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Apple to Rule the Digital Home by 2013?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the apple-speculation-america's-new-pastime dept.

Stony Stevenson writes to tell us that a new study from Forrester Research is taking a crack at what seems to have become a hobby for so many, predicting Apple's market strategy. Specifically, Forrester is predicting that Apple will become the 'hub of the digital home by 2013.' "Forrester predicts that Apple will offer eight key products and services to connect PCs and digital content to the TV-stereo infrastructure in consumers' homes. A 're-engineered' Apple Store will expand into in-home installation services to deliver what Forrester describes as a 'fully integrated digital experience.'"

20 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. Quick summary: by kaos07 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Maybe I'm just hungover but to me the article seems to be nothing but: "Blah blah blah Apple. Blah blah Apple Blah Apple Blah."

    1. Re:Quick summary: by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Insightful
      No, it's more like Blah Blah Blah Apple. Digital. Blah Blah Blah. Apple. Shiny. Blah Blah Blah. Apple. TV.

      Much more in depth than you made it out to be.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:Quick summary: by mrbluze · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Blah blah blah Apple. Blah blah Apple Blah Apple Blah."

      Yeah, it's total crap. Not every home even has a drier, or a microwave oven (surprise surprise) or even a TV. Heaps of people don't own anything more than a small radio and cheap TV.

      Apple is not going to rule the home because it cannot produce products that everybody can afford.

      --
      Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
    3. Re:Quick summary: by weicco · · Score: 4, Funny

      In the end it doesn't really matter what technical devices I have in the house 2013. My wife still rules the remote control with an iron grip.

      --
      You don't know what you don't know.
  2. Yeah by willyhill · · Score: 5, Funny

    The massive success of Apple TV sure put them on the right track.

    --
    The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
    1. Re:Yeah by Kryptonian+Jor-El · · Score: 4, Funny

      Until iTunes can be used as a media player AND a bittorrent client, I don't think it'll happen (at least not for me)

      Hell, think of the marketing! "You have two options of getting your media; via iTMS, or for free via BitTorrent" I'd buy that shit in a heartbeat

      --
      All your 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 are belong to us
    2. Re:Yeah by voice_of_all_reason · · Score: 4, Funny

      "House corrupted. Please set fire to it and use itunes to restore."

    3. Re:Yeah by willyhill · · Score: 5, Funny
      I don't know why I got modded as funny, I wasn't going for the humour there. I had great hopes for Apple TV, because for once the same company would be doing both the hardware and the software in a single, well-supported and integrated package. And yeah, imagine if you could torrent free and licensed content off to the set top box.

      I'm not sure why people seem to think it's taboo to talk about how Apple TV didn't make the cut. So not all their products are going to be perfect - big deal. The road to success is not always paved with the detritus of your earlier home runs. Sometimes you have to work harder.

      I'm not sure if the premise of the article is valid, but I do believe that if someone can make the media center revolution happen, it's Apple.

      --
      The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
    4. Re:Yeah by Ilyon · · Score: 5, Informative

      You can laugh now, but a slow introduction of an Apple product does not guarantee eventual failure.

      Estimates indicate 1-1.5 million Apple TVs were sold in their first year on the market.

      In comparison, the iPod sold 376,000 units in their first year on the market. We're not laughing at iPod now, are we?

  3. No they won't by awitod · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It'll be either one of the console vendors Microsoft, Nintendo, or Sony (Probably Microsoft if they can get their heads out their asses on the matter of DRM. The XBox 360/Windows Media stuff works pretty well already and is simple to set up) or a set-top box vendor (again if they can come up with a DRM strategy).

    Apple doesn't make anything that hooks to a TV that has any critical mass.

    1. Re:No they won't by truthsearch · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It'll be either one of the console vendors Microsoft, Nintendo, or Sony If Sony was capable they could have easily done it by now. They've been selling all of the components, mostly successfully, for many years. They don't seem interested in integration.

      Nintendo doesn't seem interested in providing the full experience, either. They focus heavily on each individual product.

      Microsoft definitely has the strongest ambition. But they do often shoot themselves in the foot.
      --
      Developers: We can use your help.
    2. Re:No they won't by interstellar_donkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I was thinking the same thing. The way the 360 integrates with an internal computer network to deliver high quality video and audio is pretty darn slick.

      Other than perhaps a less clunky interface, I can't imagine how Apple could trump that.

      --
      The Internet is generally stupid
    3. Re:No they won't by lucas+teh+geek · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I was thinking the same thing. The way the 360 integrates with an internal Windows network to deliver high quality video and audio is pretty darn slick.
      I fixed that for you. Microsoft's failure to allow the 360 to stream over widely supported protocols is pathetic. you can't even use SMB, which they developed themselves. even using the one windows pc in the house with WMP11 I've had endless troubles with getting the 360 to see the damn pc. uPNP seems pretty half baked if you ask me.

      maybe I've had my expectations set too high after using xbox media centre for so long, but after being able to watch pretty much any video format over nearly any protocol the 360's media "integration" just seems like a polished turd
      --
      TIAEAE!
  4. I for one welcome our new over 1 button overloards by schwep · · Score: 5, Funny

    Because nobody would ever need more than 1 button on a mouse, nobody would ever need more than 1 button on a TV remote.

  5. Forrester cracks me up... by voidstin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How they get people to pay thousands of dollars for this "research" is amazing. Can anyone ever remember someone saying "Damn! Forrester totally called it!"

    The 4 new products they predict are:

    * AppleSound universal music controller
    what, for the times when you are out of earshot of itunes, ipod or apple tv? or so you can sync them? I don't see the market here.

    * Network-enabled gadgets
    like a chumby? or an ambient orb?

    * In-home installation services
    apple geek squad? Ok, this may be true, but really... yawn...

    * Apple home server product
    This is the only one that MAY be interesting, but that's probably just because they don't say much about it. isn't this what the mini is? or mini+drobo?

    1. Re:Forrester cracks me up... by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well there may be a market for a universal controller, the problem is that they've been beaten to it. The best example would be the Logitech Harmony remotes. These things control, well, everything. You log on to the website and tell it what gear you have and how it's connected, it sends you the data to program your remote to control it (remotes hook up via USB). Gone are the days of digging through code books, you just tell it what you got, and it does the rest.

      So it isn't as though Apple can just waltz in to this arena and amaze people, the products already exist, and they are already easy to use. It also already works with Apple stuff. Put an iPod in your Yamaha receiver (many have iPod docks) and the receiver will control it remotely, and the Harmony will control the receiver.

      Sounds to me like this guy is an Apple fan who hasn't really done his homework about what is actually out there, or done any real business analysis of if a market would be good for Apple to get in to. As you noted for home installation services, that's a big yawn. To the extent people buy that, they are going to buy it from the retailer they get the hard drives from, like bigscreen TVs. This isn't the sort of thing someone is going to think "Man, I'd better call Apple and have them pick up my TV from Best Buy and install it." It's hard to sell "cool" in the mark of in home installations and it takes only a minor look at Apple's business to realise that selling cool is what they do. The iPod wasn't the first MP3 player, it wasn't the cheapest, etc. What it was is the one that made MP3 players cool to have, that made them a fashion accessory.

      I really wish Slashdot wouldn't post fanboy crap like this. Just because it doesn't come from a blog, doesn't mean it isn't just a fanboy drooling over what they think would be cool. There seems to be no business case for any of this, just wild speculation.

  6. Apple is as Apple Does by SoupIsGood+Food · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now know this, you newly minted Mac users - if you use Apple equipment for any length of time, you wind up with the same hobby: predicting Apple's market strategy.

    It's fun and easy to do, and you soon learn that you can do just as good a job as Forrester or Gartner or Cringley, and do a lot better than Metcalf, Michael Dell or Dvorak (not the keyboard layout, as even a keyboard layout can provide better market analysis than that guy).

    Bold predictions! You can make bold predictions -

    "Steve Jobs will buy Adobe!"
    "Steve Wozniak will mary a famous comedienne!"
    "iPhone will be the first earth technology bough by alien visitors as it's superior to their own!"
    "Apple will shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders!"

    - Ok, I admit that it's unlikely Woz will marry a famous comedienne, but other than that, as long as it's outlandish and over-the-top, there's a one-in-a-million chance it might come true, and as Terry Pratchett readers, we know one-in-a-million chances crop up nine times out of ten.

    Articles like this are just the encouragement newly fledged Apple pundits need to start rolling their own... and it's a small step from speculation to rumor-mongering! That's where the action's really at.

    (And, you didn't hear it from me, but the next rev of iTunes will knock your socks clean off, employing bayesian fuzzy-logic heuristic inference engines to predict with 89% accuracy what you want to hear before you hear it, or so I heard from a little bird who's working on "Project BHA-II")

  7. No one wants integration by geek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Or if they do they're insane. Product tie-in is why people ran to Apple in the first place, to get away from the Microsoft lock-in. Now Apple is doing it. I recently dumped everything I had Apple and moved to FOSS for exactly this reason. It kills competition and locks you into inferior products all for the sack of compatibility.

    I like that I can have different components from different manufacturers. It means I can shop around for the best deals. As soon as one company ties it all in you can look forward to the death of standards like HDMI. Anyone remember ADC? The Apple Display Connector? Don't think for a second Apple wont start doing this to lock you in.

    It boggles the mind why people get so excited about vendor lock-in like this. Suddenly it's a good thing? Did we learn nothing from the 90's and the Microsoft/Intel/Cisco empire?

  8. Re:I for one welcome our new over 1 button overloa by vikstar · · Score: 4, Funny

    It makes Guitar Hero much easier.

    --
    The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.
  9. 5 year predictions... by proxima · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Forrester Research

    January 25, 1996: "Whether they stand alone or are acquired, Apple as we know it is cooked. It's so classic. It's so sad."

    I suppose Apple as we knew it in 1996 is dead, but how many people really miss that Apple? By January 2001 Apple was on the rebound, 3 years after introducing the iMac and about to release Mac OS X 10.0.

    I don't think that's what Forrester had in mind, though. I'll take any such company-specific predictions with a grain of salt.
    --
    "The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan