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Steve Jobs's Big Miss: TV

Posted by samzenpus on from the blow-up-your-tv-throw-away-your-paper dept.

jfruh writes Steve Jobs was a well-known audiophile and music lover, which helps explain why Apple transformed the music industry in the '00s with the iPod and iTunes. But according to a new biography soon to be released, Apple may have failed to do the same for TV because of Steve Jobs's disdain for the medium. One of his first acts upon returning to the company was to kill the flashy, expensive 20th Anniversary Macintosh, in part because it had a built-in TV tuner. "Apple will never make a TV again," Jobs declared.

21 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Which explains the ATV. by UncleRage · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's gotten lackluster support across the board. For a device with a lot of potential, it's got a lot of ugly bumps.

    --
    #SickNotWeak
    1. Re:Which explains the ATV. by swb · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm curious what more it's supposed to do.

      I can only think "run apps" but you can mostly do that with mirroring which eliminates a whole lot of ugly compatibility issues (for Apple, and app developers) even if the experience is lacking in some ways. Even with apps, the whole interactive controller issue gets kind of weird if a phone, tablet or the remote doesn't make sense.

      By and large, Apple TV does what its supposed to do -- play media on your TV from your phone, tablet, PC or streaming.

      The lack of an Amazon Instant app is annoying, but Netflix is there. The rest of the content is kind of ho-hum, but then again, mirroring and airplay solves some of those issues, like Amazon Instant or many other media playback apps.

      I think a lot of people would like the Apple TV to be "more" of something, but so many of those things are a weird fit or hinge on other lateral expansions like more input devices or something else or end up overlapping with what it does now but without a significant expansion of functionality.

    2. Re:Which explains the ATV. by spire3661 · · Score: 2

      Things use the bluetooth for audio so i can listen in bed with headphones or controller support, or run Plex client. You now the most basic shit a box like can do. I have 3 Apple TVs rotting in my closet because they refuse to innovate on it AT ALL. Every TV in the house had an ATV on it, until i got sick of them doing nothing. I replaced them with Chromecast, Android TV Nexus Player and Fire TV stick. ALL of them beat the pants off ATV.

      --
      Good-bye
    3. Re:Which explains the ATV. by Noah+Haders · · Score: 3, Insightful

      the one thing apple doesn't do, and the only thing that matters, is to integrate all channels and sources into a singe interface. you can search for breaking bad and netlix pops up, you can search for KUWTK and E! shows up, you can search for GoT and HBO shows up. this is the only thing that will truly "solve" tv.

      the joke is on people who think Apple missed out by not producing their own tv, as opposed to a set top box. looool. tvs have razor thin margins and people will hold on to a set for 10 years. sounds like a shitty business to be in.

  2. Steve Jobs's disdain for the medium. by koan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I agree with him, he was %100 correct in this regard.

    Only the bean counters would want to dabble in that banality.

    --
    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
    1. Re:Steve Jobs's disdain for the medium. by Macrat · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Medium meaning requiring a tuner for broadcast/cable/satellite which is a horrible user experience.

      Jobs was seeing the future of internet streams.

    2. Re:Steve Jobs's disdain for the medium. by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Of course there are some great documentaries, and original series. But there is a HUGE a difference between the majority of TV shows, which is mostly the crap of unReality shows, and movies that companies like NetFlix focus on.

      Steve's Job opinion on TV wasn't wrong; his mistake was tossing the baby out with the bath water.

  3. Breaking News by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This just in... Steve Jobs has bad judgment. Details at 8.

    1. Re:Breaking News by macs4all · · Score: 2, Informative

      The Apple III should have been evidence enough of that years ago.

      Really? Still brining up the Apple ///? That was 1979, man.

      and according to Woz, the Apple /// was the result of "design by committee". Jobs was only one voice.

  4. He was wrong, but not how you expect by DrunkenTerror · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Jobs, as it turns out, was completely wrong about the integration of television and computers.

    â€oeWe donâ€(TM)t think that televisions and personal computers are going to merge,†Jobs told Macworld in 2004 when discussing the 20th anniversary of the Macintosh. â€oeWe think basically you watch television to turn your brain off, and you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on.â€"

    Now most of them use the "computer" to discuss weighty matters like how "this one for my niggas, I woulda said it was for the bitches but I dont got shit for bitches... .Shame on all you niggas all on the Instagram stuntin' for them bitches frontin' under pictures!"

    Heady stuff from @DocFromDaGloâ--ï¸

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

    The big Internet suppliers have done a bang up job of turning the Internet into TV anyway. Even better than TV from the perspective of the advertisers; you only see one advertisement at a time when watching TV. On the Internet they are able -- with the cooperation of the web page designer -- to have you seeing as many advertisements that can be fit on the screen. Content? Heck... that stuff just gets in the way of -- and takes away space for -- more advertisments. (More and more web sites seem to have used http://websitesfromhell.net/ as a design manual; especially some of the advertisement-heavy examples.)

    The pathetic thing is that I don't know of a single person who clicks on ads -- except by accident.

    --
    CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
  6. A miss?! by the_skywise · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Really?

    A miss?

    Are you confusing TV with watching video content on your computer because those are two entirely different things and Steve supported the latter. He probably realized that slaving PCs to broadcast/scheduled TV was a non-starter... Just as making PCs have built-in FM/AM Tuners would've been.

    http://www.businessinsider.com...

    I'm not saying Steve was a prophetic genius as he certainly made mistakes and it's wholly possible he disdained TV because he didn't want the cable companies like Comcast to get a foothold into his control of the industry. But this was far from "a miss".

  7. Jobs' views on TV not a secret by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    People are thinking less than they used to. It's primarily because of television. People are reading less and they're certainly thinking less.
    [...]
    When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth.
    [...]

    http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.02/jobs_pr.html

  8. No opportunity by Kohath · · Score: 2

    TV does not offer a company like Apple much opportunity. There's no UI problem that keeps people from being able to get the most value out of their TV. People won't buy an easy to use TV at a big premium over a regular TV. This is why Apple was never going to make a TV.

    The only thing people really want from their TV is cheaper, more conveniently delivered content. Apple has no TV content, and there's no way for Apple to make money offering others' TV content at a cheaper price. And there's no way to sell a new premium TV based on cheaper TV content -- the premium you gained on the TV would be more than lost on the content discount.

  9. Define "Lackluster" by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's gotten lackluster support across the board.

    I'm curious why you think an HBO exclusive deal to stream without a cable subscription on AppleTV is "lackluster". I wasn't ever going to get an AppleTV myself but that sealed it (along with the price drop).

    The only thing the AppleTV is missing that many people might want, is Amazon Prime... and there's a lot of overlap between them and Netflix, which Apple does have.

    Apple has been treating AppleTV as a hobby, sure, but that doesn't mean the support for AppleTV has been at all lackluster.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  10. Re:passions count. 'me too!' products suck anyways by theVarangian · · Score: 2

    TV is dead anyways. I am no fanboy but this makes me like Steve Jobs a little more. The fact that he liked some things and hated others gave the company a vision and gave him a passion. Google could learn from this instead of scattershotting with everything with 'me too products' that fail and just hurt the brand ( and waste money). TV in that era was especially bad, I can't stand people that like sitcoms. protip=friends, the big bang theory, and cheers are all the same show. A bad one.

    I agree, the future of visual entertainment is streaming, not selling people an obscenely expensive and bloated package of crappy TV cannels just so they can watch a handful of them to catch their favorate shows. If the Steve saw that coming over a decade ago thn swearing that "Apple will never make a TV again" sounds more like farsigtedness than an oversight. There is a reason people use bittorent and it's not that all bittorenters are cheapskates (althoug may motivate some of them) it's more that they like the convenience of the on-demand delivery mechanism.

  11. Shows by JBMcB · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think the future is subscribing to shows instead of channels. I'd rather pay $20 a month for a couple dozen really good shows to watch, than $100 a month for those same good shows, plus 200 other shows I never watch.

    --
    My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
  12. Was it really a big miss? by cashman73 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Was it really a big miss? Or was it intentional? Maybe the reason why Steve Jobs steered Apple away from making a TV was that he foresaw the complete disaster in the TV and cable industry, and saw everything moving online. Even with iTunes, you've been able to buy TV episodes and movies there for at least a decade. And TV viewing is shifting towards online streaming on other devices that Apple has dominated (iPhones, iPads, etc) for several years now. There's already plenty of manufacaturers making large screen televisions, and in the past 10-15 years, that has shifted from CRTs and analog to flat screens and digital. There was no reason for Apple to get into the business of making large screen TVs when all that was going to shift anyways. Apple TV was sufficient to allow those that cared to bring digital content to their big screen TV, but Jobs didn't care much for that medium, so Apple stopped at that.

  13. Re:I don't see why Apple needs to make a TV... by macs4all · · Score: 2

    You can get pretty much any size and style of TV from a number of different vendors in a wide price range to fit any need whatsoever. You can even buy a projector if you want to turn your entire wall into a TV.

    All that Apple needs to make is a little box that plugs into the HDMI port on that TV. That's IT. Once that's done, when you turn on the TV you get the "Apple experience" and full access to their ecosystem of TV shows, movies, and music.

    The reason Apple hasn't made a TV is it's not a product segment where they can really make a difference. It would be equivalent to Apple making a power strip.

    What people forget is that Apple DID make a computer/TV hybrid, long ago. It was cool for its day, featuring a 68030-based PowerMac 550 all-in-one computer, and a custom TV-tuner card, which even let you do screen caps of the TV image. Apple figured it was perfect for the college-dorm market, with limited space. There was even a cool black one. Quite sexy looking.

    They sold about 10 of them.

    So, you can understand Apple's reluctance to get involved in TV again.

  14. TV was not Steve Jobs' big miss by GrumpySteen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Skipping conventional medicine and trying to treat his cancer with alternative medicine for as long as he did was a much bigger mistake.

  15. HBO Go is not the same thing as HBO Now by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

    What you are talking about is HBO Go, which requires the streaming application to verify you are a valid subscriber - only right now that verification system is failing on Comcast:

    "Comcast doesn't really give an answer other than to say the massive (and soon to get much larger) company only has so many people available to ensure TV Everywhere authentication works on new devices"

    HBO Now (I think that's the new name) is a totally new AppleTV only app, that you pay HBO directly for a subscription - it has its own authentication system, and is basically just like Netflix only with HBO. There's no reason to think it will not work.

    Personally, I think it's insane HBO has two different systems, but there you have it...

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley