Comment by huggyface | Hacker News Reader

Comment by huggyface | Hacker News Reader

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Few of Apples products have the latest, best hardware in them.

Whenever Apple launches a new product, they do generally have the latest, best hardware in them. The "everyone else is chasing specs" argument seems to appear a bit later in the product cycle when competitors have jumped ahead.

With all the potential an Apple TV has, with the iOS-ecosystem, with Siri-voice control, streaming media from your Macs (the list goes on), I'd be very scared if I were Samsung.

I have a Samsung TV. My smartphone acts as a remote with a cute little app. I can "throw" pictures, videos, and music to it. I can't run Android apps on it, but it is one of their "Smart" models with a bunch of apps on it.

I use zero of that functionality. Instead I just use the on and off button and the functionality of my cable box. If Apple thinks they're going to disrupt the content business, har de har har.

Sidenote -- my cable box is from Motorola, which is now Google. So Google just reentered the TV business in a very, very big way (after the rather dismal failure that was Google TV).

"If Apple thinks they're going to disrupt the content business, har de har har."

Well, the record companies aren't laughing any more.

Did Apple disrupt the music industry in any meaningful way? Digital music could be bought before Apple, including without DRM, so I would say no. That they're a retailer is like saying 7-11 disrupted the candy bar industry.

Everyone wants to get in the content chain business because you can try to essentially monetize other people's content. Only in the television arena the creators are very aware of such mechanisms, they already have an avenue to the consumer, so they vigorously fight against "disruptions". Google quickly discovered that with Google TV.

"Digital music could be bought before Apple, including without DRM, so I would say no."

I would say yes.

Apple owns over 70% of the music download market. Before iTunes, download sales were a minuscule fraction of physical CDs sales. They're now larger. Basically, around 35% of all music sales now go through Apple.

Retailers with that kind of market share have serious clout.

I think you're definitely stretching it a little. It's like saying "Did Apple disrupt the smartphone industry in any meaningful way? You could email and run apps on smartphones before."

Maybe they didn't change the industry as much, but purchasing content and getting it onto devices definitely was not as accessible before for the general public.

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