There's a big opportunity here for someone. Lots of people prefer the linear video experience. They want to flip channels and have content pushed at them so they don't have to think. The other piece that's been missing for a while on IPTV is live sports. Both MLB & NBA are now offering their league pass IP video subscriptions on the iPhone. MLB is on the Roku set top already. Between gaming consoles with IP video options, Smart TVs, and now more dedicated devices like the Roku player I don't think Apple can stay out of this market much longer. It's going to happen with or without them.
Do to the 50 inch screen what the iPhone did to the 3 inch screen. The device connected to my tv should be as open and capable as a computer, yet still fit the form factor. ie- an iPhone is a full fledged computer running a real OS. It just meets the form factor and purpose of a 3 inch screen.
What apps would you want to see on a 50 inch screen besides content (which is the killer app)?
I'd argue that a Playstation 3 gets very close to your requirement list. So do most consoles, it just happens to be my favorite of the 3 in terms of design and usability. Both it and the Xbox have access to Netflix for streaming movies, which is a big plus.
You were asking about Netflix below. You might be interested to her I was talking to a film distributor last week, who mentioned that from their perspective video-on-demand and premium channel sales (as served by cable) are almost dead, and while they get fantastic analytics from iTunes movie downloads, they accelerated quickly and then plateaued. Netflix is becoming the revenue generator that distributors pursue prior to the end-user DVD sale for indies.
Obviously, the model is somewhat different for big-ticket films where broadcast will pay a premium for the premiere rights, and/or specialty films (eg cable channels MTV or VH1 are still good for music documentaries). But in his opinion Netflix is becoming the most important secondary market distributor.
Playstation 3 is very close, but it's not open enough. It's not nearly as easy as using a computer to navigate content or add apps. The UI for the PS3 is definitely closest though. Windows, Mac, or Basic Ubuntu just don't work for the living room.
Wow, that's really interesting that Netflix is that important for distribution. Well, moreso that it's that much ahead of the others. I really wish they would have the PlayReady DRM work on linux, not because of desktop linux being so popular, but the plethora of devices that could be built on Linux using Netflix.
The device connected to my tv should be as open
and capable as a computer, yet still fit the form
factor.
Beautiful, incredibly easy to use, tightly integrated with your Mac, but not open. Nothing Apple makes these days is open. OS X was the last product they made that was sort of open.
Sigh, I know. I wish AppleTV was a purely open platform. Let me throw apps on it, access websites I want, skin it, etc. The Mac Mini is the "real" appletv, except the interface doesn't work so well for a tv. Essentially here's what I want:
Put the mac mini, appletv, and time capsule in a blender. Appletv 10 foot interface, mac mini open-ness/computing ability, and time capsule size storage (TBs, not GBs).
I had an older macbook hooked up to my tv, but it was lacking the stuff I mentioned and then some above.
I've been working on a hardware/software startup that does exactly this. It's running a pretty specific hardware combo with customized linux distro that works for the big screen for the price of a mac mini (with 6x the storage). It's heavenly.
By "open", I didn't mean "open source". If you're talking about open source, then almost everything on OS X that does not have a GUI is open source, including the kernel itself. (Also, WebKit came from KHTML. Apple couldn't possibly have made WebKit a proprietary product without getting into legal trouble, but this is besides the point.)
By "open", I meant a hacker-friendly platform. The iPhone is not hacker friendly, and the iPod is a brick for those of us who use Linux/BSD.
For Apple, open source is merely a good software development methodology that has worked well for quite a while now. They don't give a rat's ass about the philosophy behind it.
Add pictures, social media, Facebook, twitter, cutesy pics with cats and inane captions. Take all the dreck of cable, but make it interactive and navigable. This will be 10X more addictive through variable reward schedule than channel surfing.
Add in real-time video chat so you and your cadre can MST3K commentary everything online at the same time. It's couch-potato crack!
I'm working on making a 10 foot ui type site with embedded heyzap games for fun for my HTPC. Different than the console games, but games none the less.
Have you seen the new release with the confluence skin? It's really beautiful. I prefer Boxee just because it has the internet channels built in. I wish there was more participation when it comes to plugins. The stuff that boxee has could easily be made for XBMC.
I am still on a bit older version. I run T3CH builds, I plan to update to new release, I've only seen screenshots on the site. Since I have some free time now I'm using it constantly, don't want to mess up something if I don't have to.
Also, those streaming media "plugins", "scripts" - call them what you want, are indispensable... I can watch youtube, academic earth, demoscene tv, g4tv and many many others on my tv with remote in my hand - this is what internet tv should look like IMO. I also have IPTV installed, it feels rather similar to on-demand stuff on it.
the launcher app is pretty damn cool since you can then have it run some outside apps but still use an XBMC live installation. it's still shaky when switching to full screen. there needs to be a quality app store for XBMC like there is for Boxee.
So how is streaming HD going to benefit those of us crippled by monthly bandwidth limits? The cable companies aren't going to be encouraged to get rid of those, especially in the face of a new competitor that uses those very pipes.
And fwiw, I am in Canada, where ISPs have been imposing caps for a while now. If you're lucky, you live somewhere where you can buy service (without a monthly cap) from a re-seller (who themselves might be getting throttled by Bell, or whoever else it is).
Looks like Apple is going to leverage on MobileMe. If you're a MobileMe subscriber you will get an "all-access" pass to movies, video and audio content etc with no ads. On top of that you get email, webhosting, "Find My iPhone" features etc.
That's somewhat subjective -- I've found Netflix's OD to be pretty good. At any rate, "weak" is less important than ubiquitous right now. Weak is easy to fix, you just encode more titles and perhaps upgrade your software. Netflix is on(in) almost every device that counts for home entertainment now. Not in the future, not waiting for some specialized device or deal... they are present and accounted for. All they need to do is start providing more recent content, and they are there.
Apple is essentially nowhere in this space.. AppleTV is it. And not many people bought into that (I did, and I was disappointed). Not only that, but apple offers no clear benefit -- netflix is at least cheaper than driving to blockbuster -- appletv has never been cheap to "rent" from and given the quality -- that's not really justifiable.
But if Apple gets the TV deal and Netflix does not, then all of these points are moot. My point is that Netflix's drive to ubiquity over content is great for getting new customers, but it doesn't offer much to someone who already has a way to consume the content they offer. If Apple offers me a better deal, I'll be dropping Netflix quickly.
