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Television Needs To Be Reinvented, Says Apple SVP (businessinsider.com)

Posted by msmash on from the fixing-tv dept.

Eddy Cue, Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Service at Apple, isn't happy with the current state of how people watch TV. He said we currently live with a "glorified VCR," the interface of our current TV is the problem and we need to reinvent it. Cue pointed out a number of other issues he has with today's TV:"It's really hard to use [a cable box or satellite TV]. Setting something to record, if you didn't watch something last night, if you didn't set it to record, it's hard to find, it may not be available. There may be some rights issues," Cue said. "It's great to be able to tell your device, 'I wanna watch the Duke basketball game, I don't care what channel it's on.' I just want to watch the Duke basketball game. Today you got to bring in the TV, go through the guide, find which sports programs or whatever -- it's just hard to do."

7 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. I wonder... by slapout · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...if Apple has a new product to help with that

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    Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
  2. This is dumb by HBI · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The rights holders are the problem and will never allow this.

    The fragmentation of media into smaller entities is a good thing and while the complexity goes up, the result is a buffet of entertainment for any mildly skilled geek due to the broken technologies that resulted from this lack of coordination. Apple can talk and talk about fixing the brokenness but nothing is going to happen. Mainly because no one can figure out how to make money off of it except Apple.

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    HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    1. Re:This is dumb by bluegutang · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The rights holders are the problem and will never allow this.

      That's what they said about iTunes, and Apple found a way. So I wouldn't count them out here...

  3. already been reinvented by ecorona · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Netflix already reinvented it, at least for many of us. You're not going to pull another iphone success story this time around.

  4. It's not about needing to re-invent, its 'control' by mozkill · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't buy the theory that TV needs to re-invented and that it is the reason for driving change. The powers that be wan't people to believe that though. I think its probably more about being the first to introduce new technology and whoever does that (as seen by Google and Facebook) will 'control' the new distribution model. That is what its really about.

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    -- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
  5. Clueless Apple SVP by JustNiz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    >> "It's great to be able to tell your device, 'I wanna watch the Duke basketball game, I don't care what channel it's on.' ...which is exactly what I've already been doing for years (and for $0.00 give or take a few watts) with my Linux-based media PC that is running MythTV and plugged into an OTA antenna.

  6. Re:First thing that's gotta go by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't think Apple wants to use proprietary connectors.

    LOL. My office is all Apple and every workspace is a mess of proprietary adapters and the only purpose they serve is to connect Apple products to other Apple products.