Today Apple announced the “all new Apple TV.” But for a long time Apple TV user like myself, there’s really not that much new about it. Yes, there are new enhancements and features, but it’s fundamentally the same product as the current version. Although Jobs presented it as new, the UI for instance looks identical to the version pushed out with a firmware upgrade a few months ago.
Really, the only exciting (and somewhat surprising) new feature is Netflix streaming support and the ability to stream music and video from iOS devices. Other than that it’s virtually the same product, minus a hard disc and without the ability to buy TV shows and movies, only the ability to rent them.
Yes, you can stream content to the Apple TV from the iTunes library on your computer, but I can do that now with the current version. YouTube and Flickr integration? Not new. How I use the current Apple TV is to rent HD movies and TV shows and watch them instantly. How I’ll use the new Apple TV is exactly the same. Nothing really has changed.
I’m a fan of the current Apple TV (a rare breed I know), and with the addition of Netflix streaming the new Apple TV is an improvement, but that’s all it is, an improvement. It’s not the “iTV” device myself and others have been hoping for.
This device, the predicted iTV device which I can only assume is coming, will run an iOS variant, provide music streaming from the cloud (via a cloud-based iTunes born from the ashes of LaLa), and most importantly, run apps available from the app store. As I stated in a previous post:
This would allow Apple to extend the reach of their platform ecosystem (iTunes, apps, media, devices) to the living room. It would be the Papa Bear of the iOS device family, perfectly complimenting the iPhone and iPad. The implications for console gaming alone would be huge. Who would still buy a Wii? Game developers could write universal apps for iPhone, iPad and… iTV? The iPhone or iPad could be used as a remote control, keyboard and game controller – made significantly more powerful with iPhone 4′s new gyroscope capabilities.
One possible technical delay to an iOS-based Apple TV is that iOS is a multi-touch interface, and of course TVs aren’t touch devices. While controlling the Apple TV from a touch-based iPhone, iPod touch or iPad is certainly a possibility, it doesn’t seem feasible to require that users have a touch device to control their Apple TV. And creating a remote control, non-touch based iOS variant would be challenging on several levels. My guess is this is one of the thornier technical hurdles they need to overcome if indeed they are working on an iOS-based Apple TV (or iTV as it should be called).
Despite the disappointment, the good news is that Apple clearly now considers TV as much more than a hobby. And it’s not at all out of character for Steve Jobs to contradict himself with regard to product strategy (see past remarks about eBooks, video iPods, tablets, and even native apps). In fact, in almost every area where Apple has recently innovated, they’ve at some point in the not too distant past taken a contradictory position. Not sure if this is intentional to keep competitors confused, simply a change of heart, or how they position themselves with regard to new markets/products until they’re certain they’ve solved the tough business problems and nailed the experience. My guess is the latter.
So how does this new Apple TV compare with the coming Google TV?
They are two fundamentally different approaches to owning the living room entertainment experience. Google wants to turn your TV into a computer that runs a Google TV OS. The experience, at least initially, will be a lot like a souped up, more webby TiVo. Meaning it will be an evolved, Internet-enabled version of your current DVR cable experience. Google is trying to play nice with cable operators in an attempt to tap into that $70 billion broadcast ad market. Google is, after all, an advertising business.
Like Boxee and Roku before them, Apple on the other hand is seeking to completely disintermediate broadcast operators by providing a new, secondary TV viewing experience. By directly challenging the establishment, Apple’s is by far a more ambitious, risky and ultimately disruptive approach. Simply put, Apple is encouraging “cable cutting” while Google is attempting to help the broadcast industry evolve to avoid extinction. How eager the broadcast industry is to accept that help is another story.
What’s a little puzzling in all this is that based on earlier comments that people won’t pay for a set-top box when they get one for free from their cable operator, it would seem that Jobs actually believes Google’s approach has the best chance of success. But as mentioned he often doesn’t mean what he says (says what he means?).
I still believe we are a ways off (several years), before significant numbers of mainstream Americans will cancel their cable service in favor of purely IP-based “over-the-top” services like Apple TV. By augmenting rather than seeking to displace the traditional broadcast TV experience, Google may have a better chance of reaching critical mass in the short term. But, like the music industry before it, the future of broadcast delivery will most certainly be Internet-based. And Apple, with their usual aplomb, is seeking to shape, accelerate and ultimately own that future.
