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DigiTimes Lends Credence To Apple-Branded TVs For 2012
It's a rumor that goes back years (here's one example from this summer) that Apple is planning to produce dedicated TV sets branded with its own name; the main question seems to be when. DigiTimes (hat tip to CNet) is reporting that component-maker sources say that Apple has begun the process by ordering parts that hint at an offering next year of Apple TV sets (as opposed to Apple TV) in 32" and 37".
A tv that will cost twice as much as the next overpriced Sony and only lets you watch content approved by Apple. Oh and it will also use proprietary connectors so you can only connect it to other Apple devices.
I guess its the next logical progression from the iPod, iPad, and now iTv.
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As the summary itself notes, these rumors go back years, so yet another iteration of the rumor, "this time for real", without any real info except some screen sizes, is not so exciting.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If they only sell 32" and 37" sets who is going to buy them? 32" is too small for even a bedroom, let alone watching the 'HD' media one would expect to be able to stream to one of these televisions. Also, if the rumours are true this television must have some significant features other than what can be achieved with an AppleTV + LCD. My guess is they will include an EPG and storage to record television shows to in addition to the AppleTV functionality. Then Apple will call it revolutionary and pretend like they came up with the idea to record to HDD. Not saying I don't like the idea of an Apple tv, just saying.
At his last All Things Digital (fast forward to 1:31:30 or so), Steve Jobs said that the TV market was hard because the hardware was subsidized, which prevented doing anything interesting. The set-top box from your cable company is "good enough", it's free (at least, you think it is), and enough people won't spend money for a wow-cool interface to allow someone like Apple to make money. He referred to Apple TV as a hobbyist product.
So it sounds like the strategy now is to make the whole TV and not just a set-top box. I'm curious what that is going to bring. Sure, it'll be a nice set and maybe the interface will be better than the typical clunky "navigate a menu without a mouse" things. But so much of what's controlled on the TV is controlled outside of it - i.e., through my Dish/Cable/etc. carrier's box.
Will iTV replace those boxes? Is this a sort of androidy model where Apple provides everything those carriers do and then says to the carriers, why keep building your own set-top boxes when iTV can do that for you?
If it's just a nice TV with a better interface for adjusting the brightness, I can't imagine anyone getting excited, so there must be something more...speculations, please.
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There already plenty of televisions that are black with rounded corners. Who will they sue?
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
My prediction
* Runs any of the 500,000 apps in the App Store w/ iPhone/iPod/iPad as controller.
* AirPlay becomes more fluid, maybe uses new Bluetooth chips in the 4S (currently uses wifi and can be extremely laggy depending on your home wifi setup).
* Opens up new API that allows apps to overlay menu/images over TV signal (Don't like ESPN's stats on the game? Download XYZ app w/ real time stats + chat.)
* Allows Siri on iPhone 4S to control the TV, setup DVR times, search through recordings, etc.
* Announces a deal w/ TWC/Comcast/Verizon/etc to replace their cable boxes reducing my number of remotes from 3 to 1 (or 0 if I can use my iPhone).
I'm sure it will all be for the low, low price of $3000 for the 32", $3500 for the 37".
I don't think they should to get involved in this market. Most people already go buy whatever cheap piece of crap Walmart TV they can find. You can get a 32" right now at Walmart.com for $200.
Then again, people have shown their desire to throw money at Apple before...
Make it 3D and give it a touchscreen.... I want to watch people flailing trying to grab that damn angry bird on their 55" TV and careen right through their coffee table.
Apple is not going to enter a market that is already in an aggressive price reduction war. Just look back at their same reasoning for not messing with Netbooks. If they can come in with a way to redefine the market, they would do that. But, not a "me too" television. Many/most other TVs have competitors to TV + Apple TV. Most suck, but they are still close enough to not allow Apple to price the TVs how they want, meaning they won't get in the market.
In the past, I thought they might do a next-gen Apple TV with integrated HD DVR. But, that's another fully saturated market bundled with cable/satellite services. Tivo has been unsuccessful in exploiting that market, so Apple will probably not go there. They could do iOS integrations, like auto-converting content to iPod/iPad/Mac friendly format. But, that would compete with iTMS purchased content. So, it's a no-go.
So, I think that this, like most Apple rumors, is rubbish. It's just someone's "how can I drive traffic to my www site? I'll make up the next possible step for existing apple technology."
It's too bad they're afraid to rely on the quality of their products instead of abusing the patent system to blockade competition.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Comcast is in the content (NBC) and distribution (cable, broadcast) business. Like every other cable provider, they see their proprietary box as both lock-in device (cheap, inhibits cable piracy), a strategic advantage (enables end-end Layer2/3 network management) and a business advantage (rental income exceeds costs, provides high-dollar, high-resolution viewing data for internal use and sale to third parties, complete with detailed and accurate demographics, likely to include credit info/SSN).
Now WHY ON EARTH would they cede this to Apple?
Unlike the cell phone business, there's no cable competition -- they can't work Comcast against TWC against VZW. They found a weak and willing partner in AT&T for their phone strategy, but a weak and willing cable partner is a small-time regional player that prevents a national distribution strategy.
As a standalone device, capable of cablecard, maybe it would stand a chance, especially if it came with some kind of "bypass cable TV option" that gave you access to cable programming via download/Apple store at some kind of competitive subscription pricing.
If the quality of the screen is up to par with the screen on a 27in iMac then who the hell cares about the size.
Many of the 'big' screens sold today are really crap quality. Their resolution is often far less than a comparable PC monitor.
Just try displaying your PC screen on your 40 or 50in TV. Then you will see what I mean.
Funny that for decades we managed without 40inchers everywhere.
I have a 32in TV in my house. Yeah 1 TV. It has a really good screen. 1920x1080 and does display my PC screen very nicely.
My cousins 50in screen is crap even though it is nominally 1080p but it is more like 1080i.
The ball is in Apple's court. If they can come up with a TV that somehow redefines the TV as we know it then well done to them.
This is not condoning their sue first attitude recently but I do think that even the most rabid anti apple android fanboi has to tip their hat to Apple in a small way for shaking up whichever industry they decide to enter.
yep
cable boxes/DVR's are $10 - $15 per month for each one. apple TV with built in youtube and netflix will be a big money saver for a lot of people
I used to run my TV using a Mac Mini with EyeTV so I could watch and record TV. It was awful, very unstable, crashed often, and required a CS degree in order to understand how to record a series. If Apple is coming out with a TV, they need something much much much better then EyeTV.
No, I will not work for your startup
...is about to become fashionable again?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Another tech industry giant Nintendo has announced they too will be entering the TV space with their line of flat panel tuners. They are dubbing their TV line Cii (pronounced see). The sets will only be capable of 480p but Nintendo is confident their revolutionary remote control is the key to selling more units not resolution.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
With Apple being early to add USB and drop the floppy I could see them dropping the tuner altogether. I haven't used a tuner in a TV since 1993 ( bought a monitor only then )
When there was the big switch in the US from analog to digital TV the numbers mentioned for people who get their television OTA was ~ 10%. That means that 90% of the TV buyers have no need for a tuner. Connecting to a cable or satellite box isn't using the ATSC tuner at all. Maybe Apple could leverage their iTunes deals for a streaming package that can compete with cable/satellite.
Considering they make money on the content the pricing could be no different than a conventional TV. Apple would be happy to have everyone overestimating the pricing only to announce it at half the price of the estimates.
The only tuner that might make sense would be for wireless HD of some sort. Then you can beam video, audio or other content to it w/o wiring.
and man, if 32 and 37 are their options, the software had better be very compelling. Although there is a TON of room for improvement in TV software. And I guess the apple TV plus your 50" plasma is always an option for bigger screen size.
Of course I should also admit that I've never owned a TV and do not foresee one in my future.
Like anyone can even know that
Not just about Apple rumors, but most notably there. http://www.google.de/search?q=digitimes+track+record+apple+rumors
Fandroids hate facts.
to use as a tablet. The biggest TV tablet I would want would be 19".
These can't be TV's -- more likely a new cycle of Cinema Display that has TV-like component inputs for better media integration. Really, why would Apple start selling TVs that are just TVs when brands like Sony can't turn a profit and why at such pathetic form factors as 32" and 37" when you can get a Sony Bravia 40" 3D LCD with built-in internet for $2 less than a 27" Apple Thunderbolt Display? So no -- I highly doubt this "Apple TV-set" is what they think it will be and will more than likely be nothing but a next-gen Thunderbolt/Cinema Display that allows you to jack in your PVR and other set-tup boxes to offer media convergence to your desktop and allow Apple to maintain their price-point on their Desktop Displays, which is presently looking quite overpriced.
32" is too small for even a bedroom
Yet another virgin slashdotter who watches way too much porn.
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TV sets are an incredibly slim margin market. Plus, they aren't going to be able to easily compete with larger set sizes and probably wouldn't want to. The distribution channel for larger devices in very high volumes is very different than for a handful of 27" iMacs and monitors as well
Instead, Apple could leverage their current position and just enhance the user experience with a nicer Apple TV (with video conferencing, camera, remote acess and other goodies thrown in.) They could even couple that with a centralized server and really low cost set top boxes at each set for a more consistent and compelling experience and even better margins. iOS games could also be integrated in.
It makes no sense for them to make sets.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
DigiTimes is like the Chinese-language version of the National Enquirer for the tech industry. It's rarely right, but that doesn't stop people from continuing to pretend it has legitimacy or accuracy.
Interesting, when you combine this with the story on Yahoo http://finance.yahoo.com/news/tv-prices-fall-squeezing-most-070009145.html. Good luck to Apple, seems they are gonna need it.
So then you can buy the same TV (same internal equipment) and pay twice as much due to the Apple Logo... Just like Mike and Nike.
iMeh.
Hopefully they don't come in a rectangular form factor with a bezel around the screen; that might infringe on someone's design patents.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Apple has been good at gaining control of segmented markets full of overly complicated products that suck.
Think music players before IPod or smart phones before IPhone. Apple did not invent a music player or a phone - they re-invented them. And TV sets, satelite set-top boxes, IP TV all need re-invention badly.
All the speculation about an iTV is based on what the hardware or software (or price) will be. And all of it's useless. It's easy to predict that Apple will come out with something that's beautiful to look at and fun/easy to use. But there's only one thing that *really* matters for the success of Apple's foray into TV - where the content will come from. Until Apple succeeds on making a deal with the content providers to provide content on with a pricing model that's more appealing than cable and/or OTA, Apple's device will be fighting an uphill battle. I hope they do, but it's hard for me to imagine how ever since Comcast bought NBC.
The iPod succeeded because of the music they were able to obtain. The iPhone succeeded because of the apps people built. The iPad succeeded because of the adaptation of those apps for the big screen. The iTV will require some kind of similarly special content to make it succeed. Personally, I think (wish) Apple would start by buying HBO.
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
Instead of TVs, I would prefer to have Apple monitors which work with PCs. 1920 x1200 is the minimum for me but 1920x1080 is more and more common. On the iMac, I have 2560x1440. Thats a display I would like to have on my linux boxes too but the current thunderbold displays from apple do not target the PC market.
Digitimes makes up rumors, and they are fairly bad at it.
So bad at it, that digitimes piling on this rumor is more a sign that it won't be happening. ;)
when the apple TV came out cable card may of been put in but even then and still now the cable co's don't give like it and don't seem to try very hard to make it work.
Yeah. Blow a lot of money on replacing all of your old sets with overpriced Smart TV's just so you can save on cable box rental.
Rather than just buying the $100 box that already exists.
Yeah...
The absurd price premiums on Smart TVs are already there for anyone to see. You just have to be willing to bother looking. You're already better off avoiding the Smart TVs and just getting an appliance to plug into it.
You can buy an HTPC with the difference, never mind an AppleTV or Roku.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
the sizes make sense only if they are targeted at places that don't need a built-in tuner. This makes them universal, cheaper, and more likely to have more than one per household, as an addition to the big family TV. Big enough for the wall in a bedroom. They would be easier to carry out of the store, and transport costs would be lower, which keeps Apple$ margin higher. But it's still a rumour!
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Funny that for decades we managed without 40inchers everywhere.
The resolution of a North American color TV set with RF input only was at best maybe 330 lines. The 46 inch rear projection set of 1992 weighed 300 lbs and cost $2000.
The lack of volume control is mind-boggling. I can understand that (perhaps) in a conceptual sense it is the business of the TV but from a usability perspective it's annoying to have to reach for a separate remote. Since HDMI 1.3 I believe the device should be able to send volume control messages to the TV so even if it is the TV's business the Apple TV should at least be able to conveniently relay the message.
I think the actual Apple TV remote is just a necessary inclusion though, anybody with the option would probably use an iPad/iPhone if only to have a keyboard for the search screens. Not that the remote app UI is a great triumph.
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... similar TVs that were made in the 90s by Gateway 2000, and by Dell after that?
I hope this rumor is not true because those screen sizes won't do in 2012. Hopefully whomever leaked this was giving you information from a couple years back.
If Apple does produce a whole TV (that's a big if, especially at 32 or 37 inches, sounds like new iMacs to me), the dumbest thing they can do is discontinue the set top box at $99 US. It would be like only selling the iPod for Macintosh, they'd miss the whole chance to flank the market.
Are 32 and 37 inch the most popular size TVs sold? Seems like odd sizes to me....
here ya go: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2011/12/28/2-more-reasons-to-buy-apples-new-tv.aspx
There are a lot of ways how the TV experience could be improved. I am not sure whether users will like it, but some options would be:
Social Viewing, text-chatting with friends while viewing a film.
Alerting the user by iphone about potentially interesting broadcasts; controlling the hdd recorder by mac and iphone.
All sorts of better video-on-demand browsing,paying and viewing experience ala itunes.
Using the TV as an email receiver.
Using the TV for facebook.
Using the TV as a personal photobook.
Internet browsing on the TV.
Special-interest news apps for sports, economics, politics with user-configured filtering.
Video conferencing.
Think of merging the TV with the computer, as much as the iphone truely merged telephones and computers.
Open your eyes and look at the automotive market - almost all people could technically use a FIAT (Italian economy car with especially economic quality.
But what are they actually buying ? Most of them buy at least something like a Toyota or a Volkswagen, because they have the money to do that and they dislike crap. A minority have the money to buy Mercedes, Audi, Lexus, BMW and they are often fiercly loyal to these brands, despite these car costing twice or three times as much as a FIAT.
Why should it be different with computers, telephones and TVs ? This is called "segmentation" in the marketing and MBA world and it is known to exist in many different markets.
I like this, as this means I am part of an industry which does not converge on dirt-cheap-shit-quality-DELL stuff. Like Apple or not, but they are lifting this industry out of the death spiral of cost cutting and quality deterioration. Thank god it is not all beige-box Wintel !!
Apple is a computer company, while all the other players are basically hardware companies only. Apple can go a long way to "marry" computers, the internet, the telephone and the TV. Their knowledge in simple, but effective user interaction technologies alone would be an enormous improvement as compared to the crap interfaces with lots of cryptic buttons nobody can remember and most people never even attempt to learn.
A proper computer company can simply kill the traditional TV companies in terms of user experience, and that's what will happen, as it happened in the phone industry. Nokia's high end got killed by two software-heavy companies because they did not have any clue about software, software patching, bugfixing and user experience.
Regarding the pricing, if peopl have enough money for a 300 HP BMW, they surely have 3000 dollars for an Apple TV. Just don't expect everybody to buy Apple.
The coming year will see integrations of platforms such as Android becoming standard on TVs - It is only natural for Apple to forsee that step and work to counter it.
I already use an RTL1186 based embedded device with Android installed and can sit happily playing Angry Birds in HD on my large living room TV as well as playing anythiing I want from my media collection and writing custom code to display any web content / video streams etc that I want laid out in the way I wish. Data on my media collection is automatically pulled from the net and populated for my library and the whole process becomes very seamless and painless. All this adds up to displaying the information I want to see in the way I want to see it without needed to use several different devices to view it.
This is all a natural progression and it makes sense to then incorporate it into your TV rather than as seperate dedicated boxes (Note that TV manufacturers have been pushing for this for several years now themselves).
It will not take long for these functions to become the norm. We have gone past the infancy of the development of the tech in this respect. The hard battle now is to minimise the effect of chip suppliers crippling their own products to further monetise them.