Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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.

10 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 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.

  3. 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
  4. 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".

  5. 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
  6. 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.
  7. 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.

  8. 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.