
Apple's iTV: Apps Are the New Channels - dave1619
http://daringfireball.net/2011/10/apps_are_the_new_channels
======
swernli
This is exactly what Microsoft has been building towards with the Xbox. The
espn app on there is fantastic, and just added the ability to watch two events
in split screen, while watching a customized news/score crawl at the bottom of
the screen. You can invite friends to watch with you, and participate in
quizzes relevant to the game you are watching. All this with Kinect voice
support too. It feels pretty damn futuristic. And now they've announced apps
for exactly the kind of services the article talks about: HBO Go, SyFy,
Comcast On-Demand, etc. Add in the fact that it's already a game console, and
I'd say they are closer to creating a central media hub than anyone else.

~~~
cwe
Haven't used the Xbox experience so I can't really say, but it seems like this
could be another situation where Apple doesn't create an entirely new concept,
but rather brings it to the masses simply and beautifully. I'd sure rather
have an Apple experience when it came to TV

~~~
Anti-Ratfish
I just watched the rugby world cup at a friends house where the TV had a
volume bar that honestly looked like a sperm. Wiggly tail and everything. It's
not that Apple will get it right, it's that they'll do it less wrong.

------
nostromo
I agree that this is the direction Apple will probably take, but I'm not sure
I like it.

When I sit down on the couch my brain thinks "I want to watch The Walking
Dead" not "I want to watch AMC's The Walking Dead."

Think of how poor the interface would be on the TiVo if, instead of show
titles, you were presented first with folders of television networks to select
from.

~~~
luigi
We may start seeing shows as apps, not channels as apps. So I can get The
Walking Dead app, or the Battlestar Galactica app.

Television networks are like book publishers. They're not really needed
anymore when content creators can sell their stuff directly to a willing
audience.

------
extension
In his D8 interview last year, Jobs had this to say about a hypothetical Apple
television: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGpucaAzh0U#t=153s>

I'm not sure I entirely understand his answer, but he seems to be saying that
they can't innovate on the hardware because it's too commoditized and
subsidized, so an innovative product can't be priced competitively. They can't
partner with an entity providing the subsidy, as they did with AT&T, because
there is no one entity big enough to make it worthwhile. And there is no way
to connect to all the providers, without putting a set-top box in the middle,
which is exactly what they are trying to avoid.

Here is Isaacson's "I cracked it" quote:

 _“‘I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to
use,’ he told me. ‘It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and
with iCloud.’ No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for
DVD players and cable channels. ‘It will have the simplest user interface you
could imagine. I finally cracked it.’”_

What exactly did he crack? What will make the iTV so appealing that consumers
will now be willing to pay a premium for it? He mentions a new user interface,
as well as iCloud, which did not exist (publicly) at the time of the D8
interview. But what about the global connectivity issue? Are they just betting
that people will give up cable TV for apps + itunes + icloud + magical
interface? Or is there something else in there?

~~~
schiffern
>But what about the global connectivity issue?

Software defined demodulators could solve this problem, just like software
defined radio is now solving the problem of disparate wireless standards (e.g.
for emergency responders). The A5 shows that Apple isn't afraid of
application-specific processing units. iTV just ships with the correct dongle.

> Are they just betting that people will give up cable TV?

Why not (besides sports)?

------
dave1619
Gruber's article makes a lot of sense. TV content providers are already
creating iOS apps, so why not pull them altogether into a Newstand-like app
folder called iTV. And that would appear on your Apple TV as well.

Apple could also differentiate from Free TV "Channel" apps and Paid ones in
the Appstore. Free channels apps would monetize through commercials. The paid
ones would be subscription like HBO, etc. The TV channels could monetize even
better because there's a direct relationship with the customer/viewer and they
can target ads more specifically (location, demographic, age, gender,
interests, etc).

In the end, Apple's new TV will be just a screen giving the user access to
"channels" which will be apps.

Also, the apps might have two interfaces: one for iPad/iPhone (or separate)
and also one for the iTV. The iTV interface will be really simple and will
list out all your TV apps and what's playing or what's popular recently.

~~~
HSO
You could spin this further. Me thinks SJ might have been wrong with his
analogy of "trucks" and PCs. Perhaps instead, TVs will become the center of
processing power and memory/state in the home, with tablets/phones, in
combination with an external keyboard, accessing the power like terminals used
to in the 70s, except the mainframe is now in your living room instead of n km
away. That would also require a unified OS so it's not one or two generations
away. Still, this could be something to think about...

~~~
suivix
No, Microsoft tried to push things this way with their home media server in
the early 00s, but it is too complicated for normal people (non hackers) to
administrate. So everything is going to the cloud.

Your solution would be great if bandwidth didn't exponentially increase each
year.

~~~
cwe
The fact that Microsoft's solution failed is not a valid reason to assume
Apple's won't.

~~~
ichc-werker
I heard rumors about some tablet PC Apple was supposed to make, called the
iSlate. Too bad nothing ever came of that.

------
zach
This all seems reasonable to me, but I'm not sure this is the full meaning of
the "I finally cracked it" remark.

I know Steve was enthusiastic about the moment when he could see something
that finally met his standards, but he also wanted to see all the details come
together before being confident in something. When I read that quote, I
thought that must mean that Apple has a fairly complete prototype experience
that Steve was satisfied with. So I think this aspect could be at the core of
what having "cracked it" means but it means more than that.

For another view on the Apple TV's near future, here are my thoughts on this
topic from a month back, focusing more on the fact that apps are not going to
be remarkable in their form yet still have the power to powerfully disrupt the
massive cable industry: [http://www.quora.com/What-apps-can-we-expect-for-
Apple-TV/an...](http://www.quora.com/What-apps-can-we-expect-for-Apple-
TV/answer/Zach-Baker)

By now I have come to believe the TV-set approach is for real. Dan Frommer's
argument from yesterday is compelling and input switching is so awful that it
may be the biggest opportunity to relieve consumer pain. Reworking the TV set
looks more and more like a highly strategic and experience-changing way to put
all of Apple's advantages to bear on this apps-as-channels approach.

~~~
Fluxx
Steve Jobs has commented on how to disrupt the TV market before. Here is the
transcript of the relevant parts:

"The problem with innovation in the TV industry is the go-to-market strategy.
The TV industry has a subsidized model that gives everyone a set-top box for
free, or for $10 per month That pretty much squashes any opportunity for
innovation, because nobody’s willing to buy a set top box. Ask TiVo, ask Roku,
ask us…ask Google in a few months. The only way that’s ever going to change is
if you can really go back to square one, tear up the set top box, redesign it
from scratch with a consistent UI across all these different functions, and
get it to consumers in a way that they’re willing to pay for it. And right now
there’s no way to do that.

The TV is going to lose until there’s a better — until there’s a viable — go
to market strategy. Otherwise you’re just making another Tivo. It’s not a
problem with technology, not a problem with vision, it’s a fundamental go to
market problem. And then it not like there’s a GSM standard where you build a
phone for the US and it also works in all these other countries. No, every
single country has different standards, different government approvals, it’s
very…Tower of Bableish. No, balkanized. I’m sure smarter people than us will
figure this out, but that’s why we say Apple TV a hobby; that’s why we use
that phrase."

For video see the section on, "On Apple TV and why television is balkanized:"

[http://www.geek.com/articles/apple/what-you-need-to-know-
abo...](http://www.geek.com/articles/apple/what-you-need-to-know-about-steve-
jobs-talk-at-d8-2010062/)

I've blogged about this subject before as well, but I'll include my thoughts
here as well:

"Content producers like TV studios and stations control the entire TV industry
because they control the content. They’ve created this market where customers
pay for the content (subsidized by commercials) and get the hardware for free.
But by getting the hardware for free, they’ve stifled any innovation and
advancement downstream from content production.

Only through the magic of open-source software has innovation happened. XBMC
is an amazing piece of software and is getting easier and easier to use very
day. At the same time, downloading TV is now easier than ever and still
getting easier. It’s only a matter of time before someone makes the 'Napster
for TV shows.' People are already dropping their cable for Hulu and Netflix."

[http://bitfluxx.com/2011/04/16/the-revolution-is-coming-
and-...](http://bitfluxx.com/2011/04/16/the-revolution-is-coming-and-it-will-
be-televised.html)

------
dhyasama
Throw Siri into the mix and it could be _really_ cool. While watching a
baseball game, just ask Siri questions about stats. "Siri, what is Albert
Pujols' lifetime batting average with two outs and the bases loaded?"

~~~
ChrisLTD
"I don't know what you mean by 'Albert Pujols lifetime batting average with
two outs and the bases loaded'."

"If you like I can search the web for 'Albert Pujols'."

[Search the web]

~~~
mikedouglas
Opening Siri up to third-parties becomes much simpler if it can be made modal.

------
ChrisLTD
Google had the best idea. Just search for the show you want to watch, don't
worry about the source. Unfortunately, big media companies – in their infinite
shortsightedness – decided to torpedo the project.

By contrast, the app solution would be totally voluntary on the part of the
content owners, but less elegant.

It would also mean that your access to content would be even more subject to
corporate whims than they are now. Say a bug was introduced into the ESPN app.
Now suddenly you've missed a quarter of the season because ESPNs app
programmers couldn't post a patch fast enough. Or the PBS app gets taken down
due to a patent infringement case and you miss the airing of the Prohibition
documentary.

~~~
falling
The app solution would have some value for the content providers, the Google
solution of scraping the web would give most of the value back to Google.

~~~
ChrisLTD
I'm not sure that's true. There are two types of video content right now: 1)
Ad supported 2) Pay per episode or subscription

Unless Google tries to block the ads or take an outsized cut of the episode or
subscription fee, the content providers are no worse off than with Apple's
current or proposed solution.

Edit: Outside of YouTube, the ads shown before videos online are one of the
few places Google does not seem to have a near monopoly online. In my
experience, most of the ads seem to be for cars and insurance companies and
controlled by the website owner themselves (Hulu, Comedy Central, NBC, ESPN3).

~~~
falling
Question for you: who provides 99% of web advertisement?

~~~
falling
Exactly: [http://www.businessinsider.com/make-no-mistake-google-is-
tak...](http://www.businessinsider.com/make-no-mistake-google-is-taking-on-
the-tv-industry-2011-10)

------
megaman821
I don't know, I would rather have my TV content aggregated with a consistent
interface.

I just want more options on how a pay for programming. Let me subscribe to a
show, to a channel, to a category, and to a bundle.

~~~
jonhendry
Yeah, networks would stick annoying stuff and ads around the borders. They're
already insufferable the way they put intrusive, animated ads for their other
shows at the bottom of the screen.

------
jonhendry
I still think Apple-brand smart TVs have an inherent problem, in that people
won't want to upgrade them very often compared to other devices (they're
basically electronic furniture), so there'll be a lot of outdated hardware out
in the market.

It's much easier to get people to upgrade a $100 add-on for their current TV.

~~~
kenjackson
Crazy thought... what if I could get you an $800 TV carrier/cable subsidized
for $200 every two years (on contract)?

~~~
rythie
Would seem very wasteful to be chuck a 40/50inch/whatever TV in trash/rubbish
every 2 years just because it doesn't run the latest software. Whilst phones
have a history of that, TV has the best part of century without it.

~~~
kenjackson
Why put it in the trash? You can use it in some other room, the garage, etc...
I'd put a two year old 40" in my office happily.

~~~
prof_hobart
We already have all of the TVs we want in the house (two), and there's
certainly no other room that would benefit from having a 42" TV in it.

~~~
dusing
Bathroom!

~~~
prof_hobart
Bathroom is for quiet soak in the bath with a good book.

------
tomkarlo
I see why he's saying this, but I hope he's wrong. Apps as channels / shows
have many of the drawbacks of magazines/weblogs as apps rather than web sites
or RSS feeds: lack of standardization and feature lists driven by publisher
goals rather than user needs.

If some new way of sharing / discussing shows comes out, and we have to wait
for each channel to add it to their app, it won't happen. Similarly, there
will be less incentive to build innovative solutions for watching video if the
content stream are trapped within a million different apps.

Imagine if you had to download a different app for each web site you wanted to
view a video on. Bleah.

~~~
brianpan
Standardization comes from the framework. Just like apps (mostly) have similar
button elements, tab views, etc.

"Channel apps" can also have similar UI elements, the same way to go back to
"home", there can be a unified way to switch channels, etc.

~~~
tomkarlo
Reuse of widgets doesn't constitute useful standardization. And content
producers don't tend to want to standardize their interfaces - they want to
differentiate from their competitors, not resemble them.

Will these apps publish their metadata in a way that third party apps can
access and manage the content? Imagine if we had "reader apps" instead of web
sites that you could scrape or grab RSS feeds from... it would be like the old
AOL / CDROM days.

~~~
brianpan
Um, yeah, I don't think we're going from broadcast/cable we have now to
something like the web sites with RSS feeds. If by standardization, you mean
open standard, that's not happening.

~~~
tomkarlo
There's already options that are at least closer: iTunes, Amazon VOD, Youtube,
etc.

------
kin
I ask for this disruption everyday, but the resistance from cable companies is
so strong 'cause they make so much money leasing boxes and locking people into
2 year contract bundles along with exclusive sports packages.

------
bane
There's something more important here than just controlling a TV with a fancy
box. With modern digital TV's literally being about as good as a big monitor,
and decent computers being small and cheap, it's just moving computing to the
more comfortable chairs in the living room. Google and Apple have both
realized this, and in the last few years a few TV manufacturers have made
halting attempts at the same.

Except the software we can run on these has access to (theoretically) a vast
streaming library of content with a robust, mature distribution channel and
gigantic data pipes.

But I think it's only a little bit of time before these devices simply become
part of game consoles. The Wii probably has the best nascent take on this
(even calling apps, "channels").

------
b0sk
Wait. Isn't this what Google TV is all about?

~~~
martythemaniak
Of course, but as you should know by know, nothing is ever innovative,
revolutionary or even noteworthy if it doesn't come from Apple. At least as
far as DF and "tech" sites like it are concerned.

I find this particularly ironic, given that Google TV with the Market (and
apps like Al Jazeera that do exactly what the article describes) came out
_today_. There isn't even a mention of this anywhere on his site.

~~~
wmeredith
I think the gist of DF et al isn't that no one ever does it until Apple does
it, but that no one ever does it right until Apple does it. Which I find
myself agreeing with about ~70% of the time. Apple is rarely first or on the
cutting edge, spec-wise, but they're almost always 2-10 years ahead of
everyone else in terms of UX.

~~~
nr0mx
Well of course you are right about that, but I don't think that's the gist of
it. Not entirely. There's also the insistence that where Apple was first or on
the cutting edge, it is a mortal sin for others to copy. That's the ugly part.
That's the dissonance I see when reading these sites.

------
protomyth
I would rather skip the "app per channel" and have Apple develop the base app
with each content provider providing a plug-in. This would allow navigation
and search consistency while allowing content providers a chance to do their
branding.

~~~
dave1619
You can have both. Each TV channel has it's own app, but also links in to
Apple's TV server through APIs to publish it's channels shows. Apple
aggregates all the content into one app that becomes that main interface for
the TV.

------
ctdonath
Remember that a key part of the TV experience for much/most of the audience is
the brain-dead-simple "turn on, zone out" experience. Pick a channel and see
what it feeds you. Background noise. "Here we are now, entertain us." When a
show ends, just roll right on to the next one.

Apps are great for a smart interactive experience when you want it. TV per se
isn't.

~~~
matwood
Oddly enough, I think DVRs are training people to not do exactly what you say.

~~~
ctdonath
Not quite. DVRs enhance the brain-dead viewing experience by queueing up what
someone wants to watch, more than they can in a sitting. Now that constant
video stream is what they want, not just a tolerable channel.

So far I have yet to see an app (or equivalent) which will run a constant
stream of what someone wants to see with a broad mix and minimal setup. If we
can get the DVR equivalent on a mobile or set top box, there's the win.

------
Steko
I think this is underselling what Apple's TV is likely to be. Cable TV is not
an industry going down the tubes, it's raking in the dough.

I doubt Jobs was aiming to disrupt the cablecos or content producers so he
needs to add value to the chain. A better remote/navigation ui isn't enough.

------
tommorris
Sigh. And this is why when I actually need a piece of software that serves an
actual purpose from the App Store, all I can get is brands and not pieces of
software with actual functionality.

Have I explained how much I hate the world any time in the last hour?

I'm so glad that the goofy RPN calculator on my iPad is now considered in the
same general class of things as CNN and BBC. This won't make future analysis
of the software business at all shallow or ridiculous.

------
jonhohle
I was hoping the Wii would go in this direction. The Wii has one of the best
20-foot interfaces, imho - channels are distinct, recognizable, and
dynamically updatable; you can quickly scan several at once; selection is
intuitive; you're not limited by a directional pad for input.

It would be great if Wii channels included broadcast/cable channels (either
streaming or on demand or both).

------
nextparadigms
Gruber is writing this article in the same day Google TV 2.0 with channels-as-
apps is unveiled, and he doesn't even mention it? In the mean time he makes us
believe that he just came up with the idea about this from Apple. Right,
Gruber.

~~~
kyleslattery
To be fair, he also mentioned the idea on The Talk Show, which was released
yesterday: <http://5by5.tv/talkshow/64-they-had-to-burn-the-sheets>

------
dustinupdyke
I would not consider Jason Kottke to be an "up-and-coming young blogger".

He's been blogging since March 1998.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Kottke>

~~~
mikek
John Gruber was being sarcastic.

------
brudgers
Maybe Apple can call it "WebTV?"

[<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webtv>]

------
kleptco
Channels suck right, so is this supposed to be good news?

------
zerostar07
God i hope html5 moves fast so we don't have to be tied up behind "app
frameworks" for long. Enough damage already

