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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.'"

9 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. 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 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.
    2. 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.
  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. 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")