The reality is, at the end of the day all of these media boxes are just becoming a commodity to move content you're already paying/paid for through to your screen. Period. One will likely select which one they want based on the vendor providing the user the most content. Buy stuff through iTunes and use iTunes Match? Apple TV. Prime customer with free Amazon Instant Video? Amazon box. Google Play and Google Apps? Chromecast. All of them (eventually) will have the same support for the other 3rd parties for the Netflix, HBOs and Vevos of the world. These guys don't care how you watch, they get paid for the content either way and the more support they can offer the better their product looks.
The hardware running it, wifi bands, game controllers and other crap is way down the list in priorities. What will separate them is the interfaces, and right now that's where Apple is lacking. As much as I use both Apple TVs in my house everyday the UI is messy joke and the furthest thing from being any sort of intuitive as the rest of Apple's products. It's beyond time they do something with it. Even Amazon's box here just in pictures looks better, which is pretty sad.
Well, they certainly have not so far. They have been sitting on Apple TV for years. Huge missed opportunity in my opinion. They better be working up something good because I have gone to Bestbuy for over a year trying to talk myself into getting Apple TV but it is just so lame that I can't. I have an LG smart TV so I need more than netflix on Apple TV to get it. Anyway, Hope you are right.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatorguy
That's a pretty impressive $99 streamer. I don't see anywhere that Amazon has skimped on it hardware-wise either. A better remote than any of their competitors, excellent internals for the box itself and a tiny form-factor. Then add in lots of content and even an upcoming child-friendly "FreeTime" content version that parents will probably love and I think Amazon may well have best-in-category at this point.
Agree 100%. Apple's current offering sucks against this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ScartArt
I feel that Apple dropped the ball here. They sat back, not introducing new features such as gaming, which has allowed Amazon to step in.
I agree.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rogifan
I expect Apple to announce something at WWDC, including an AppStore. I don't see how Amazon announcing something 2 months earlier is a big deal. Kindle Fire didn't stop Apple from selling a shitload of iPad minis.
Hopefully Apple will because the "We got excellent products coming" BS needs to come to an end. If the iPhone 6 isn't a nice upgrade, I will pass on the 2 year cycle (iPhone 3G, 4, 5) for the first time. I love my iPhone 5 enough to keep it for 3 or 4 years. Definitely will need a larger screen option for the iPhone. That HTC is looking pretty decent.
The major issue here is locally sourced games and dedicated controllers. in about 2 game buying cycles (10 years), dedicated controllers will be like pinball machines... relics of a different era.
Apple's strategy is clear... the iPad/iPhone is the controller and game player. Your TV is just a larger display. and I want to see people play games in their car with FireTV.
Same for voice search.
I think Apple is defining it's game just fine.
But as the story goes... whether the elephants are mating or fighting, the mice on the ground have to fear for their lives.
Roku, Playstation, Xbox et al are dead to me now (as investments). The slow migration from several 'living room entertainment devices' to one cloud enabled device is the mass market play. My guess is you're either a content play (netflix, game feeds), or a hobbyist play (open source ardino sort of thing).
Having one or 2 other big players in the market is good for Apple... as that makes content negotiations actually happen. (the issue is that content distribution owners want competition... the problem with iTunes and AppleTV is that without competition, the labels felt that they were unable to negotiate from a position of strength thus they'd rather not negotiate at all and be pirated.... because at least in piracy there was a boogie man to blame, not themselves, for lost profits).
Google with Google TV, ChromeCast, Google Fiber.... is a reasonable 3rd player... but as I stated in another thread, they don't seem to be playing to a singular 'team strategy'
Samsung can build this into their TVs without the box, but I don't see an ecosystem forming, unless their appliance divisions and mobile divisions start playing nice. I think anyone on the TV manufacturing front is playing to where the puck used to be, just trying to checkbox 'ethernet,' 'wireless,' 'USB3.0' 'Netflix,' 'Vimeo' [add content de jur...].
The future of the home entertainment center will be closer to what Amazon and Apple are doing than what anyone else is doing.
- seamless integration between content sources
- integrated search and identification of all content 'on now' 'on the net' 'coming up later' I am or have been interested in
(be cool for your TV to learn that you like to watch Rockford File, and get reminders about cable/OTA episodes, or releases to one of your 'deep cloud DVR sites [amazon prime netflix, iTunes].
- 2/5/7.1 sound
- high speed networking
- customizable content sources
- Intelligent navigation of all content (learning, voice controlled)
- ability to play single, local multi, and internet-multi-player games
- one controller for TV, STB and any local content sources (BluRay via HDCP)
I'm speculating here, but I think Apple has played this just right -- let the others show their catch up offerings, then blow them away with a new/replacement AppleTV.
Timing means a lot!
Exactly. Let the others show their hand then whip out a 4K ATV gaming rig with some live TV.
What other company(ies) are DOMINATING any of these areas? Certainly no one is in wearables. In fact I just saw an article about how 40% of smartwatch/fitness band owners stop using the product after a few months and don't have plans to buy another one again.
What is it with all the nervous nellies every time a competitor releases a new product? Geez....
This is a common trope. Someone does something feeble but because Apple isn't doing it Apple is weak and pathetic. Apple was wrong not to release a phone with a keyboard. Apple was wrong not support Flash Lite. Apple was wrong not to make a tablet that ran Mac OS X. Apple was wrong to support USB.
We waited decades for a proper tablet from Apple and it finally arrived it was considered a failure and yet soon after all those asshats were eating those words and yet years later the iPad is far and away the dominate tablet platform with a few low-lying copycat competitors eating up the low-end. There is something to say with building it right over building it first. Some people apparently never heard the story of the Three Little Pigs as children.
pretty impressive release. will put some pressure on the xbox360/ps3/wiiU crowd.
apple could have been the first to market with this capability. now they're playing catch up. a bit disappointing. i have an apple tv which is collecting dust right now.
Well, they certainly have not so far. They have been sitting on Apple TV for years. Huge missed opportunity in my opinion. They better be working up something good because I have gone to Bestbuy for over a year trying to talk myself into getting Apple TV but it is just so lame that I can't. I have an LG smart TV so I need more than netflix on Apple TV to get it. Anyway, Hope you are right.
Agree 100%. Apple's current offering sucks against this.
I agree.
Hopefully Apple will because the "We got excellent products coming" BS needs to come to an end. If the iPhone 6 isn't a nice upgrade, I will pass on the 2 year cycle (iPhone 3G, 4, 5) for the first time. I love my iPhone 5 enough to keep it for 3 or 4 years. Definitely will need a larger screen option for the iPhone. That HTC is looking pretty decent.
The market hasn't matured, especially the content side. You have niche needs (games on TV, big screen phone) that most people don't want.
You already bought a smart TV which raises the bar for requirements.
In the end, you're not bought into the Apple target market. And apparently, not into Amazons
Apple has rarely defined the market, and in the TV space, even less so, as the market (content) is so fragmented.
I do think that with iOS becoming a target for gaming, that in 5 years, 'TV' gaming will be part of the suite (a 'universal' app that can split the cycles between your hand device and the TV, or just run locally on your uber iPad/iPhone).
But your opinion appears to be 'what I want' rather than 'the 2 billion TV user market wants' which is a fair opinion, but not one share by a majority of people who own TVs and are thinking they need it to be 'internet connected.'
The set-top box also integrates with Amazon Cloud Drive, allowing users to push content such as photos to their television set.
Photos? Yeah, right. Users are going to push content such as torrented movies and TV shows from their Cloud Drive to their television sets, and Amazon is going to pretend to be none the wiser.
Should be “Microsoft-like joystick design.” Not interested. (And if the majority of non-MS game systems use symmetrical sticks, shouldn’t asymmetrical be described as “atypical”?)
Generally speaking, people do not like speaking to their electronic devices, yes if you live alone it perfectly fine. but most people become board with this feature and tend to go back to what works well. They do not say whether you can play content or control the box from an iphone or even an android device. This is actually the feature I see people use, they do their selection or searching on the iOS device than have it displayed on the ATV.
So your idea of a swing is announcing a product regardless of how well it's done and seeing if you can turn a profit from it?
Not mine. My idea of a swing is to invest in R&D and to carefully work on various ideas until the right time in terms of public interest and technical capabilities make it worthwhile.
For example, a 1 lb smartwatch that has a 2 hour battery is not a device that is ready is for the prime time even if you have added all the capabilities you think people will want. Why? Weight, size, and battery life, of course. This is why, in this example, you would work to make it lighter, more svelte, and make it last long enough that the user experience is good for the customer.
Salmonellosis is the difference between being caving to your reckless impatience and waiting a couple minutes for your chicken to finish cooking. You should consider the same thing when spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on a vendor's product.
That said, I want Apple's categorically new products to be ready sooner than later but I want them to be ready, not just released, and I'm quite happy by their increased R&D spending as it does indicate they have increased their batting practice tremendously over the years.
Generally speaking, people do not like speaking to their electronic devices, yes if you live alone it perfectly fine. but most people become board with this feature and tend to go back to what works well.
If it doesn't work well that's fair enough, but you haven't tried it. Also, when in your living room you're always guaranteed to be in your own house, and manual search is there if you want it. I think this voice remote search, if it works well (certainly no guarantees at this point) is a very good idea. I'd definitely use voice search if Apple TV had it. I use Siri on my iPhone the whole time in my house to do Google searches, and I can tell you after owning Apple TVs for a few years now that search is pretty slow to enter with that on-TV one letter at a time keypad.
All interesting, and Amazon is smart to fire a shot across the bow with pointing out deficiencies in the airplay system. I bought a movie on iTunes with the "extras" and not only will those "extras" not play via the ATV, but I can't stream them via the airplay system. That is unacceptable in an apple product.
I have very modest needs on a TV. The real revolution will be in the content, just like Steve and the iPod and Itunes original concept. These boxes are all fine, and like buying any other apllicance, you simply buy one that fits your need and budget.
We've come a long way from rabbit ears. But what comes over them (other than perhaps the HDTV digital tech) hasn't changed in decades. The enemy here is not the Roku/Amazon/AAPL/MSFT tech competititon. The real enemy is the cable companies and their monopoly on content protected from competitive distribution.
So your idea of a swing is announcing a product regardless of how well it's done and seeing if you can turn a profit from it?
Not mine. My idea of a swing is to invest in R&D and to carefully work on various ideas until the right time in terms of public interest and technical capabilities make it worthwhile.
For example, a 1 lb smartwatch that has a 2 hour battery is not a device that is ready is for the prime time even if you have added all the capabilities you think people will want. Why? Weight, size, and battery life, of course. This is why, in this example, you would work to make it lighter, more svelte, and make it last long enough that the user experience is good for the customer.
Salmonellosis is the difference between being caving to your reckless impatience and waiting a couple minutes for your chicken to finish cooking. You should consider the same thing when spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on a vendor's product.
That said, I want Apple's categorically new products to be ready sooner than later but I want them to be ready, not just released, and I'm quite happy by their increased R&D spending as it does indicate they have increased their batting practice tremendously over the years.
Excellent post, that chart needs to account for inflation to be truly meaningful, not sure it does?
Not sure what kind of game developers would find this platform attractive. iOS and Andriod apps are mostly all touch oriented and have a huge user base that $2 games make sense. $2 games which require optional $40 controller doesn't seem like an attractive proposition for new game ecosystem.
Comments
The reality is, at the end of the day all of these media boxes are just becoming a commodity to move content you're already paying/paid for through to your screen. Period. One will likely select which one they want based on the vendor providing the user the most content. Buy stuff through iTunes and use iTunes Match? Apple TV. Prime customer with free Amazon Instant Video? Amazon box. Google Play and Google Apps? Chromecast. All of them (eventually) will have the same support for the other 3rd parties for the Netflix, HBOs and Vevos of the world. These guys don't care how you watch, they get paid for the content either way and the more support they can offer the better their product looks.
The hardware running it, wifi bands, game controllers and other crap is way down the list in priorities. What will separate them is the interfaces, and right now that's where Apple is lacking. As much as I use both Apple TVs in my house everyday the UI is messy joke and the furthest thing from being any sort of intuitive as the rest of Apple's products. It's beyond time they do something with it. Even Amazon's box here just in pictures looks better, which is pretty sad.
Quad Core is marketecture.
802.11n is old stuff.
Apple will deliver a much better product IMO
Well, they certainly have not so far. They have been sitting on Apple TV for years. Huge missed opportunity in my opinion. They better be working up something good because I have gone to Bestbuy for over a year trying to talk myself into getting Apple TV but it is just so lame that I can't. I have an LG smart TV so I need more than netflix on Apple TV to get it. Anyway, Hope you are right.
That's a pretty impressive $99 streamer. I don't see anywhere that Amazon has skimped on it hardware-wise either. A better remote than any of their competitors, excellent internals for the box itself and a tiny form-factor. Then add in lots of content and even an upcoming child-friendly "FreeTime" content version that parents will probably love and I think Amazon may well have best-in-category at this point.
Agree 100%. Apple's current offering sucks against this.
I feel that Apple dropped the ball here. They sat back, not introducing new features such as gaming, which has allowed Amazon to step in.
I agree.
Hopefully Apple will because the "We got excellent products coming" BS needs to come to an end. If the iPhone 6 isn't a nice upgrade, I will pass on the 2 year cycle (iPhone 3G, 4, 5) for the first time. I love my iPhone 5 enough to keep it for 3 or 4 years. Definitely will need a larger screen option for the iPhone. That HTC is looking pretty decent.
Game changer.
not really... at least not for Apple.
The major issue here is locally sourced games and dedicated controllers. in about 2 game buying cycles (10 years), dedicated controllers will be like pinball machines... relics of a different era.
Apple's strategy is clear... the iPad/iPhone is the controller and game player. Your TV is just a larger display. and I want to see people play games in their car with FireTV.
Same for voice search.
I think Apple is defining it's game just fine.
But as the story goes... whether the elephants are mating or fighting, the mice on the ground have to fear for their lives.
Roku, Playstation, Xbox et al are dead to me now (as investments). The slow migration from several 'living room entertainment devices' to one cloud enabled device is the mass market play. My guess is you're either a content play (netflix, game feeds), or a hobbyist play (open source ardino sort of thing).
Having one or 2 other big players in the market is good for Apple... as that makes content negotiations actually happen. (the issue is that content distribution owners want competition... the problem with iTunes and AppleTV is that without competition, the labels felt that they were unable to negotiate from a position of strength thus they'd rather not negotiate at all and be pirated.... because at least in piracy there was a boogie man to blame, not themselves, for lost profits).
Google with Google TV, ChromeCast, Google Fiber.... is a reasonable 3rd player... but as I stated in another thread, they don't seem to be playing to a singular 'team strategy'
Samsung can build this into their TVs without the box, but I don't see an ecosystem forming, unless their appliance divisions and mobile divisions start playing nice. I think anyone on the TV manufacturing front is playing to where the puck used to be, just trying to checkbox 'ethernet,' 'wireless,' 'USB3.0' 'Netflix,' 'Vimeo' [add content de jur...].
The future of the home entertainment center will be closer to what Amazon and Apple are doing than what anyone else is doing.
- seamless integration between content sources
- integrated search and identification of all content 'on now' 'on the net' 'coming up later' I am or have been interested in
(be cool for your TV to learn that you like to watch Rockford File, and get reminders about cable/OTA episodes, or releases to one of your 'deep cloud DVR sites [amazon prime netflix, iTunes].
- 2/5/7.1 sound
- high speed networking
- customizable content sources
- Intelligent navigation of all content (learning, voice controlled)
- ability to play single, local multi, and internet-multi-player games
- one controller for TV, STB and any local content sources (BluRay via HDCP)
- one click purchase of stuff you want to watch.
That's the game. Who else can play it?
Ohhh... I completely overlooked 4K :no:
This is a common trope. Someone does something feeble but because Apple isn't doing it Apple is weak and pathetic. Apple was wrong not to release a phone with a keyboard. Apple was wrong not support Flash Lite. Apple was wrong not to make a tablet that ran Mac OS X. Apple was wrong to support USB.
We waited decades for a proper tablet from Apple and it finally arrived it was considered a failure and yet soon after all those asshats were eating those words and yet years later the iPad is far and away the dominate tablet platform with a few low-lying copycat competitors eating up the low-end. There is something to say with building it right over building it first. Some people apparently never heard the story of the Three Little Pigs as children.
apple could have been the first to market with this capability. now they're playing catch up. a bit disappointing. i have an apple tv which is collecting dust right now.
Well, they certainly have not so far. They have been sitting on Apple TV for years. Huge missed opportunity in my opinion. They better be working up something good because I have gone to Bestbuy for over a year trying to talk myself into getting Apple TV but it is just so lame that I can't. I have an LG smart TV so I need more than netflix on Apple TV to get it. Anyway, Hope you are right.
Agree 100%. Apple's current offering sucks against this.
I agree.
Hopefully Apple will because the "We got excellent products coming" BS needs to come to an end. If the iPhone 6 isn't a nice upgrade, I will pass on the 2 year cycle (iPhone 3G, 4, 5) for the first time. I love my iPhone 5 enough to keep it for 3 or 4 years. Definitely will need a larger screen option for the iPhone. That HTC is looking pretty decent.
The market hasn't matured, especially the content side. You have niche needs (games on TV, big screen phone) that most people don't want.
You already bought a smart TV which raises the bar for requirements.
In the end, you're not bought into the Apple target market. And apparently, not into Amazons
Apple has rarely defined the market, and in the TV space, even less so, as the market (content) is so fragmented.
I do think that with iOS becoming a target for gaming, that in 5 years, 'TV' gaming will be part of the suite (a 'universal' app that can split the cycles between your hand device and the TV, or just run locally on your uber iPad/iPhone).
But your opinion appears to be 'what I want' rather than 'the 2 billion TV user market wants' which is a fair opinion, but not one share by a majority of people who own TVs and are thinking they need it to be 'internet connected.'
LOL, so does the ATV via AirPlay, and Media Center Safari plugin. Of course you can stream ANY content, OBVIOUSLY.
Flash content can be streamed by AirPlay Display from Mac.
Quote:
The Roku is here to stay- it streams porn
The set-top box also integrates with Amazon Cloud Drive, allowing users to push content such as photos to their television set.
Photos? Yeah, right. Users are going to push content such as torrented movies and TV shows from their Cloud Drive to their television sets, and Amazon is going to pretend to be none the wiser.
Should be “Microsoft-like joystick design.” Not interested. (And if the majority of non-MS game systems use symmetrical sticks, shouldn’t asymmetrical be described as “atypical”?)
Generally speaking, people do not like speaking to their electronic devices, yes if you live alone it perfectly fine. but most people become board with this feature and tend to go back to what works well. They do not say whether you can play content or control the box from an iphone or even an android device. This is actually the feature I see people use, they do their selection or searching on the iOS device than have it displayed on the ATV.
So your idea of a swing is announcing a product regardless of how well it's done and seeing if you can turn a profit from it?
Not mine. My idea of a swing is to invest in R&D and to carefully work on various ideas until the right time in terms of public interest and technical capabilities make it worthwhile.
For example, a 1 lb smartwatch that has a 2 hour battery is not a device that is ready is for the prime time even if you have added all the capabilities you think people will want. Why? Weight, size, and battery life, of course. This is why, in this example, you would work to make it lighter, more svelte, and make it last long enough that the user experience is good for the customer.
Salmonellosis is the difference between being caving to your reckless impatience and waiting a couple minutes for your chicken to finish cooking. You should consider the same thing when spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on a vendor's product.
That said, I want Apple's categorically new products to be ready sooner than later but I want them to be ready, not just released, and I'm quite happy by their increased R&D spending as it does indicate they have increased their batting practice tremendously over the years.
Apple will release something when it's ready. Not before then.
Generally speaking, people do not like speaking to their electronic devices, yes if you live alone it perfectly fine. but most people become board with this feature and tend to go back to what works well.
If it doesn't work well that's fair enough, but you haven't tried it. Also, when in your living room you're always guaranteed to be in your own house, and manual search is there if you want it. I think this voice remote search, if it works well (certainly no guarantees at this point) is a very good idea. I'd definitely use voice search if Apple TV had it. I use Siri on my iPhone the whole time in my house to do Google searches, and I can tell you after owning Apple TVs for a few years now that search is pretty slow to enter with that on-TV one letter at a time keypad.
doesn't play usb deal killer
doesn't play usb deal killer
They want to sell you content. You're looking for a PS3.
I have very modest needs on a TV. The real revolution will be in the content, just like Steve and the iPod and Itunes original concept. These boxes are all fine, and like buying any other apllicance, you simply buy one that fits your need and budget.
We've come a long way from rabbit ears. But what comes over them (other than perhaps the HDTV digital tech) hasn't changed in decades. The enemy here is not the Roku/Amazon/AAPL/MSFT tech competititon. The real enemy is the cable companies and their monopoly on content protected from competitive distribution.