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GoogleTV, AppleTV and the Battle For The Living Room

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the can-someone-win-already dept.

An anonymous reader pointed us to an article talking about Google TV and AppleTV challenging the major networks and taking their place in your living room. It'll be a tough battle, amusingly waged on cable company wires in many major markets.

13 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. with net neutrality not going to happen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    they won't get far off the ground. when it takes money out of the cable company mouths (the ISPs), they will throttle down google tv and apple tv so that you will have to use their services instead and there will be nothing we can do about it because enforcing net neutrality is big government intervention - just go ask the tea party people - they are adamant against net neutrality

    1. Re:with net neutrality not going to happen by click2005 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As I've mentioned before, this will give the ISPs an excuse to switch to per Gb billing.

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      I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
  2. Net neutrality by codewarren · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And when the cable company says you can't use our lines for that... the guantlet for net neutrality will be thrown also.

    (or when the cable company says, "look we have tv over the internet now too" like they did with phone service)

    1. Re:Net neutrality by MozeeToby · · Score: 4, Insightful

      (or when the cable company says, "look we have tv over the internet now too" like they did with phone service)

      So? Let them, then there would be three TV over IP services vying for my money instead of just two (actually between Netflix, Amazon, and the possible multitude of Android based players there will be many more than three but you get the point). Though I suspect rather than "you can't use our lines for that" it will be a computer nerd shacked up in his workshop doing tests on each of the devices that discovers that the cable company's offering magically gets better bandwidth and latency than their competition. Though which cable companies will be stupid enough to pick a fight with the likes of Google and Apple at the same time remains to be seen (but you just know there will be at least one of them that thinks they can get away with it).

    2. Re:Net neutrality by mea37 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I doubt many cable companies, when faced with a loss of TV subscribers, will turn around and alienate their ISP subscribers with limitations on their service. I'm betting they'd like to have a hand in the delivery of TV content, even if it is only as the ISP over which someone else's digital service is delivered.

      As to the Net Neutrality issue, my answer to the question has been and will still be "labeling laws". Doesn't bother me one bit if my cable company wants to say "services X, Y, and Z are not allowed on our network", so long as that's clearly stated up front.

      And no, I don't expect the ever-shrinking population that only has one ISP option (or doesn't know how to find the other options) to be driving industry practices WRT network management.

    3. Re:Net neutrality by webheaded · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And if you're in an area where both companies do it?

      I get tired about hearing about great old capitalism and choices in a market that essentially HAS NO CHOICES. I'm all for letting the market decide, but some people seem determined to fit a square peg in a round hole. It doesn't work in every single market. Stop parroting that crap and think about it for a minute. I mean seriously think. It's entirely possible that BOTH companies offering these services are simply going to dictate to you what you're allowed to do with their service and there is not a single thing you can do it. In other words, you can't vote for your wallet if there's no one there to vote for.

      --
      "Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - BenF
    4. Re:Net neutrality by mea37 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "I get tired about hearing about great old capitalism and choices in a market that essentially HAS NO CHOICES"

      And if you were even remotely correct that there are NO CHOICES, I would agree with you.

      • You can probably choose your local cable company. Some areas even have more than one.
      • You can probably choose your local phone company. Some areas even have more than one.
      • You can likely choose from at least a handful of satelite providers. This may be restricted for you personally if you live in an apartment, but sad as you may find this the market is not driven by your individual circumstances.
      • I'm increasingly seeing people using 3G and 4G wireless service as an ISP.
      • You may be able to choose an independent ISP in your area
      • Much as I'm sure you hate to hear it, if nobody is offering a service you consider worth the money, you can choose not to do business with any of them.

      Go on, explain to me why the last one isn't an option. Pretend broadband is necessary to survive in modern society (even though lots of people get by fine without it), or that it's a God-given right that somebody just has to provide you a service to your liking.

      What you perceive as broadband being 'necessary', I perceive as the existing services being worth the money to you even though you protest otherwise.

      "It's entirely possible that BOTH companies offering these services are simply going to dictate to you what you're allowed to do with their service"

      "BOTH"? LOL. Ok, we'll pretend there are only two.

      Right, the phone company (who hates competition in the ISP market from the cable company) is going to help the cable company compete by cooperating with a ban on IP-baed delivery of TV shows, thereby allowing the cable company to get by with such a ban. Very realistic concern.

      I'm well aware of the limits of the competitive markets, but when it comes to whether those principles apply to ISP's, I'm not the one who hasn't thought the matter through.

  3. Doesn't matter by qsqueeq · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My wife still gets the remote.

    --
    www.qsopht.com ~q
  4. UI? by UnknowingFool · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From the demo, Google TV requires some sort of keyboard/mouse interface. From the FAQ, it doesn't appear that it will be a standard Bluetooth one. Other the other end, Apple has a simplified remote but will allow for control through one of the iOS devices. I think where the battle will be won is how consumers will like the UI.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  5. blogspot? by iamhassi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "An anonymous reader pointed us to an article..."

    An article on a unknown blogspot, telling us what we already know, that Apple and Google are battling for the living room and that Youtube is popular. Shouldn't this be in Idle?

    --
    my karma will be here long after I'm gone
  6. AppleTV? I'll pass. by Triv · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Apple will seriously have to convince people that their service is worth it considering how locked down, even for apple, the appleTV is. No web streaming (aside from youtube) means no hulu, no network websites, no thedailyshow.com. As a cable replacement it just might be viable on a per-show basis once more networks sign up, but as of now it's a $99 box that apple's selling to let them sell you stuff you most likely can get legitimately on the web for free.

    If it wasn't so damned restricted I might give it a look, but it would take some heavy convincing. And this is coming from a Mac user of almost 2 decades now.

  7. Apple is out to hunt bigger game than cable by joeflies · · Score: 5, Insightful
    It looks like that Apple TV is out to replace cable companies, but I think that's only a superficial view of the long term plan. There's been no announcement to date that Apple plans to offer any channel that appears on cable .. rather they go through online content providers. They complete skipped the major gripe of cable, i.e. to offer a "subscribe to channels you want ala carte", and changed the game to "buy what episodes you want to see, on demand".

    Which leads to the question .. so what role do the networks play in the grand scheme of things ... NBC / ABC / CBS / FOX are not all developing their own content, they buy that content from a show producer. If Apple develops enough mindshare and living rooms, you don't need NBC to order the episodes of a new show, Apple can buy it directly from the show's producers.

    This could be a great play to cut out all the middlemen, not just the cable company or the satellite monthly fee, but the entire tv network system as well ... it's possibly the biggest change in the business of TV in 50 years, and frankly none of the TV networks seem to notice yet.

  8. Re:mythtv... by whisper_jeff · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If only they'd focus on giving consumers what they want; they'd make a ton more money.

    They'd have a ton more happy and satisfied (loyal) customers but I don't know if they'd make more money. I'm sure they've done the math and figured out that nickle and diming us at every turn results in more dollars in their pockets, despite annoying the crap out of us on a regular basis and, since happy customers aren't their goal, they've followed the money.

    It would be nice if a content provider was able to build a viable business model based around happy customers but, thus far, it seems to be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow - a nice dream but never gonna happen.