Apple's iTV: Apps Are the New Channels
daringfireball.net
daringfireball.net
And these apps work well. There is some varying quality, but in the same way you see varying quality of apps in any store - Apple's included - or the quality of content, which is out of any "gatekeeper's" interest to control. An App Store that allows fart apps will be the same that allow "fart TV shows".
What makes me a little bit sad is that 3 years from now, you will hear how "Apple revolutionized yet another industry", when what happened was just them using their immense weight to corner another market and executing on an already established model. Hardly innovative.
When I sit down on the couch my brain thinks "I want to watch The Walking Dead" not "I want to watch AMC's The Walking Dead."
Think of how poor the interface would be on the TiVo if, instead of show titles, you were presented first with folders of television networks to select from.
Television networks are like book publishers. They're not really needed anymore when content creators can sell their stuff directly to a willing audience.
It led to a searchable start menu.
I'd agree that the situation is not ideal but I wonder how much Siri would play into this considering the NY Times report of integration of Siri and an Apple television.
I'm not sure I entirely understand his answer, but he seems to be saying that they can't innovate on the hardware because it's too commoditized and subsidized, so an innovative product can't be priced competitively. They can't partner with an entity providing the subsidy, as they did with AT&T, because there is no one entity big enough to make it worthwhile. And there is no way to connect to all the providers, without putting a set-top box in the middle, which is exactly what they are trying to avoid.
Here is Isaacson's "I cracked it" quote:
“‘I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,’ he told me. ‘It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.’ No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. ‘It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.’”
What exactly did he crack? What will make the iTV so appealing that consumers will now be willing to pay a premium for it? He mentions a new user interface, as well as iCloud, which did not exist (publicly) at the time of the D8 interview. But what about the global connectivity issue? Are they just betting that people will give up cable TV for apps + itunes + icloud + magical interface? Or is there something else in there?
Software defined demodulators could solve this problem, just like software defined radio is now solving the problem of disparate wireless standards (e.g. for emergency responders). The A5 shows that Apple isn't afraid of application-specific processing units. iTV just ships with the correct dongle.
> Are they just betting that people will give up cable TV?
Why not (besides sports)?
Apple could also differentiate from Free TV "Channel" apps and Paid ones in the Appstore. Free channels apps would monetize through commercials. The paid ones would be subscription like HBO, etc. The TV channels could monetize even better because there's a direct relationship with the customer/viewer and they can target ads more specifically (location, demographic, age, gender, interests, etc).
In the end, Apple's new TV will be just a screen giving the user access to "channels" which will be apps.
Also, the apps might have two interfaces: one for iPad/iPhone (or separate) and also one for the iTV. The iTV interface will be really simple and will list out all your TV apps and what's playing or what's popular recently.
Your solution would be great if bandwidth didn't exponentially increase each year.
(And it should go without saying that cellular ISPs aren't an option for a multi-user household.)
Also found this on Wikipedia (not saying it's exponential here but still supports my point):
>In 1998, all of the United States backbone networks had utilized the slowest data rate of 45 Mbit/s. However the changing technologies allowed for 41 percent of backbones to have data rates of 2,488 Mbit/s or faster by the mid 2000's.
I know Steve was enthusiastic about the moment when he could see something that finally met his standards, but he also wanted to see all the details come together before being confident in something. When I read that quote, I thought that must mean that Apple has a fairly complete prototype experience that Steve was satisfied with. So I think this aspect could be at the core of what having "cracked it" means but it means more than that.
For another view on the Apple TV's near future, here are my thoughts on this topic from a month back, focusing more on the fact that apps are not going to be remarkable in their form yet still have the power to powerfully disrupt the massive cable industry: http://www.quora.com/What-apps-can-we-expect-for-Apple-TV/an...
By now I have come to believe the TV-set approach is for real. Dan Frommer's argument from yesterday is compelling and input switching is so awful that it may be the biggest opportunity to relieve consumer pain. Reworking the TV set looks more and more like a highly strategic and experience-changing way to put all of Apple's advantages to bear on this apps-as-channels approach.
"The problem with innovation in the TV industry is the go-to-market strategy. The TV industry has a subsidized model that gives everyone a set-top box for free, or for $10 per month That pretty much squashes any opportunity for innovation, because nobody’s willing to buy a set top box. Ask TiVo, ask Roku, ask us…ask Google in a few months. The only way that’s ever going to change is if you can really go back to square one, tear up the set top box, redesign it from scratch with a consistent UI across all these different functions, and get it to consumers in a way that they’re willing to pay for it. And right now there’s no way to do that.
The TV is going to lose until there’s a better — until there’s a viable — go to market strategy. Otherwise you’re just making another Tivo. It’s not a problem with technology, not a problem with vision, it’s a fundamental go to market problem. And then it not like there’s a GSM standard where you build a phone for the US and it also works in all these other countries. No, every single country has different standards, different government approvals, it’s very…Tower of Bableish. No, balkanized. I’m sure smarter people than us will figure this out, but that’s why we say Apple TV a hobby; that’s why we use that phrase."
For video see the section on, "On Apple TV and why television is balkanized:"
http://www.geek.com/articles/apple/what-you-need-to-know-abo...
I've blogged about this subject before as well, but I'll include my thoughts here as well:
"Content producers like TV studios and stations control the entire TV industry because they control the content. They’ve created this market where customers pay for the content (subsidized by commercials) and get the hardware for free. But by getting the hardware for free, they’ve stifled any innovation and advancement downstream from content production.
Only through the magic of open-source software has innovation happened. XBMC is an amazing piece of software and is getting easier and easier to use very day. At the same time, downloading TV is now easier than ever and still getting easier. It’s only a matter of time before someone makes the 'Napster for TV shows.' People are already dropping their cable for Hulu and Netflix."
http://bitfluxx.com/2011/04/16/the-revolution-is-coming-and-...
"If you like I can search the web for 'Albert Pujols'."
[Search the web]
By contrast, the app solution would be totally voluntary on the part of the content owners, but less elegant.
It would also mean that your access to content would be even more subject to corporate whims than they are now. Say a bug was introduced into the ESPN app. Now suddenly you've missed a quarter of the season because ESPNs app programmers couldn't post a patch fast enough. Or the PBS app gets taken down due to a patent infringement case and you miss the airing of the Prohibition documentary.
Unless Google tries to block the ads or take an outsized cut of the episode or subscription fee, the content providers are no worse off than with Apple's current or proposed solution.
Edit: Outside of YouTube, the ads shown before videos online are one of the few places Google does not seem to have a near monopoly online. In my experience, most of the ads seem to be for cars and insurance companies and controlled by the website owner themselves (Hulu, Comedy Central, NBC, ESPN3).
I just want more options on how a pay for programming. Let me subscribe to a show, to a channel, to a category, and to a bundle.
It's much easier to get people to upgrade a $100 add-on for their current TV.
In the TV case, it also solves a big problem for the cable/fiber companies, in that they know IP will be enough for everyone in a few years (and is already enough for more and more subscribers) but it will be hard to suddenly start charging $100/mo for "just Internet" when they had been charging $40. The new "iTV" plan won't be a TV or Internet plan, it will be a unified plan. It won't matter how you consume your content, the cable company will get their piece.
Of course this assumes that Apple opens up the iTV for app developers, not just for media companies who want channel apps.
Having a brand new Apple TV could get you laid, real talk. I don't know of any other brand that can say that.
If some new way of sharing / discussing shows comes out, and we have to wait for each channel to add it to their app, it won't happen. Similarly, there will be less incentive to build innovative solutions for watching video if the content stream are trapped within a million different apps.
Imagine if you had to download a different app for each web site you wanted to view a video on. Bleah.
"Channel apps" can also have similar UI elements, the same way to go back to "home", there can be a unified way to switch channels, etc.
Will these apps publish their metadata in a way that third party apps can access and manage the content? Imagine if we had "reader apps" instead of web sites that you could scrape or grab RSS feeds from... it would be like the old AOL / CDROM days.
Except the software we can run on these has access to (theoretically) a vast streaming library of content with a robust, mature distribution channel and gigantic data pipes.
But I think it's only a little bit of time before these devices simply become part of game consoles. The Wii probably has the best nascent take on this (even calling apps, "channels").
I find this particularly ironic, given that Google TV with the Market (and apps like Al Jazeera that do exactly what the article describes) came out today. There isn't even a mention of this anywhere on his site.
Ability means nothing. Apple is where it is because its products actually work with consumers. That’s the nut Apple (and Google) has to crack. The big picture matters (Maybe apps on the TV is the right answer?) and details matter (What kind of content can you get?).
All your talk about ideas and ability won’t help there.
Apps are great for a smart interactive experience when you want it. TV per se isn't.
HGTV and Food network were my time sucks, hours ago by before you notice.
So far I have yet to see an app (or equivalent) which will run a constant stream of what someone wants to see with a broad mix and minimal setup. If we can get the DVR equivalent on a mobile or set top box, there's the win.
I doubt Jobs was aiming to disrupt the cablecos or content producers so he needs to add value to the chain. A better remote/navigation ui isn't enough.
Have I explained how much I hate the world any time in the last hour?
I'm so glad that the goofy RPN calculator on my iPad is now considered in the same general class of things as CNN and BBC. This won't make future analysis of the software business at all shallow or ridiculous.
It would be great if Wii channels included broadcast/cable channels (either streaming or on demand or both).
He's been blogging since March 1998. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Kottke