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DirecTV CEO Scoffs At Competition From Apple TV
theodp writes "In a move that evokes memories of Steve Ballmer's initial pooh-poohing of the iPhone threat, DirecTV Chairman Michael White downplayed the Apple TV hype, expressing doubts that 'Apple's interface will be so much better than DirecTVs' that people will be willing to pay for an extra box. So, will White's statement — 'It's hard to see (it) obsoleting our technology' — come back to haunt him?"
Bullshit. Lots of people who have made such statements turned out to be right, but people just remember the ones like Ballmer made because they happened to be wrong.
In this case, he's more than likely right. On the one hand Apple has hordes of loyal dipshits who will buy anything they shovel them and who want a monoculture. These fucksticks would throw away their TVs and get in lines for a $2000 50" Apple TV in a heartbeat.
The thing is, however, that a TV isn't _about_ the interface. You watch the content, you only interact with it to set up recordings or change channels. Speech recognition is lame in such a concept, you're going to sit there like a god damn idiot yelling at your TV?
So I give him a 70% chance of being right. The 30% chance is due to the idiocy of Applebots, which I may be underestimating.
Fanboys have been trying to whip up some hype about some mythical transformative Apple Television for a number of months now. It's been hard to miss really.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.