Search for the word ‘‘cracked’’ in Walt Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs (or flip to page 555 if you have the bricks-and-mortar version). The second hit yields the following:
It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.
“It” is the mythical Apple iTV. Even though Walt’s report of the July 2011 conversation didn’t hint at Steve’s solution, the eleventh hour revelation has rekindled old rumors and set the blogosphere on fire. “If Steve said he ‘cracked’ the problem, it must be true!”
At first, I had impure thoughts: I imagined Dear Leader, taking a moment away from redesigning Saint Peter’s abode, had foisted a prank upon us abandoned mortals: “That’ll keep ‘em busy…and will take their attention away from embarrassing topics such as the incompatibility between iOS and Mac file formats.”
A few days later, however, I read two posts that made me rethink my dismissive views.
First, in “Apps Are the New Channels”, John Gruber floats the idea of channels-as-apps (powered by iOS, of course):
Imagine watching a baseball game on a TV where ESPN is a smart app, not a dumb channel. When you’re watching a game, you could tell the TV to show you the career statistics for the current batter. You could ask the HBO app which other movies this actress has been in.
Second, in his good-natured pout post “Fine. I will talk about Apple Television or iTV or whatever it will be or will not be called.”, Brian Hall led me to a Nielsen Wire article that contains this graph:
40% and 42% of smartphone and tablet users, respectively, use their devices while watching TV — on a daily basis. The statistics themselves are hardly surprising, particularly to parents who have watched their multimedia-tasking children grow into young adults. But as I looked at the charts, a retroactively-obvious connection, a compatibility, struck me: Smartphones, tablets, and the iTV all use apps. [I’ve given up using the precautionary “putative” when speaking of iTV, and I use the present tense with license.]
With this in mind, what will the iTV look like?
As discussed in a previous Monday Note, if the iTV is an integrated device, the computer inside will become outdated long before the monitor does. Once you’ve graduated to Full HD (1920 by 1080 pixels) any other “improvements” –“240 Hz” display frequency and the like — are markitecture gimmicks that are invisible to most users. In other words, you won’t want to upgrade your TV after 18 months the way many of us do with laptops, tablets, and smartphones. (One could imagine a replaceable iOS computer module inside the iTV, but it sounds clunky, a source of problems.) Even more important, an integrated iTV would orphan the millions of HDTV sets already in place.
Furthermore, I still don’t see a 50” TV set walking out of an Apple Store. It’s hard enough to carry a 27” iMac out — or back in when trouble strikes. And I don’t see battalions of Apple field service people coming to our homes to fix these things.
If there’s no integrated iTV, let’s consider the iTV as a separate module, the next-generation Apple TV. In order to really work in the marketplace and achieve an iPod-like status, the module would have to “swallow” the set-top box, DVR included. If it didn’t, we’d still have to fight the multiple device/multiple remote battle: The set-top box, the primary source of TV fodder, has to be connected to the Input 1 HDMI connector, relegating iTV to Input 2. Certainly not the elegant solution Steve had in mind.
However, swallowing the set-top box and its DVR would entail making agreements with cable operators, business that are more numerous, less sophisticated, and more afraid of Apple than are the wireless carriers. While the wireless carriers have seen how smartphones can increase their ARPU, cable operators know only too well what would happen to their barely legal and definitely distasteful program bundling schemes once Apple gets in the game. (Try adding a single channel to your existing Comcast bundle: in Palo Alto, with Comcast, you must fill and email a form. It can’t be done on the phone, even if you manage to get to a human after a 20 minute wait.)
Ah, but maybe there is a way: Connect the set-top box to the HDMI input on the iTV, then connect the iTV to your HDTV’s prized Input 1. That gets us partway there, but it still doesn’t solve the multiple remote problem.
That’s where apps come in for the first but not last time: Download Apple’s iRemote application to your iOS, Android, or Windows Phone smartphone or tablet and you’re done.
Smartdevice-as-remote has been attempted before, of course. One example is the Xfinity iPad/iPhone app. You prep each set-top box in your home, download the program guide to your iDevice, and you’re good to go. When you issue a channel-change command from your smartphone, it’s sent through the Net to the Comcast cloud, and is routed back to your set-top box via Comcast’s cable:
Why the detour through Comcast? Because your smartphone/tablet and your set-top box don’t understand each other. The former speaks WiFi and Bluetooth; the latter only understands infrared.
Unfortunately, in my case, it worked once and never worked again.
Judging from the comments in the App Store, I’m not alone.
Furthermore, counting on the cable operator – and there are more than 25 in the US — to let the smartphone/tablet app control a multitude of set-top box models via the circuitous route described above probably isn’t the type of elegant solution Jobs had in mind.
How about translating between the smartphone/tablet and the set-top box by inserting a mediating device, a WiFi or Bluetooth-to-I/R converter? With the iTV connected to the set-top box and TV via HDMI, you still end up with a complicated arrangement: Your home WiFi base station provides a Net connection to your smartphone and iTV, and the WiFi-to-I/R converter listens to your smartphone and speaks I/R to your TV and set-top box:
This looks ugly, and it gets uglier: Since there’s no two-way connection between the TV/set-top box and the “remote,” the remote has no idea whether the TV is on or off, which input it’s using, which channel it’s tuned to. As a result, it’s easy to have a system in an unknown state, frustrating most mortals and forcing ‘‘harmonizing remote” makers such as Logitech to use complicated workarounds.
For most users, chances are slim that the set-up I just described will work and keep working.
Now let’s consider channels as apps. Why should TV on an iTV be like the TV we get through a set-top box? Newspapers and magazines on tablets (and smartphones for some publications such as the NY Times) aren’t mere replicas of the paper-based product. The adaptation to the new medium isn’t always pretty, but there are some great examples: See Bloomberg Businessweek or The New Yorker Magazine on a tablet.
The same will apply to TV. Not all channels will adapt equally well or equally quickly, but as “channel apps” evolve, we’ll see new ways of using the medium. As Mr. Gruber pointed out, imagine a football game as an app on an HDTV screen with the on-demand stats he mentioned plus the Twitter and Facebook streams we’ve grown to expect. (Personally, I’m not crazy about having too much “other” content on the screen as I watch a game, but I might be in a minority.)
Delivering channels as apps liberates our “viewing experience” in two ways: It breaks today’s narrow channel delivery format and it bypasses the set-top box. Today, I can watch the “straight” version of 60 Minutes on my TV (in real time or from my DVR), or I can go to my computer and watch a recent episode plus the additional “60 Overtime” content…or I can buy the $4.99 iPad app and get all of that through a much better UI that includes great navigation to the vast library of past episodes. Port that iPad app to the iTV device and you’re done. With channels as apps, all you need is a net connection (sometimes provided by the cable operator). You can throw the set-top box away.
Will consumers pay for iTV apps/content as I did for 60 Minutes? Probably, and we won’t have to pay for everything, just as with today’s TV with its combination of free and pay-per-view programs.
Of course, there’s the notorious “simple matter of implementation,” here: Someone has to write the apps that encapsulate the channels. But once the movement gains strength and tools become widespread and understood, it will be easier than you might think. 500,000 iOS apps attest to the availability of institutional knowledge.
In the meantime, if you don’t have an iPad, borrow one, spend $4.99 for the 60 Minutes app, and imagine the experience on an HDTV. Is this the TV future Jobs had in mind?
[In a future Monday Note and/or in comments on our site, I’ll cover variants to the approach described above, infrastructure issues, and also potential reactions from carriers/operators and competitors.]
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43 Comments
My vote is that iTV *replaces* the set-top box.
I’ve used multiple STBs from Comcast, Verizon, Cablevision and Time Warner. All of them seem to have been designed and programmed by teams of sadistic second-year computer science students with axes to grind. The field has been ripe for disruption since before Boxee and Roku got in the game. If Apple could crack the wireless carriers, Scientific Atlanta should be cake.
Apps as channels can work depending on who writes them, who sells them, who rev shares. As you note re the Xfinity app, the experience is less than perfect (Netflix’ is better, IMO). The varying quality and morass of fingers-in-pies is likely only slightly preferable to having stronger centralization / standardization in the app product development process.
@ Steve McNally: Yes, there must be a hidden burg, no pun, in the former East Germany, where out-of-work Trabant (http://bit.ly/vtZxuQ) sadistic engineers do hardware/software contract work for US set-top box makers.
Now, seriously, the iTV + apps solution raises business model questions: Apple’s is hardware, not content; how to deal with cable operators bound to become dumb pipes as AT&T did — in exchange for a higher ARPU…
Jean-Louis I think you need to consider this may be one device.
Roll together a mac mini, apple tv, airport extreme/time capsule into one machine.
Voila, a real itv.
Just crossed my mind: Jobs’s comment is likely to become the XXI century’s Fermat theorem…
@ Lgg: Solved, in two steps, by Andrew Wiles (http://bit.ly/uOzvYc), building on the work of Japanese and Berkley mathematicians…
@ Lgg: Andrew Wiles in his own words: http://to.pbs.org/sNqwjX
Organizations are spending a lot of resources building what they’re calling the “second screen”, the smartphone/laptop/table screen you’re using while you’re watching TV. Sports are the obvious example, but the NY Times did the same thing for Oscars, including timing commentary to appear from their reporters during the commercial breaks. See this from the Online News Association conference: http://www.mediabistro.com/10000words/how-espn-and-the-new-york-times-build-a-second-screen-for-readers_b7170
(An interesting question for sports is that the at home experience is becoming superior to the in stadium experience, but that’s a whole different kettle of fish.)
Requiring an iOS device ranging between $200 and over $600 to serve as a remote for this proposed iTV does not make sense and will create a huge barrier for adoption. Even if you argue that the target market likely already has iOS devices, it is necessary to have one dedicated device for the TV at all times.
I think that the big factor in any iTV (just as big as content delivered through apps, if not bigger) will be the input method. The pieces are already there: touchscreen interfaces that adapt to the situation, camera, gyroscope, wifi, bluetooth, microphone with voice recognition. I fully expect this remote to adapt the technology we already see in iPhone and iPad into something that is always on and available when needed, unlike the Remote app. This remote could enable positional awareness or even be used as a second screen to what is currently shown on the main screen (a la Wii U). Also, don’t think of this remote as merely a bundled iPod Touch. It will be decidedly different, and may not work without the main TV.
If this does happen we may even see an enhanced Remote app that can give an iPhone or iPad the same capabilities, but this will likely be a secondary experience, not primary.
All of this is purely speculation, but based on observing Apple and how they redefine entire experiences. Thinking that Apple will redefine TV only through content should look at how the iPod redefined not just the music industry, but how the device itself worked as well.
May the ‘true’ Apple TV start to happen on the iPad? May Apple introduce a Siri-enabled Newsstand-like app for TV content (TV apps) with a future Retina Display iPad and use mirroring to deliver the signal via Apple TV?
Did SJ cracked the social dimension of watching TV (e.g. how could crowd sourced opinions help me choose what to watch?).
And the cloud enabled functionality (e.g. streaming, caching, downloading, deleting)?
The point is that Apple is willing to package iOS-as-a-service for $99 IF there is a strong likelihood that you will buy content via Apple through the device. This is a break in normal business plans for Apple and is more akin to the Amazon model – but the fact that they have “resorted” to this inferior plan with AppleTV suggets that Apple is being pragmatic with the dyed-in-the-wool content providers – at least in the short term. The key though will be ease of use. People need to discover new content and subscribe to it. Currently, the ATV lists episodes (albeit only in the US – another indication of recalcitrant encumbents). There are no channel options, only searching by network. When some network realizes this is the future and starts to work with Apple (and Google) to provide great experiences via a channel app,, then we’ll see progress as in the telco arena (thanks to AT&Ts bet).
Even if I have the iTV you describe, I’ll still be using my iPad simultaneously. One, I don’t want other images overlaying the goal line during the game. Second, it’s easier surfing or replying to emails using the touch screen and keyboard. Also, having my meanderings on the tv screen while watching Bones would irritate the heck out of my wife.
Look at who is already doing interesting things with tv apps? TimeWarner, Comcast, and ESPN amongst others. This might not disintermediate the dumb pipes, because they’ll make you pay any which way if you get your TV thru the STB or if you get your TV thru an app. I love the ESPN app, where I can watch on my iOS device, either live sports or tons of european soccer games at my leisure, all in HD. What’s not to like? The cable company still gets its money. ESPN still gets its money from the cable company. I get greater functionality with mobile TVs all over the house.
I’m building an addition, and I’m prewiring my house, but how much better would it be if I didn’t need to do all that wiring, thinking of all the possible locations I might put a TV? A smarter mobile TV with a Siri interface and greater interactivity. Sounds nice.
@ Hadi: You’re right. Today’s Apple TV comes with its own remote, I expect iTV to do the same. The smartphone/tablet will be a supplement/extension with better UI, not a requirement.
Every time I look at the problem I answer around the same ideas: For whom is TV broken? For whom are we trying to fix it? For you and me?
Even in houses where there are iPads, iPhones, game consoles, there are always people to turn on the huge dumb device in the room to “Check what is showing on the TV”, “Change channels until there is something worth watching”.
In a world where silence has become dreaded, TV is the reassuring presence in the room. The Nielsen data shows us that people are doing anything but watching TV while it is on: we are consuming other media, reading, playing, or going through life, dining, washing dishes.
If TV was showing programs that had our attention it would not be TV anymore.
TV Broadcasts will remain the ultimate passive media for a long while, and economics will maintain the status quo: what is the price of 24/7 good quality programs?
iTV may be able to improve things for a small percent of the population, but mass market TV is a huge beast loved by too many, ugliness and all.
TV is broken for you and me, but are we a large enough market?
@ Charles Averty: The TV is broken in many ways. First, cable operators prevent us from buying what we want and only what we want. Channels as apps will/could solve that. The UI/navigation is broken. The content presentation is antiquated. We might be used to it, but this doesn’t mean it should stay forever the same.
You’re right, TV is mostly a passive medium — unless it’s consumed in/as a group, such as football games. I think there is a huge market for better TV, it’ll manifest itself when TV really changes. It’s happening to most other media.
@ Charles. I agree. This certainly happens in our household. So we’ll be wanting both modes of service–regular mindless TV and chosen programs on iTV. Can we get them both on the same device?
There are two benefits to DVRs. One is I don’t care when shows come on. Two is I don’t care what channel the shows come on. How would stuffing shows into individual apps improve this? It would actually be a step back from the DVR. I’d have to remember which show comes on which channel. I don’t want to interact with the special features in BluRay discs, and I don’t want to ‘interact’ with my shows through apps, just show me the show. Now there is a model Apple already has that I’d love to have. I subscribe to podcasts, they automatically show up in one long list in iTunes, and they appear on my devices. So if I could tell my TV to record a show using Siri, and from then on it shows up on my TV automatically (like podcasts) in a beautiful Apple designed interface, and it also syncs to all my other iOS devices this would be a perfect combination. I want an experience that improves on DVRs, not goes backward a step.
Isn’t your key point really the apps, not the i or the Apple? Samsung and other device makers are already making apps enabled TVs, and there surely no reason why a dozen different OS’es and manufacturers can host apps on their devices/systems. Throwing in the Apple angle just seems cheap.
The real problem is to make content producers/owners package there content as apps, as well as the UI. (I’m not sure if each show/network/channel/movie having it’s own app will make things cheaper and easier, but that’s another story…)
Channels as apps is still living in the past.
I have no tv reception currently. My only tv access is Hulu and AppleTV. I would never pay for a channel.
I would pay for a show. There are no channels (except perhaps Discovery) that have consistent enough content to warrant whole purchase.
Let me buy, and thus directly support, a specific show for $10 a season.
TV series’ seasons as apps. This is the future.
Don’t believe me. Go to Pirate Bay. See any torrents with a full night of, say, NBC? Nope. When people are given a free choice they will either choose a specific show or a specific season.
“f the iTV is an integrated device, the computer inside will become outdated long before the monitor does”….this could also be said of the iMac but Apple manages to produce those profitably.
I believe there could be a market for what looks like a big iMac (37 to 47 inches) with essentially AppleTV guts inside as well as 2 HDMI inputs. On the screen where AppleTV lists Internet, iTunes TV, iTunes Movies, and Network they could add HDMI1 and HDMI2 (1 for cable box, 2 for game console). If you are using those you are on your own with the remote. Use just what’s inside and you get to use only the Apple remote.
If they add quality sound (not ridiculous, but a subwoofer and speaker array encapsulated in the TV for much better than normal TVs but not as good as a full 7.1 system), an integrated “Airport Express” WiFi bridge/extender/base, camera, and maybe Siri functionality I think it could be a winner. It wouldn’t remake the TV market, but could be a winner still.
iMac is $1200 for 1920×1080 pixels with a full computer. This would have a bigger screen but the same # of pixels and different but comparable guts. Sell it for $1599 to $1999.
I told Steve Jobs the answer to the market problem for Apple TV: Make Apple TV a Gaming Console – like the X-Box, but better since it will have the iOS.
Tivo tried the integrated DVR-Cablebox solution. It obviously did not work. I seriously doubt that a similar solution from Apple would work.
However, people WILL BUY GAMING CONSOLES. Just look at the hundreds of millions of X-Boxes, Playstations, Nintendo Wiis, and others that have been sold and bought as updates to previous gaming consoles.
The Video Game industry is LARGER THAN THE MOVIE INDUSTRY. Think about that.
You cannot pry the numerous cable companies’ and satellite TV companies’ control of their own boxes. They will not cede control to Apple. But consumers will FLOCK to buy a game console. Just ask their kids and young adult. People automatically buy game consoles.
Thus, iTV will be a game console with iOS and all the advantages iOS entails – an app market being the largest advantage.
An iTV game console also entails the least risk to Apple in regard to engineering and production. All Apple has to do is to add controllers to an Apple TV with the guts and storage of an iPad 3. The A6 is going to be a humongous gaming chip. Having Siri as a navigational interface would be fantastic. Apple can also use the Microsoft Kinnect device – or something similar since Apple has a patent on the idea – as a controller, in addition to using iPads and iPods and iPhones as controllers. Of course, such an Apple TV can network with other Apple TVs remotely for interactive gaming.
The iTV Gaming Console would be a humongous hit. And Apple would bypass having to negotiate with every cable company. It would be a fantastic solution that SELLS.
I see no mention of the Microsoft Windows Media Center (and its Extender), which is to iTV what Tablet PC was to the iPad. That is what Apple has to look at and solve the failing points to get a successful device.
It even had an App Store (with ESPN, Disney, ABC, MTV… as partners with apps). It also used XBOX as the console that could be connected to your TV
Alas, it was Microsoft, and they never figured out how to set it up for easy configuration and how to sell it to people.
Also, you gotta ask – what exactly is a TV? Isn’t it just a monitor we are talking about (whose content currently is sourced through an OTA tuner or Satellite/cable/internet/disc). So what we really mean by iTV is a device that orchestrates all the possible sources of content to the display monitor.
I actually believe that the current Apple TV could so easily have been much more if it just had three more components:
1. Storage capacity. Not a huge amount (like the original ATV), but enough to store Apps. Actual content could still be streamed from wherever. 4Gb should do it.
2. The capability to download and use Apps. Just like existing iOS Apps, these would undoubtably be very varied and include “channels” (as described in the article) and also Games etc. This could also counter current failings of the ATV (no BBC iPlayer? Someone will write an App. No DNLA support? Someone will write an App. etc)
3. A peripheral port. This could be the killer. For the first time, “proper” domestic video conferencing by adding a web cam; home automation; Kinect-type games… the list is endless. No doubt Apple would use a proprietary connector (rather than good ol’ USB), but wouldn’t that be a good thing for them?
I accept that these could push the price over the magic $99 price-point, but people are willing to pay lots more for other Apple devices. If Apple can make this a cool, must-have accessory (which they’re rather good at doing), I can’t see why this shouldn’t be yet another gold-mine for them.
I think “the simplest user interface you could imagine” is AirPlay. The “smarts” stay in your mobile devices. The TV becomes a big, dumb display for your content.
You’ll probably discuss this in the follow-ups you’ve alluded to, but the biggest roadblock to app-based viewing is the existence of the Cable monopoly on internet access. Simply put, when you cut cable, they hike up your internet rates.
Other than the obvious (but unlikely) move of the FCC to break up this monopoly, the cable companies still have us by the short ones.
I do not pout!
Otherwise, I think you provide the clearest picture of the challenges Apple faces, along with the opportunities.
For me, I simply can’t get over the fact that the “television” is a screen, in a home, that offers gaming and content. I just can’t believe Apple will allow this market to continue without their vigorous participation.
@KenC…
The problem is that I don’t want Comcast et all to intermediate AT ALL.
They provide the same function to viewing as insurance companies do to health care… (i.e. none.)
Get out of the way, be a dumb pipe and charge me a fair price for my bandwidth usage, which you then use to build up the infrastructure.
FCC/Justice should absolutely block Comcast/NBC. I can’t believe its gotten as far as it has. Monopoly on its face.
@Gunnar Lium…
No, it is precisely the ‘i’ and the ‘apple’.
You really want to compare any software or interface written by Samsung to that written for iOS (other than the stuff they stole)?
The incompetence of the existing gang of suspects is precisely the problem that Apple consistently solves.
Jean-Louis, you should test a Google TV device, they attempt somewhat successfully what you describe above. I like both the Revue, and the Sony NSZ-GT1 Blu-ray disc player we own. There are IOS and Android apps to control both devices, and the attached Dish Network DVR’s we have.
> Furthermore, I still don’t see a 50” TV set walking out of an Apple Store.
You buy it, and it is shipped to you direct from manufacturing in China, like all other Apple products. The room in the stores for the demo unit is where the boxed software used to be.
> I don’t see battalions of Apple field service people coming
> to our homes to fix these things.
Apple started sending Geniuses out to businesses recently. No reason they can’t send them out to homes as well.
And they wouldn’t have to fix the TV on the spot, they could just show up in a van and swap your TV just like they swap iPads at the Genius Bar. Turn on the new one, login to iCloud, good to go. Your broken TV goes back for refurbishing and will be swapped for another broken one later for another customer. Same as iPads.
> set-top
I don’t think it will be a set-top. The connection between the box and screen is the worst one of all. You have to use short lengths, you lose picture quality, and you won’t see accurate color on generic screens. Hooking up cables also encourages the user to think of their TV as a nest of wires they can hook 10 things into.
And I don’t think Apple wants to be limited to what can go over an HDMI cable. An integrated TV could go to 4K as soon as the Internet bandwidth is available to download the content. That would be a key Apple advantage over other vendors, going to 4K first.
> As discussed in a previous Monday Note, if
> the iTV is an integrated device, the computer
> inside will become outdated long before the
> monitor does.
I don’t think that is a legitimate concern. Most cable system set-tops are used for much longer than the typical TV. A TV with an A6 or an AMD SoC would be so much more powerful than what people are using right now. What they’ve been using for the past decade. If they are stuck using it for a whole decade, so what? But the backlights won’t last that long, anyway. Modern TV’s don’t last like the CRT ones did. But Apple gear is very recyclable.
And again, a key Apple advantage would be pushing us into 4K, because they can serve the content out of iTunes. So they have a reason to sell you a 2KTV today, then 2-3 years later, a 4KTV, and so on. They can give you a reason to get new glass. Some people will buy every new screen, and some won’t. The devices will be easy to resell or pass on, because as long as the hardware is functional, you can easily factory reset an Apple product, then update it to the very latest software and get a very new-like experience. And you know where to go for service and support.
> remote
You want to get rid of the remote for all the same reasons you want to get rid of the stylus. I don’t know if iTV is “cracked” if it has a remote. Maybe it has to, but my money would be on them getting rid of the remote. Getting rid of the stylus on phones sounded crazy in 2006 also.
I think the interface would almost certainly have to be voice. The TV could listen to both the room and the audio that is playing on the TV and ignores what is playing on the TV. Siri can understand arbitrary phrases, and can distinguish individual voices.
Using your iPhone as a remote is so 2008.
> channels as apps
No brainer. This goes back way before Gruber mentioned it recently.
When Apple TV 2 shipped with iOS, the question was “apps?” The answer is: they are right there on Apple TV 2: Netflix, YouTube, iTunes. The apps you run on a TV are of course the channels. Think of the cable channel that shows the listings, that is an app running on a server somewhere, and you are seeing a video stream of its interface. To make that smarter, you have to put some computing into the client, at least an HTML5 decoder. With Cocoa, Apple can enable developers to make something even more immersive.
Interactive TV has always failed because the development tools and interactive platform always sucked. Making DVD menus could not suck more than it does. Xcode to the rescue.
@ charles averty – I agree with almost all that you say.
I suspect that where are right now – with high quality access to many channels for a relatively modest price combined with ‘kind of free’ access to Internet video (at varying quality) – may well be the high-tide of video entertainment value for many years to come. And BTW a la carte makes little sense – you’ll just end up paying more for less,
My biggest fear is that nextgen TV will give us all a new unwanted hobby – searching for rather than enjoying the consumption of content!
I remember Rob Tercek saying to me that ‘the value’s in the wrapper.’ Offering me something I’m likely to want to watch is worth quite a lot – even if I could get that video for free elsewhere. That’s what TV does now (for most people anyway) and that’s what iTV needs to offer in spades.
So – if the wrapper’s better than TV, for a comparable price, and it gives us all the shiny new interactivity – GREAT. But how do you build that effectively, when legacy TV’s fighting like crazy to hold on to its position. And of course, just when you start to win, legacy TV will just ‘steel your clothes’.
Going to be fun isn’t it.
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One Word – Kinect. Add Technology like that to a TV and No Remote Needed. Interface can be As Natural as they come (Voice and Hand actions) and who Cable providers become dumb pipes, for “pre-fetch shows” experience. If your link fast enough (and everyone’s will be, soon enough) – you get real-time HD streaming, voila.
You kind of just gloss over the most important impact of this solution: completely removing the cable provider from the system. I don’t see how that is possible given they 1) control the wire and everything on it and 2) own the very lucrative business model that funds the production of television content.
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Very glad to see your blog, thank you share so many interesting things. Hope that in the future can see you day published more interesting! Can see your blog I very happy! Thanks for your sharing, I wish you a happy life!
I ran across your blog when trying to find database table naming conventions. Thanks for putting pieces together. Good works!
It’s amazing to pay a quick visit this site and reading the views of all friends on the topic of this post, while I am also eager of getting know-how.
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[...] про яблоки и телевизоры: As discussed in a previous Monday Note, if the iTV is an integrated device, the computer inside [...]
[...] original article: From Heaven: iTV Posted by admin at 7:14 pm ch_client = "scafuz"; ch_width = 120; ch_height = [...]
[...] latest edition of Jean-Louis Gassée’s always stimulating Monday Note takes a highly informative look at what Steve Jobs may have meant in this comment to biographer [...]
[...] In the meantime, if you don’t have an iPad, borrow one, spend $4.99 for the 60 Minutes app, and imagine the experience on an HDTV. Is this the TV future Jobs had in mind? via From Heaven: iTV [...]
[...] All the recent speculation about a possible Apple television has prompted Jean-Louis Gassee, an Apple exec from way back who’s now general partner of venture-capital firm Allegis Capital, to offer a provocative vision of what Apple’s set might do. [...]
[...] All the recent speculation about a possible Apple television has prompted Jean-Louis Gassee, an Apple exec from way back who’s now general partner of venture-capital firm Allegis Capital, to offer a provocative vision of what Apple’s set might do. [...]
[...] All a new speculation about a probable Apple television has stirred Jean-Louis Gassee, an Apple exec from approach behind who’s now ubiquitous partner of venture-capital organisation Allegis Capital, to offer a provocative prophesy of what Apple’s set competence do. [...]
[...] but it builds a compelling argument that Apple can — and probably will — make a set-top box, which he calls the iTV, that will cut cable providers out and replace their bundles of channels with apps that you [...]
[...] but it builds a compelling argument that Apple can — and probably will — make a set-top box, which he calls the iTV, that will cut cable providers out and replace their bundles of channels with apps that you [...]
[...] reading, but it builds a compelling argument that Apple can — and probably will — make a set-top box, which he calls the iTV, that will cut cable providers out and replace their bundles of channels with apps that you [...]
[...] content/subscriptions directly from providers and take a cut. See Jean-Louis Gassée’s “From Heaven: iTV” and John Gruber’s “Apps Are the New Channels” for detailed explanations of how such [...]
[...] reading, but it builds a compelling argument that Apple can — and probably will — make a set-top box, which he calls the iTV, that will cut cable providers out and replace their bundles of channels with apps that you [...]
[...] also why an Apple television could become a serious competitive threat. By turning television channels into apps, it could bypass the cable box (and the cable company), letting viewers interact with [...]
[...] document.getElementById("fb-root").appendChild(e); }()); In reaction to last week’s technical speculation on the putative iTV, several commenters raised questions about content providers, distributors, and “pipes”. Does [...]
[...] reaction to last week’s technical speculation on the putative iTV, several commenters raised questions about content providers, distributors, and [...]
[...] greeting to last week’s technical conjecture on a putative iTV, several commenters lifted questions about calm providers, distributors, and “pipes”. [...]
[...] also why an Apple television could become a serious competitive threat. By turning television channels into apps, it could bypass the cable box (and the cable company), letting viewers interact with [...]
[...] аn Apple television сουƖԁ become a serious competitive threat. Bу turning television channels іntο apps, іt сουƖԁ bypass thе cable box (аnԁ thе cable [...]
[...] reaction to last week’s technical speculation on the putative iTV, several commenters raised questions about content [...]
[...] greeting to last week’s technical conjecture on a putative iTV, several commenters lifted questions about calm providers, distributors, and “pipes”. Does iTV [...]
[...] reaction to last week’s technical speculation on the putative iTV, several commenters raised questions about content providers, distributors, and [...]
[...] thoughts and he outlines how apps are the new channels and using voice to fetch relevant data. Jean-Louise Gasse in his Monday Note builds upon Gruber’s thoughts and adds how an ever-increasing amount of people are using [...]
[...] Reference:SupplyAndroid carries on to outpace iOS as the top rated smartphone OS, but Apple continues to be the domi…in second place with 28.3 %. [...]
[...] discussed in previous Monday Notes (here and here), there’s one strong, clear reason to bet against an integrated or smart Apple TV set: [...]
[...] for yet another category reinvention by Apple?Not so fast.As discussed in previous Monday Notes (here and here), there’s one strong, clear reason to bet against an integrated or smart Apple TV [...]
[...] he indicado en otras ocasiones (aquí y aquí) que existe una razón clara y poderosa para apostar en contra de un televisor Apple [...]
[...] he indicado en otras ocasiones (aquí y aquí) que existe una razón clara y poderosa para apostar en contra de un televisor Apple [...]