“The common assumption is that Apple is working on a traditional television screen with some super-duper features. Let’s guess that it’s a minimum 40in, possibly with a 3D screen, perhaps retina display to screen 4K movies like the upcoming Hobbit film, with built in Apple TV services (iTunes, Netflix, and so on) controlled by Siri and perhaps interacting with the iPad, iPhone, or some other custom Apple touchscreen remote,” Mark Hattersley writes for Macworld UK.
“This type of device may well be what Apple brings to the party. The problem we have is that few people on the Macworld team can envision such a device being successful,” Hattersley writes. “It’s just not different enough.”
Hattersley writes, “A really interesting article has appeared on Businessweek that outlined research by NDS, an Israeli-based TV provider recently purchased by Cisco systems for $5 billion. They have envisioned a future for the television that is almost completely different to the one we have today… Forget the 40in screen. NDS’ idea of the next-generation television is more like purchasing individual tiles and slotting them together on your wall. The screens could be 6-8in squares (without bezels) so they can be paired together and expanded into a screen that suits your size. You make it bigger by slotting together new smaller screens (cheaper than buying a whole new display). These can be as big as you like (all the way up to the size of a wall) and placed all over the house.”
Read more in the full article here.
Hmmm… New 7-inch iPad may not be an iPad *or* an iPod at all, at least not in the conventional sense…
I really do not see the need for an Apple TV (as in device including a screen). A set top box or component is more like it.
BTW-Can we drop it with the 3D? A fad in the 1950’s (movies) and again in the HDTV age for a shorter time.
I heard from a reliable source, i.e. my ass, that the iTV is going to be made up of tiny bladders filled with biogas to make the EPA happy. It will deploy all over the house and be inhaled by everyone present, causing them to hallucinate watching TV. I heard that Amazon is in a bidding war with Apple for this technology and the price is up to One Million Dollars!
Yeah, I heard that too … but bidding is now up to Two Million Dollars!
two million one
“The problem we have is that few people on the Macworld team can envision such a device being successful”
… and how many people realised, before it was announced, that the iPhone was going to be such a huge success ?
I want my Newton!!!
Sounds like a hobbyist kind of project. Configure your own… Has Woz taken control of Apple? I don’t think so.
Imagine trying to write software for a screen of unknown size/proportion.
Color accuracy and white balance issues for units made at different times and locations. Wonder if the Macworld crew thought of that being a problem. Imagine a lot of little screens with a slight color difference. Not an Apple design trademark unless all the little plugable screens will match seamlessly and with no possible distraction for the user. Apple would never even consider it. Macworld. Crew, place those concept thought hats back on and better luck next time.
I’d be quite content if my family and I could EASILY find the programs we want to watch without having remember the channel numbers, eliminate all the crap channels, record shows no one’s there (things that aren’t on demand), and be able to schedule those recordings remotely. I don’t need a ‘retina’ screen, though I do think the larger displays could use more pixels.
Get a TiVo.. it’ll do all you want, and can be cheaper than your cable company’s inferior DVR.. (lifetime subscription)
Haven’t watched TV for over ten years because I can’t stand the commercials. If Apple gets rid of those, I’m interested.
You’re gonna be interested.
I am having a hard time envisioning how this would work. If I started with a 16:9 set of panels totaling 55 inches diagonal, and a couple of years later wanted to add more panels to reach 70 inches, in a 2.35:1 format, how can I be sure the new panels will match color, brightness and etc with the existing panels, which would have had some change due to use for 2 year?
Just don’t see how it could be affordable and match each other across time and different manufactures without being either really expensive and done automatically, or really time consuming and technical doing yourself.
“The screens could be 6-8in squares (without bezels) so they can be paired together and expanded into a screen that suits your size…. as big as you like….. and placed all over the house.”
Oh yeh! The general public is going to have SUCH a hunger for that.
Like we haven’t all had this idea for a very long time? But how do you make it seamless? They would have to be 16:9 too, not squares.
I think the TV will have a FaceTime function that lets people who are remote from each other watch the same show simultaneously and communicate with each other in a virtual living room theater.