[Macworld]

Post your comments for What was Steve Jobs's vision for the future of TV? here

[Dotkhan]

I just watched a documentary on the Cinerama movie format. It projected from 3 rolls of film for a super wide 145 degree view. Although the visuals were stunning, only one film was made in true 3 camera Cinerama. On the hardware side, maybe edge to edge TV monitors that can be attached to each other to spread wide screen movies out to the full aspect ratio instead of letter-boxed.

[NCAMILO]

Not sure what's new in this article. This has all been written about ad nauseam.

[FlopTech]

Re: '“As soon as next year” is a common refrain.'

Because hardware is the easy part. That's true of all Apple products, really. As beautiful and polished as iPhones, iPods, iPads, Apple TVs, and Macs are, they're just the boxes that the software comes in. Just windows into Apple's greater infrastructure.

It's the infrastructure that takes forever to get right. Especially if you need to do deals with deeply entrenched incumbents like the Comcasts of the world. It will take many years for Apple to remake TV in its own image. It won't happen "as soon as next year."

[rmossman]

As soon as I read "in the cloud", I turn off on whatever is being touted. I agree it would be great to store all my videos, music, files, etc. in a common area and access from any device. The problem is the infrastructure that exists between "the cloud" and my devices.

In the US, the carriers (Verizon, Comcast, AT&T, etc.) all throttle our access to content and high speed by 1) not offering truly high speeds at all, and 2) charging more than we can afford for the experience Apple is "solving".

Start one movie on a TV in the living room, then open another stream while you are cooking dinner, and then carry it into the bathroom so you don't miss the ending and you'll find you've eaten up your entire data allotment for the month.

The foolish paradigm that claims that it costs a company anything to carry bits across existing facilities is just an excuse to get more money from ignorant consumers.

[bradpaulp]

Quote

Start one movie on a TV in the living room, then open another stream while you are cooking dinner, and then carry it into the bathroom so you don't miss the ending and you'll find you've eaten up your entire data allotment for the month. The foolish paradigm that claims that it costs a company anything to carry bits across existing facilities is just an excuse to get more money from ignorant consumers.

Do you not have your devices connected to Wi-Fi in your home? Wi-Fi doesn't consume your data allowance, so I don't see how your scenario would "cost".

[MutantPie]

For TV, I use this crazy content delivery system called "broadcast." I pay for it by (occasionally) watching commercials. It doesn't cost anything a month (subscription wise), it's crystal clear digital signal has a bandwidth that is unmatchable by other means, and I can record it for later viewing. Nutty huh? And when I want to watch "premium" content I can rent this shiny disk and put it in an attached player when ever I want, 7/24. I can even play internet content from my computer to this TV, so I don't really miss any of the great cable shows (I'm looking at you Daily Show).

The only downside to this system is that content is limited, and it doesn't make money for cable companies (other than online ads, and I can live with that system) nor Apple. Apple who just recently stepped their band width vampire video delivery system up to full HD 1080p. Boo-frickity-hoo for them!

[Stewie3G]

While the networks and distributors sit on their content, piracy proliferates!

http://www.forbes.co...d-show-of-2012/

They haven't learned much from the fall of the music distribution industry. Hopefully, the content creators will soon get on with the new distribution model and by-pass the Comcasts of this world, like the musical artists started doing 10 years ago.

[netcougar]

Did Mr. Jobs mention price? An Apple TV would probably cost 5x more than any other TV set on the market. I am an apple fan from way back. Can't say I like this new "elegant" white plastic and scratchable metal look. The new keyboards are cheesy too.

[Swift2]

It's not going to happen until Apple figures a way around the monopoly providers to the producers directly. Otherwise, the corporations like Comcast will just control what you see and when you see it. I want nationwide gigabit public fiber or equivalent, and I want to be equal to a corporation in what I can buy or stream. In other words, anything that's for sale.

So there.

[domsin]

Here's a wild speculation: I personally don't think Apple will market a big screen TV. Other than outstanding design there is little value that Apple can bring to justify a premium price. As far as working with the content providers and distributors, I think Apple won't be able to strike favorable deals like it did with the music publishers. So what is Apple to do?

My guess is that Apple will develop a next generation hockey puck that will have expanded capabilities such as DVR and DVD Player. They could even develop an IR satellite device that would enable control of all the myriad devices (TV, cable box, DVD player, amplifier, etc.) from your iPad or iPhone. The beauty of this approach is that Apple could create a simple to use interface for all of these devices and not have to negotiate contracts with any of them! Siri will interpret your spoken commands and translate them into IR commands to the devices in your living room. In turn, the elegance of the software interface would drive adoption and drive sales of iPhones and iPads.

I don't know about you but my iPhone is already the indispensible tool that is with me at all times (well, almost always). It's only a matter of time before we'll be using it to control everything in our homes, including our TVs.

[johndrake]

Quote

For TV, I use this crazy content delivery system called "broadcast." I pay for it by (occasionally) watching commercials. It doesn't cost anything a month (subscription wise), it's crystal clear digital signal has a bandwidth that is unmatchable by other means, and I can record it for later viewing. Nutty huh? And when I want to watch "premium" content I can rent this shiny disk and put it in an attached player when ever I want, 7/24. I can even play internet content from my computer to this TV, so I don't really miss any of the great cable shows (I'm looking at you Daily Show). The only downside to this system is that content is limited, and it doesn't make money for cable companies (other than online ads, and I can live with that system) nor Apple. Apple who just recently stepped their band width vampire video delivery system up to full HD 1080p. Boo-frickity-hoo for them!

You obviously don't want anything in SD, but you can still opt to download in 720p, and if you purchased a show that downloaded in 1080p, you can go back and download it in 720 at no additional cost.

[G5Dude]

Quote

Start one movie on a TV in the living room, then open another stream while you are cooking dinner, and then carry it into the bathroom so you don't miss the ending and you'll find you've eaten up your entire data allotment for the month. The foolish paradigm that claims that it costs a company anything to carry bits across existing facilities is just an excuse to get more money from ignorant consumers. Do you not have your devices connected to Wi-Fi in your home? Wi-Fi doesn't consume your data allowance, so I don't see how your scenario would "cost".

I guess you live in an area that doesn't have only one high-speed Internet provider that also caps your Internet bandwidth? Comcast, Time Warner, etc. are all putting caps on broadband, just like the cellular players. The cap is just higher at home than on mobile.

But I guarantee you'll find yourself pushing that limit if you live in a household that's tried to cut the cord and makes use of Apple, Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and Vimeo streaming to several TV screens, PCs/Macs, etc. Add to it gaming on the latest consoles with downloadable content, and gaming on Mac/PC with downloadable systems like Steam and GOG. Never mind services like iCloud (with iOS backups and Documents in the Cloud), iTunes Match for Music, iTunes in the Cloud for purchases, and things like Dropbox also slinging bits all over the place. Suddenly that cap is real.

And you can bet if Apple was to come out with an Apple TV service as dreamed of in this article, that severely disrupted the cable companies, that monthly cap would shrink dramatically to stifle Apple's competition. Those same companies that provide our broadband also largely provide our cable and cable content.

So it's a tough nut to crack.

[oflifexeqt]

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