

Apple's trouble with TV - bensummers
http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits/2010/09/apples-trouble-with-tv.ars

======
BigZaphod
I think the big thing people are missing in Apple's strategy with this is the
streaming from iOS to AppleTV. Steve demoed the feature in such a way that it
got very little attention - but I think that was intentional because the
feature isn't coming until iOS 4.2 and Apple doesn't ordinarily like to show
off features that are so distant, but since iOS 4.2 was already mentioned,
they decided to show it yesterday.

I think that feature is _the_ disruptive angle to the AppleTV and that's the
reason I bought one. Here's why:

All Apple has to do is add a single Boolean switch to the built in video
player: allowsAirPlay. If they do this, then with a single line of code, any
app developer can make an app that allows their content to be streamed to an
AppleTV. Your iDevice becomes the worlds most powerful remote control almost
instantly. Developers (studios, individual shows, whatever) just need to
create apps for iOS which authenticate or manage the subscription to their
content, and the customers can tap a single button to see it on their big
screen. You gain all the advantages of apps on the AppleTV itself without
actually needing them to be installed there!

Suddenly the App Store becomes a cable TV network. The added benefit is - you
don't _need_ to have an AppleTV to enjoy the benefits! Plug your iPad into
your TV using that adapter cable, and you could still enjoy the same content.
Or take it with you when you travel - your TV channels are all there. And when
you're at home, just tap the AirPlay button to see it on the big screen.

That's the disruption I'm hoping for and Apple has every single piece in place
now to do this.

~~~
brownleej
Unfortunately, that still leaves us with the trouble of getting the content
providers on board. I would love it if I could use, for instance, a Hulu app
on my tv. I'd even put up with having to use both an iPad and an Apple TV to
do it, if the interface were slick enough. But that won't happen, because even
if AirPlay provides that functionality, Hulu won't enable it. They'll block it
just like they blocked Boxee. I don't blame the Hulu guys for this, since I'm
fairly confident that they are forced to take these stances by the content
providers, but it's an unavoidable fact of the situation.

~~~
brianpan
I think the point of the above comment is that companies are _already_ on
board with iOS. MLB already has an iPhone app that streams video. If an
AirPlay API is added, MLB releases an update and BOOM! Your TV now has
baseball diamonds* .

The great thing would be that you have video on-the-go all the time, and you
now have the additional option of viewing it on a bigger screen at home. It'll
be hard for content providers to say, we're providing the video to users on
the iPhone but we don't want them to have the ability to see it on their TV.

*Memes not required for API compatibility.

~~~
BigZaphod
Yes, exactly!

With no content storage and 100% streaming, there's no reason this couldn't
work from any iDevice to any AppleTV. What I mean is: Say you have the MLB app
on your iPhone, but your friend doesn't but he has an AppleTV and giant
screen. You go over there with your iPhone, tap a single button, and you can
both enjoy the game on the big screen. There's no syncing or sharing of iTunes
accounts necessary. The same for sharing and enjoying movies and TV shows with
friends. This is exactly the element that's missing in almost all current
online content delivery schemes.

~~~
johns
MLB At Bat just added video out via the iPad VGA adapter just a few days ago
so they're clearly comfortable with the concept of using the iPad to stream to
a TV.

------
tptacek
Apple's trouble with TV is that it isn't "all of mobile computing", which is
what they're busy taking over. A recent article pointed out that the iPhone is
to Apple 2010 what search is to Google. Seems about right.

Apple's strategy with TV seems to be to slow-roll it until they get to a place
where they can execute a strategy that will dominate it. They can't do
_nothing_ , since that would enable competitors to dominate it. They can't
revoke everyone's TV. So they launch a "hobby" product to maintain a certain
level of uncertainty in the marketplace.

Criticizing the success of the Apple TV in light of that seems somewhat silly.
They _actually call it a hobby_. I assume they're doing the minimum with it
that they can actually get away with; any dollar they spend over that minimum
is a dollar that isn't going to total domination of mobile computing.

~~~
doron
Calling it a Hobby is a great entry point, as in removing the threat from the
usurper on the most cherished media device in the typical american home - the
TV, the size of the thing? you don't even need to reorganize your setup. just
plop it there.

They are positioning themselves better then say Microsoft is, simply by
referring to it as TV something, which is familiar to most people and isn't
regarded as a niche market.

Consider the Xbox360, it has a relativity competitive price, all the features
the Apple TV has plus, and superior implementation of others (codec support
for one), and I am not even mentioning the fact that you can play games on it.
(and the networks currently supported on Xbox can be seen here -
<http://social.zune.net/tv>)

The Xbox however, is marketed as a game console, not as a Netflix, Music Video
streaming/renting/buying device, that leaves it in a corner that apple is
currently free to dominate using their considerable marketing clout.

The form factor and name are unassuming and non threatening, it passes clear
below geek radar, but grabs the imagination of the public, in this case even
without any clear technical innovation.

~~~
tptacek
This is pure speculation on my part, but I think that when Apple starts caring
about the set-top, you're going to know about it, because you won't be able to
catch a train without seeing 10 billboards about it, and the product offering
itself will be so complete that HN users will not be able to shut about how
unjust its restrictions are.

The notion that Apple is just lousy at marketing set-top products and that's
why this isn't a runaway success beggars belief. Did you see Steve Jobs just
collect a huge round of applause for introducing _buttons_ on an MP3 player?
Because I just saw him collect a huge round of applause for introducing
_buttons_ on an MP3 player.

------
mrshoe
I think this article is missing the long-term changes Jobs wants to see with
TV. It's pretty shortsighted to say that Apple should just build a better TiVo
(with more input options), which is essentially what this article argues.

The talk that he references is very telling of how Jobs thinks about this
space, but he's wrong to think that Jobs was hinting at the new Apple TV as
the solution to the problems he was discussing. The Apple TV announced
yesterday is still just a hobby, and Steve obviously knows and acknowledges
that openly.

The decades-old model of TV channels with scheduled content broadcasting is on
the chop block here. That is what needs to eventually change. It's going to be
a long uphill battle for Apple to affect that change, since all parties
involved are so heavily invested in the current business models. If Apple were
to embrace the status quo (like TiVo), that would be counterproductive.

So instead they continue to pursue Apple TV as a hobby and they hope to prove
to the content providers that they can make as much (or more) money by renting
out their content and streaming it over the internet. If they eventually
succeed in amassing all the content currently provided by cable and satellite
companies, consumers will buy their device en masse. I agree with those who
predict that the Apple TV, at that point, will actually be a TV instead of a
set top box. That's what Jobs was referring to when he said "tear up the set
top box" and "nobody's willing to buy a set top box."

------
wtallis
Apple's successes in the music and phone industries have both been accompanied
with a radical redefinition of the role of the content/service provider. All
this article really says is that the Apple TV can't take off unless it is
accompanied with a similar revolution for cable companies, and that the author
is skeptical that Apple can engineer a revolution in _that_ industry. I think
Apple would probably agree to a large extent.

The complexities of living room hardware are a result of a reluctance of
certain companies to abandon the broadcast paradigm for video. Devices like
DVRs and SlingBox are either completely unnecessary or vastly simpler when
_all_ video is on-demand. The new Apple TV is what those devices will have to
become if the traditional cable business model of transmitting every channel
simultaneously to every house is replaced by an all-IP solution. (And that
switch will eventually occur, because fiber to the home internet services will
eventually force cable providers to reallocate all their channels to IP
service.)

Once traditional broadcast services die, there's no reason to keep the concept
of watching a new show at the exact same time as your neighbor (except in the
case of live broadcasts, which Apple demonstrated yesterday that they probably
have a solution for).

The difficulty for Apple comes from the fact that the whole pricing structure
will have to change. Instead of spamming a vague number of viewers with
commercials that lengthen the viewing time by 30%, and charging subscribers
fees that subsidize content they never watch, providers and consumers will
have to deal with real, accurate numbers: how much it really costs to produce
a show, how many people are willing to pay to see that show, and how many
people _really_ see those ads.

This change is far more significant than Apple's wresting control of the
iPhone software from the cellular carriers, and far more predictable than the
shake-up that resulted from $0.99 songs. Apple can't manipulate all the
players in to making this transition happen, so they have to rely on the
market forces that already exist and position themselves to be the first and
best ones to fill the niche that the Apple TV is waiting for.

------
rbranson
The Apple TV is so close for me now. If it had a more wide range of supported
formats I would be all over it, but I'm relegated to the world of WD TV Live
Plus right now. People say that this is a techie-only feature, but I highly
disagree. Apple built it's reputation on "it just works" and being able to
play any format follows that. If it plays everything, customers no longer need
to figure out which formats it does or does not play, "it just works."

~~~
jsz0
It's a very fine line for Apple. Supporting piracy-centric formats is a big
stamp of approval which will hurt their ability to put together legitimate
content deals. I'm puzzled why the piracy groups don't just adopt MP4/H264 as
a standard distribution format. That would solve the problem and you get the
added bonus of having metadata. One of the long standing problems of
supporting the AVI container in a database driven UI is you don't have any
metadata to work with.

~~~
doron
Didn't stop Microsoft from including DivX support on xbox360, and they have a
wider range of content providers. At issue here is the legitimacy of Apple as
content provider, not others.

~~~
Tycho
I remember they took their time to add DivX support though. A couple of years
maybe. And they still haven't released web browsing, which i'd find useful

------
joey_bananas
At the risk of sounding like an Apple apologist, I strongly suspect the
content providers are the reason for the Apple TV's reliative lameness. I
don't think it'll be possible to build a truly great settop box until the TV
networks stop with their fantasy that if they're stubborn enough, things will
go back to the way it was before the internet.

------
RBr
I think that Ars has done a good job of explaining something that I really
didn't think about. Music was an easier sale to content distributors.

However, in my mind, the big hurdle that neither Apple nor any of it's
competitors have overcome is user interface.

It's still not easy for me to say that I'd like to watch all of the new
episodes of each show that I watch, have those shows automatically downloaded
and presented in an easy (1 click) informative way to view on one of the 3
TV's in my house. Also, I want an easy, free way to preview new shows to see
if I'd like to add them to my monthly rental subscription price and purchase
an entire box set after each season ends in case I really like it.

That's it... it's not rocket science but no one has it right yet. The closest
I've come is TED and Boxee.

------
frofro
I was hoping for an App Store to be introduced. Imagine the type of
functionality this would enable on our TVs. You could have TV-optimized apps
to check the weather, traffic, sports scores, show times, or stream video from
other sources like Vimeo or Hulu. To get around watching videos you've
downloaded elsewhere, there might be an Air Video like app which transcodes
videos on the fly for viewing non-supported files.

This could also be Apple's trojan horse into the console market. There are
already thousands of games available on the iPhone and iPad. It wouldn't be
too hard to port many of them over to this platform since they're all running
iOS. Perhaps you can use your existing iPod touches/iPhones as input devices.
There's so much potential without even looking at the TV-content side of the
business.

~~~
mjallday
Since its got the hardware inside there's always the possibility that this
functionality magically appears in iOS 4.3 or similar.

It happened with apps and the original iPhone, I think Apple would be happy to
wait until they have a polished product for launch and then announce rather
than pre-announce before it's ready.

------
Timothee
One thing that makes the transition to the living-room difficult compared to
iTunes/iPod, is that iTunes showed up at the beginning of digital music, so
there wasn't a leader to deliver music to your home.

Whereas TV channels have been coming to your living-rooms for decades. You buy
a TV once and the channels are here. For the most part, you still had to go
out to buy CDs.

In other words, the Apple TV is trying to replace something, while iTunes was
providing something new.

------
jonhohle
It's unclear to me how the TV works with non-Apple software. Will it stream
movies from any DAAP server? Can I use it with my existing digital movie
collection that is not housed in iTunes?

I already have devices that can display Netflix, Amazon Video on Demand, etc.
onto my TV (TiVo). Will this get the rest of my content to my television?

------
chubs
What if this was a way to attack the games consoles? Eg - what if you're
playing a game on your iphone/itouch, and it's streaming it live to your iTV.
Basically, your iphone/itouch has then become a touch-screen game controller,
and the itv has replaced your wii/xbox/ps3 ... It's totally feasible by the
sounds of it.

~~~
chrischen
Maybe replace the Wii, but it's going to need a lot more power and dedication
to game playing people if it wants to target Xbox or PS3.

------
randomdustin
I think Apple is missing the point with Apple TV. People don't want another
machine that they have to change inputs to view the content they want.

I think Google TV has a better direction but who knows when they plan on
releasing it. <http://www.google.com/tv/>

------
drivebyacct2
Let's see, Amazon's purchase-HD-video-for-$1 is still a better deal and there
are no compelling features over Google TV which will allow me to use whatever
distribution channels I want for my content. It allows any Android (or any,
period) device to act as a remote through an open protocol. You can install
any app. And if you want you can watch "amateur content" that is too good for
Jobs. (His sentiment, not mine).

They may have launched first, but I'm way more excited about what Google is
not going to launch, but truly enable.

