John Gruber:
Imagine watching a baseball game on a TV where ESPN is a smart app, not a dumb channel. When you’re watching a game, you could tell the TV to show you the career statistics for the current batter. You could ask the HBO app which other movies this actress has been in.
As usual Gruber has some nice thoughts on how a future Apple TV may work. Of course, you can also factor iCloud into the equation so content and apps (channels) would be available on multiple TVs.
Horace D. on asymco.com has some interesting observations regarding a disruptive TV strategy due to the obstacles from existing content owners business models with their existing distribution channels, Cablevision, Comcast, etc. However, if the content owners pursued the app view of their content, thereby, dismediating the many of the distribution channels, then this might create the opportunity Apple and others could exploit. The content owners get to control their products better and avoid the broker changes between them and the consumers. The trick is to bring this into play in a manner that is not seen as an immediate threat to the current distribution channels.