Patrick Moorhead for TechPinions:
My assumption is that Apple will find a business model the content providers will find advantageous or tempting enough to cross the cable and satellite companies. If not, then you would expect them to declare war and do everything in their power to circumvent this by investing in the “pipe” or content companies themselves. This market is too huge and too big an opportunity for the most valuable company on the planet to pass up. I know, this sounds impossible, but when Napster arrived on the scene, how plausible did iTunes sound? How plausible did downloadable movies sound with bit-torrent around?
I know the naysayers are convinced an Apple television will never happen, but I’m not so sure. What I do know is that Apple will enter a product category when it feels it can change the market, the same way it has done in the past.
The iPod, iPhone and iPad are perfect examples of how Apple has entered existing markets with fresh ideas and dominated. With iTunes selling movies, videos and TV shows, and iCloud on the way, I wouldn’t count Apple out of this market just yet.
If they can figure out a way around low bandwidth caps they’ll change the market.
Jim, I have had my doubts over and over. Why enter the TV market when in fact the AppleTV is the gateway so that any TV displays iTunes content? I hope we can see an Apple TV but I am not sure it will happen.
It’s not a matter of if, but when. The TV market is huge, especially with televisions coming out with Apps now. The potential for Apple to capitalize in the TV scene is pretty tremendous.
I may be wrong, but if Apple makes a TV I assume they’ll make one model (42″, 1080p two HDMI ports, one mini-display/Thunderbolt port) and I can’t see them getting any bigger revenue from one TV than they can with the Apple TV. So I don’t see it but you never know,
I may be wrong, but if Apple makes a TV I assume they’ll make one model (42″, 1080p two HDMI ports, one mini-display/Thunderbolt port) and I can’t see them getting any bigger revenue from one TV than they can with the Apple TV. So I don’t see it but you never know,
I may be wrong, but if Apple makes a TV I assume they’ll make one model (42″, 1080p two HDMI ports, one mini-display/Thunderbolt port) and I can’t see them getting any bigger revenue from one TV than they can with the Apple TV. So I don’t see it but you never know,
This crap again. Yes the TV market is “huge” but it is also incredibly convoluted and has tiny margins – not exactly areas where Apple excels.
As for Apple’s “disruption” of the personal music player and smartphone markets; those markets were in their infancy (I know a year seems like forever to to tech-obsessed, but it ain’t). The television market has been in place for 80 years and people’s expectations’s are entrenched accordingly.
Moreover, Apple already has the perfect entrant into this market in the form of the actual shipping AppleTV. So far no one has been able to tell me how exactly slapping an LCD to that makes any sense for Apple. This obsession that Apple must compete in every market that vaguely involves silicon is stupid and needs to stop. Apple isn’t Microsoft.
This crap again. Yes the TV market is “huge” but it is also incredibly convoluted and has tiny margins – not exactly areas where Apple excels.
As for Apple’s “disruption” of the personal music player and smartphone markets; those markets were in their infancy (I know a year seems like forever to to tech-obsessed, but it ain’t). The television market has been in place for 80 years and people’s expectations’s are entrenched accordingly.
Moreover, Apple already has the perfect entrant into this market in the form of the actual shipping AppleTV. So far no one has been able to tell me how exactly slapping an LCD to that makes any sense for Apple. This obsession that Apple must compete in every market that vaguely involves silicon is stupid and needs to stop. Apple isn’t Microsoft.
I’m never going to count them out of **any** market, but until the announcement is made (or the rumours are coming from those I trust), my assumption is going to be that any stories that claim it is are trying for hits by making shit up.
(Not yours, Jim. You’re one of the people I’d trust. But I do note you’re not throwing your weight behind this, just saying it isn’t impossible. Agreed! Not impossible. Just unlikely.)
What most people don’t understand is the AppleTV box is a better deal for Apple than a real TV. Why sacrifice that? So they can ship a larger, more temperamental box to customers for the same (or less) margin?
The margins on TV sets suck, which means the potential is actually very low. In fact, the potential is probably dwarfed by the margins on the existing AppleTV. Which they’d lose, because nobody’s going to pay the sum of the premiums for an AppleTV set AND a built-in AppleTV box. Make more stuff to make the same or less money is not Apple’s thing.
It isn’t impossible, but it’s by no means a sure thing.
Yes of course they will make it. Apple TV was merely the market test. Along with iCloud and not to mention how they practically dominate media, an Apple Television would be the suitable answer. I can’t wait.
Totally agree. What we need is an Apple TV gateway to our current HD tv. I do not know many customers that will want to change their HD TV just to have an Apple logo on it. But adding a setup box under it to gave the TV better content, all the way up.
An Apple HDTV is just an iMac with a really large display with a very inferior amount of pixels: 1920 x 1080 vs 2560 x 1440. Given the HDTVs I see at Costco, they should have little trouble shoe-horning anything they want into one. Especially given the size of the Apple TV 2. Its been a pet peeve of mine how everybody wants a bigger display size on their HDTV, but they never get anymore pixels, just bigger, blotchier ones. The maximum TV I’ll purchase is 47″. That said, Apple will just farm the manufacturing out to Asia, just like all their devices. Outside of design $, they won’t have anything invested in the product line at all.
?!?
“Television” content (currently) comes in a maximum resolution of 1920 X 1080 pixels. Increasing pixel count above that does absolutely nothing to increase picture quality.
This sort of comment demonstrates exactly why this rumor will not die. Most of the people yapping about it don’t even understand how television works, let alone how the market behaves.
As others have said, I wouldn’t bank on Apple never entering this market, but I agree with @theangrydrunk:disqus ; this market is way to convoluted to even attempt to enter.
For one thing I don’t see Apple producing a TV just for the U.S. market, it’s unfeasible.
Besides the fact that out of fear and pride most studios and larger content owners would never agree to any kind of deal Apple would propose — the kind that gives consumers actual value for their money — there are technical limitations in the U.S. alone that would prevent such a thing. The most important problem was already named by @alex_sebenski:disqus ; bandwidth problems and bandwidth caps.
Then there’s the choice problem: I don’t see Apple producing a TV in ten different sizes. I’m exaggerating of course, but it is my opinion that they’d have to produce at least one Huge Ass™ model in the >60″ region, mid-sized 50″ and 42″ models and maybe one around 32″ for people with small apartments.
One way around that would be a LASER-based projector (always in focus, no matter the distance), but not everybody has the walls/screens to project stuff on and good ones are still hellishly expensive from what I can gather.
Coming back to my point about international markets: There are technical differences to consider (NTSC vs. PAL vs. NECAM) that would prevent the cheap production of a unified model.
Apple went with the GSM-iPhone first, because it was the standard most widely adopted in the world. Only later did Apple produce a CDMA-iPhone.
Then there are different broadcast technologies Apple would have to factor in; hell, we have three major ones in Germany and we already know that some of them will be replaced in a few years.
Another problem that would hinder international distribution are — again — the content owners; right now they make sweet money through region coded DVDs/BluRays and somewhat controlled methods of distribution. I can’t imagine them letting go of this kind of control.
Yes, Apple might want to enter this market, but not in the following years I think.
Dis you miss the part where I said “they never get anymore pixels, just bigger, blotchier ones” ?? The higher resolution is on an actual iMac.
The only purpose for an Apple HDTV is to access Apple’s content services without a separate box. Their server farm in North Carolina needs something sucking on it besides iPhones, iPads and iMacs.
“Apple already has the perfect entrant into this market in the form of the actual shipping AppleTV. So far no one has been able to tell me how exactly slapping an LCD to that makes any sense for Apple.”
This is exactly the argument I’ve been making to Jim and others for months. There’s nothing compelling about a HDTV set (an object we only buy once every 5-10 years) that Apple can’t accomplish with their already shipping AppleTV (in one form or another) – a device they can keep upgrading and having us buy every 18 months.
Jim, is this your version of Gruber’s iPad3 speculation? 🙂
If Apple gets into TV’s it will be in a MAGIC new way.
Possibilities:
Apple will create a home server type box possibly called iBank
– The cable line and/or TV antenna line will connect to iBank
– Internet will connect to iBank
– iBank will work over the local WiFi
– iBank will have large capacity hard drives for storage and backup
– It will store and provide TV content, Video, Music, Data, Photos, etc. to any screen in the house over WiFi or over the internet to your devices
– Your HDTV’s will become a screen for iBank via an Apple TV box
– You will access your content the same way from any screen in the house, including all your Apple devices and converted TV screens.
Apple will introduce SMART Screens (not TV’s) possibly called an iScreen
– These screens will be thin screens powered by A5 type chips
– They will have one button and speakers like an iPad
– They will come in different sizes but won’t be real large at first
– They can be mounted flat on a wall or sit on a desk mount
– They can be laid flat on a desk to become a surface device
– They will be touch screen iOS devices
– They will have a small amount of internal storage say 16GB
– You can go from screen to screen and your content will follow you
– You can get TV content, Internet, Apps, Email, etc. on these screens
– They can serve as a remote monitor to a Mac computer
– They can operate independent as a iOS device like a large iPad
– They will have just one plug for AC power no other ports
– Everything will be wireless including Airplay, Air Sync, and Air Print
iBank will store all your content and will work with iCloud and serve your content to all our Apple devices over WiFi or over the internet when you are on the go.
People will buy iScreen’s for their bedrooms, kitchen, office, one for the coffee table, one for the family room. They will convert their existing TV sets to system screens with an Apple TV box and control it with a iOS device or Apple TV remote. Some people will use them instead of even having a TV. Eventually all TV’s will become a similar devices (smart screens) and the entire TV industry will copy Apple. All content will go to one box and be sent to smart screens over WiFi. TV’s will not need tuners they will just become smart screens.
This is a way Apple might get into the TV market, smart screens not TV’s.
But the resolution of the display doesn’t matter when the source material is constant at 1920*1080 px.
It will be a long time before we get the first 2K content and even longer before 4K content will be available to the consumer. Until then the display resolution is irrelevant.
I know people who benefit greatly from a 60″ TV, because they have the space. Watching a BluRay on that kind of thing is great.
Blotchiness results from people having to large a display and not enough distance from the screen.
The only thing it takes to get rid of the box are two pieces of velcro and a flat surface on the back of the TV. I’ve seen that done and it works beautifully.
Hope springs eternal.
Apple will not make a HDTV set. They will make smart screens that content can be streamed to. It will be an iOS device similar to a large iPad. They can be mounted on the wall, sit on a table or desk mount or lay flat on a table or desk as a surface device. They will then create a wireless server type device that the cable line can be hooked up to, then they will serve all your content: TV content, Movies, Music, Photos, Books, Magazines, Newspapers etc. to any screen in the house or to any portable screen you have on the go. Existing TV’s will just become another screen by attaching a Apple TV to it. They will obsolete what we now know as a TV set. People will want smart screens in every room so they can touch the screen and get any content they want. Smart screens can be used as remote monitors to a computer so you can access your Mac anywhere. Your TV shows, books, magazines, photos, and music can follow you around the house and out the door on your portable device jumping from screen to screen. Apple will sell you a smart screen for every room in the house and office. They will recreate the TV market they will not just enter it.
instead of iBank why not call it an “iMac” and boom they already make that.
Seriously, a touch screen tv? Will it come with a Fing-longer (http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Fing-Longer) so you can operate it from the couch?
No way to plug in my DVD or XBox or Wii. I love it already.
Reading e-mail from 10 feet away. Well it sold tens of millions of WebTV’s so I guess that’ll work.
That server farm needs something else. Like, say, an Apple TV?
I mean the existing ones.
Even when Apple does come out with it’s own TV doesn’t mean I am going to buy it. I like having the freedom to switch between a Roku Box and an AppleTV; no doubt the new television from Apple will prevent that.
Matt
HowToGetStreamingVideoToYourTV.com