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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.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
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.
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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
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.
Maybe thats why they should do it.
Early adopter and tech guys all "know" that multi foot long TVs are supposed to be thousands of dollars. I simply left the market up until recently, there's no way I'm spending a "used car" on a tv. Ignored the market, was shocked recently at how cheap TVs have gotten. Almost cheaper than a physical window. We're very close to the point that from a materials and energy cost standpoint for it to be cheaper to install a 40-something inch TV in portrait mode and a webcam sideways outdoors and call it a "iWindow" or something like that.
Of course my recently purchased 42 inch TV was only a couple hundred bucks, not several thousand, and I'm probably the last guy in the US to have upgraded from CRT to LCD, so it might already be too late to "convince" people that big TVs are still $3000, including the new iTV?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
But can't Apple do all those things without the display? A third generation Apple TV could conceivably handle all of that.
Beware of the Leopard.
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.
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
The 'untapped' TV market is simplicity. It's hard to integrate all of the potential choices for TV input (cable, iTunes, Amazon, Netflix, Blockbuster, DirectTV, Over the Air, DVD, BlueTooth, PirateBay etc) without setting up some complicated 'Home media server' and a remote with three thousand buttons.
It really surprises me how bad the TV manufacturers do at this. I have a 2 year old Samsung 42" - not a bad screen but the interface just absolutely sucks. Yet another 500 button remote with Tiny Little Letters and a few new icons (still haven't figured out the purple button with 2 dots and something vaguely resembling a triangle). The stupid thing can't even remember what it was last hooked to.
Come up with a generic way of doing this and you're rich. Of course, it it was easy, it would have been done already. For the reasons amply detailed in this and thousands of other posts it is quite a technologic and social challenge. Personally, I don't see Apple solving it - I don't thing anyone really can because of the inherent Balkanisation of the 'TV experience" but perhaps Steve has a better perspective on things from the Other Side.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
No, it means they won't be able to sell any because you can't carry it down to the coffee shop and be seen with it.
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Is that $200 TV an IPS LCD screen, or some POS TN display? APple products tend to have high-end features too.