Evidence that Apple is making a TV, and the remote will likely be your hand | Hacker News Reader

Evidence that Apple is making a TV, and the remote will likely be your hand

qz.com

26 pointsslerner1724 comments

I've read the article twice, and the only "evidence" Apple is making a TV (as opposed to a set-top-box, which they already make), is the author's speculation that "Selling an AppleTV-like box with a fiddly, detachable sensor that has to be tacked onto an existing television doesn’t seem like the Apple way".

It seems like the "Apple way" could equally well be a set-top-box that doesn't require a "fiddly, detachable sensor that has to be tacked onto an existing television." There's nothing inherent about gesture recognition that requires the sensor to be in a specific position, it's just that that's the current state of the art for consumer devices, so that's what we're used to. I'm sure gesture recognition from an arbitrary position is a hard problem, but solving hard problems is the "Apple way."

There is a huge amount of room for improvement in the Kinect hand gesturing experience.

I was so disappointed when my 5 year old couldn't control the Kinect games. The "touchy" hand gestures just aren't friendly for younger kids. Way too much patience needed to get the controls to do what you want.

I would love to see what Apple could do with it.

My one year old figured out the iPhone on her own. Now at two, she's an expert on an iPad. That type of user experience is no coincidence - it's the result of a lot of intelligent design choices in iOS.

If Apple could do the same thing with hand gesturing, it would be a game changer.

I don't want to gesture at my TV. Gestures in their current incarnation kinda suck, and if people haven't realized that yet, they soon will. Just let me use my phone, it's the universal remote everyone already has in their pocket.

The first company that makes a device which only takes a stream from any website, buffers it, and then plays it to a TV is going to own the market.

Right now, every hardware company is trying to insert itself into the content chain. So you like Amazon Prime Streaming? Too bad, you don't get it on Apple TV. Still have a slingbox for some of your cable content? Your WD TV isn't going to play it. Want your Vizio CoStar to play out a major network? You're SOL. How about The Daily Show? Hahahahaha, I don't even know which box will/won't work from comedycentral.com.

The matrix of which box plays what content is fracturing this market before it ever gets off the ground. I look forward to the commodity box that identifies it's browser with the ID of a desktop.

Use a general-purpose OS, like Android. Use whatever apps you prefer to watch videos: VLC, YouTube, Chrome, Hulu, etc.

Agreed. An Acer desktop like a AXC600-UR13 for $400 is full fledged Windows box with an HDMI out.

Assuming they lean heavily on the current flavor of the Apple TV OS, they have a lot of work ahead to improve it.

The number of channels to deal with using a bare-bones remote isn't cutting it.

I for one hope this means I'll finally be able to edit down the 'channel' list

First, everyone already knows Apple is making a TV, because Steve Jobs literally admitted it in his biography.

Second, looking at the acquisition of a gesture startup as evidence for a TV is pretty far-fetched, because odds are whatever TV experience Apple has been working on, the UX part has been figured out for quite a while. If anything, this type of gesture support either has already been implemented or would be slotted into the roadmap for 2nd or 3rd generation TVs, I'd guess.

The discussion with media companies about commercial skipping, if true, is definitely a sign that Apple is starting to get to the "ink on paper" part of launching a TV product, though.

It will be interesting to see how apple manages to do this without violating one or more of microsoft's kinect patent(s)

Most patents for the base technology are probably owned by PrimeSense, the company that developed the depth sensor used in Kinect.

Reportedly[1] Apple has recently offered $280 million for PrimeSense. Hmm.

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/16/4527558/apple-primesense-i...

Apple and Microsoft have had a cross-licensing deal since Steve came back to Apple. There are better sources that I don't have handy, but http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/13/3239977/apple-and-microsof... confirms the base details.

The question I have is this: will they be able to get rid of all these damn remotes I have to deal with? Every device (projector, receiver, cable box, video switcher...) has its own damn remote!

Oh, and before anyone asks: yes I've tried those fancy universal remotes. The problem with all of them is that power buttons for most devices act as toggles and there's no way for the universal remote to know which devices are on and which are off. This leads to annoying situations where some devices are getting switched on and others off every time I hit the power button!

I'm mostly just amazed at how much universal remotes cost. I cannot fathom paying $250 for a remote control: https://www.google.com/shopping/product/7778030267502985797

In answer to your question: no, it probably won't. The HDMI standard does have an option for passing through power signals though, so it's possible that the next cable box, receiver and TV will all obey that signal.

The $300 I spent on a Logitech Harmony remote was worth every...damned...penny. Maybe your spouse/SO doesn't come to you because they can't figure out which combination of three remotes it takes to watch Netflix or play a game. Mine used to. And frankly, there's no reason she should have to do either one: come to me or figure out the incantation.

I can figure it out, but I don't think I should have to, either. Nor should I have to keep four remotes lying around. I push "watch TV" and it casts the spell to use the Apple TV. "Play Xbox", and it switches everything around without fiddling.

Gestures? Color me really, really skeptical that this will improve upon what I've got now.

WOW. The Harmony One has doubled in price since I bought my (two) in late 2010 for $159.99.

Now that I've moved houses I've got a spare one in the basement. I guess it's time to craigslist that bad boy.

Keep an eye on logitech's special offers section. I got a harmony at 70% off.

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/special-offers

That is the same exact remote I own, it can use basic functions on almost any TV without the need to program, the shenanigans that occur in my house..

The remote (at least the Logitech Harmony) knows the state in which it last left the device. If that somehow gets toggled (it happens rarely at my house), there's a "help" button that basically toggles through the power states until you say "yeah, that fixed it". You can toggle the device yourself, obviously, but it's a good feature for the less technical in the house.

I have one of those, and i end up operating the devices directly a lot of the time because it gets hopelessly confused by the matrix of power and input states (admittedly, i have a terrible combination of devices with auto-input switching and power toggling). And the whole line of sight thing is really annoying when you've got a 2 year old running in front of the tv during a complex 20 second multidevice sequence.

My dad went one better, with infrared transmitters taped on the devices operated by wire from a base station with a wifi-based remote. Even that gets confused from time to time, despite literally days of trying to get the timing right.

Until the device makers start cooperating reliable universal remotes are impossible.

I could see motion complementing a dedicated remote but not replacing. The Samsung demo is not that compelling and the PrimeSense one is just goofy (and both leave out some key elements like how do you turn the thing on and off or just go to a channel?).

Using an iPhone/Android as a remote is cute but frequently inferior to a dedicated device.

I foresee Apple bringing out a whole new device to act as a remote that may include touch surfaces, screen, vocal input and/or gestures (hoping they also look at LeapMotion who's tech is way better and cheaper).

Sounds quite a bit like Samsung's new Smart TVs:

http://www.samsung.com/us/2013-smart-tv/#smart-tv-2

I've seen one in person and the gestures work quite well, although it seems a bit gimmicky to me and you still need a remote.

I still don't get why this has to be a full-sized TV. What if the AppleTV (sized as it is) had the sensors in it to detect motion?

(Of course, I still don't see the appeal in using motion to control my TV, after using a Kinect on-and-off since it was released. But, there's more to the market than just me, so, who knows.)

If they could convince people to regularly update their whole TVs they would make much more money.

Sounds exhausting.

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