for the past year or more- where you pay the cable company and they still deliver the content- which is apples biggest hurdle.
I'd love to cancel cable as much as the next guy, but I like sports too much. What this would give apple is the ability to control the UI, remotes/Siri, DVR, and maybe (more like hopefully) a Blu ray player.
All controlled with an easy to use apple interface. That's the easiest and best way to do it IMO. Could you imagine the price Fios, Uverse, or whoever would pay to get exclusivity with an iTV or connected Apple TV w/ internal hard drive to deliver and record content? And that'd be revolutionary in the process.
...
What everyone keeps overlooking is just partnering with one or more cable services to offer ISP cable programming. There was a great article on this (that I conveniently can't find)- but mentions a Half dozen companies (Comcast, time Warner, etc) that have been doing test areas and markets for the past year or more- where you pay the cable company and they still deliver the content- which is apples biggest hurdle.
I'd love to cancel cable as much as the next guy, but I like sports too much. What this would give apple is the ability to control the UI, remotes/Siri, DVR, and maybe (more like hopefully) a Blu ray player.
...
You are on the right track, but you just got started. Not only are local sports an issue, but local news, weather, and advertising also are issues. Partnering with a cable provider is simply not a viable solution to any problem that we have with current television. It certainly is not a viable business plan for Apple. The thing that you need to understand is that cable operates on local franchises. Each of those franchises are negotiated with the local government for that municipality. Some jurisdictions have multiple franchises. Others have only one. Some have none. In Podunk, the Smith Family has Comcast. Across the street in East Podunk, the Jones Family has Time-Warner. What is more, cable companies swap franchises. Time-Warner gave away some major franchises around my hometown to Comcast in a swap. Others spin-off large franchise territories such as Time-Warner's spin-off of its Florida franchises to create Bright House.
You seem to think that the Cingular/AT&T model that worked so well with the iPhone will also work with cable providers. There is some minor swapping of territories with cell phone providers but not enough to significantly inconvenience customers. At my current residence, I am now on my third cable provider. If Apple were to cast its lot with a single provider, then it can count on having a significant fraction of its customers left high and dry through no fault of their own.
it's not pointless, it's just pointless for you. I'm in the market for such a TV right now and it pisses me off that I have to buy some other piece of crap as a stopgap device knowing that in a year or two Apple will come out with this.
The advantages over the current choices would be:
1) no cables and wires (other than a power cord)
2) no cable TV at all (yay!)
3) no "channel guide" to navigate
4) no amplifier to connect
5) no remotes (except your phone)
6) no speakers to string around your living room
7) almost certainly a far better quality picture than the crap out there now.
8) no 200 useless "features" and controls on the thing that you don't need and don't do anything anyway.
I was shopping for a TV just yesterday and they are uniformly shite IMO. There wasn't a single one that had accurate colour, and not a single one that wasn't blurry or faded, or pixelated at distances of less than ten feet.
TV is absolute crap nowadays, both the devices and the content.
I'm reasonably certain that whatever Apple ends up doing, it will be far better than what we have now.
Step one: buy a Panasonic plasma and set it to THX mode.
Step two: don't plug anything into it and stare at the empty screen in content.
Step three: there is no step three!
The notion that you'd have to plug nothing into an Apple-branded television because they would provide all of the content you could ever want is absurd. The idea that an Apple-branded television would have superior picture and sound is equally absurd; Apple would be limited to the same display technology as everyone else and they aren't known for great display calibration (compare two iPhones of the same model and you'll likely see one looking very blue and the other very yellow). Furthermore, Apple would likely want to make the tv as thin as physically possible, which means the speakers would be downright awful.
The idea of your phone being the only remote is also a bad one; what happens when you leave the room and your spouse or children want to change the channel or adjust the volume?