“Apple’s current ‘hobby’ — also known as Apple TV — doesn’t tell us much about Apple’s future plans for the living room,” Mike Elgan writes for Cult of Mac.
“It’s a good product under the right circumstances,” Elgan writes. “But five years from now, living rooms are going to be transformed by all-encompassing systems that turn TVs into video phones, gaming systems, home automation control centers and artificial intelligence assistants.”
Elgan writes, “Apple is capable of and willing to reach out and enable non-Apple platform users to interact with Apple platforms, products and services. The question is: Will Apple do this in its future TV offerings? This is the question that, to me, determines whether Apple will own the living room of the future or Microsoft will.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Microsoft is working full time bringing SURFACE technology to the tv. Apple treats this just as a hobby and as a result, is losing the battle for the living room.
“the joker” = foolish & lost in your own surface delusion. Joke you are indeed.
I’m not sure my TV needs a keyboard attached to it.
But if it does it should make a “click” sound when attached.
LOL!
I’m not sure my TV needs a keyboard attached to it or a kickstand.
I also like how you’ve capitalized Surface. It makes it seem so much more important and awesome.
And this surface tv technology is?
Sarcasm, right?
Zune Tang? Is that you?
A simpleton troll…
Yeah, that’s right. Where are the CTRL ALT DEL keys on Surface? You’ll need them for the blue screens of death!
Yeah like you know everything going on behind the scenes and out of the public eye at Apple. Why do so many fools say Apple is not doing this or that with no such inside knowledge? The disingenuous a-hole analysis.
Uh, really? I don’t know a single person who’s the slightest bit interested in having a TV with apps on. I have ONE friend who has an Apple TV, and she loves it to bits, because she can stream movies when she wants, as she doesn’t want satellite TV, and cable isn’t available. I have a Mac Mini hooked up to my TV, and that’s my primary computer, but a TV with MS-based computer-like facilities? I can’t think of a single person in my wide circle of friends and acquaintances who gives a shit.
Give me a &$?!in’ BREAK!!! Take a cold HARD …. LOOK!! @ the garage & toolbox of both AAPL & MSFT ….. Yeah! Good LUCK MicroSLOTH!!! Fucking Ridiculous,,, Nothin’ left but unethical classes for winter registration. Calling all naysayers. What a JOKE!
What Apple can learn from Microsoft “about TV” is the same as what it learned about tablet computers… What NOT to do.
Yuppers.
There it is… That’s all you had to say, “What Apple can learn from MS is what NOT to do…” That’s all you had to say.
MSFT’s captured gamers with Xbox 360. However, gamers are techies (in their own game world). They’re like PC users of old. Apple will find and is finding a way to reach normal people.
You are incorrect. Microsoft has SURFACE, Apple does not.
Advantage: Apple.
Isn’t it something how the wonderful keyboard/cover for the surface is splitting after ONLY a couple of days use?
A cheap product.
Why didn’t MS make a 16 GB surface? What? They couldn’t? The OS is so bloated that it takes up the entire 16GB! What a poorly executed product.
Yeah, Apple could really learn a lot from Microsoft about TV. Their WebTV/MSN TV boxes were a huge success. Please.
Live news (as in “Today” show or “Good Morning America” etc not newyork times web updates) and live sports would be a great step that would get me to shell out $100 dollars and upgrade my Internet speed for an apple tv.
I agree with a good chunk of the article. Microsoft is starting to use iOS devices in ways many of us on these very forums have wished Apple would go with aTV and idevices.
I also feel that as great as facetime is, its DOA for me the majority of the time since I only have a few friends who have apple hardware.
Skype and Google+ are far more flexible platforms for video chat even though Facetime has the cleaner and easier interface.
I don’t think apple should start shipping optical drives on the aTV and following MS down any road is a bad idea but I get what this guy is talking about on some levels.
The current Microsoft ad for Surface has not one reference to what it can do, just a bunch of fucking kickstand clicking and a bunch of fucking dorks dancing…like if Yugo did an ad in the 70’s and it was just slamming car doors with Serbian kolos…”Zune, Part Deux: The Hemorrhaging Masturbation of Microshaft Continues.”
it astounds me, even for dumbass MSFT board, that Ballmer T Clown still has his job. He is the epitome of failure.
He’s like Milli Vanilli doing a cover of Turandot.
Nessun Dorma played on a banjo on Hee-Haw.
Ode To Joy on a Baldwin Fun Machine..I cannot express in a metaphor the relentless tastelessness of Microsoft.
Since Surface only includes wifi, the only thing those dorks in the commercial can do with their hardware in all that open space is click and dance!!!!
Microsoft marketing trying to copy old iTunes ads for the wrong device.
Off your meds again? Your foul verbal diarhea stinks up this sight and adds nothing but your disgust.
Thanks for trying to bring our conversations in line with the lowest common denominator.
you misspelled diarrhea.
You also misspelled “site.”
If your spelling is any indication of the quality of your education, 313c7ro, then, if I were you, I’d sue my school and teachers, for doing such a poor job.
Or did you just bunk off lessons and hang out at the mall with all your loser buddies…
WTF does Microsoft RIPPING OFF APPLE AGAIN-AGAIN-AGAIN via their kickstand infested ‘Surface’ platter have to do with Apple PWNing the living room?
Setting aside this stupid mythology, I can see the living room going interactive, just as Apple (not Microsoft) foresaw way way back circa 1996. (I got to play with some interactive networked Apple gear at Disney’s Epcot Center at that time). Apple also foresaw the interactive kitchen with what became the iPad integrated into the kitchen cupboard and fridge setup.
Obviously, planning for the future is going on at Apple. The questions are:
1) When is the core technology available to allow full interactive functionality?
2) When is the price right for selling the tech to the public?
3) When is the public ready to buy the tech?
Sadly, we’re still saddled with the worldwide economic depression and its ramifications. (Thanks Grover Norquist and similarly deranged ‘Starve The Beast’ lunatics for current debt hell). Therefore, I expect have had some tech of this kind sitting in the wings for some time until the possibility of the overthrow of our brain dead Corporate Oligarchy and the return of a vital middle class.
Thus we wait. Meanwhile, Microsoft continues to be entirely ignorable. Sorry Mike. But it’s good to keep an eye on them nonetheless. Miracles do happen, occasionally. Or do I mean ‘curses’?
I wonder if this MS TV future Elgan is referring to is the one of “smart TVs” with such draconian DRM that the TV will be able to spy on you and will be able to tell if you are violating the terms of agreement for viewing content.
The one that MS just got a patent for.
Pay to watch the Super Bowl with your family… and then decide to invite your next door neighbors and their families?
Oops! No can do… your TV won’t let you watch. It’s built-in camera has scanned the room and determined you are violating the terms of viewing with too many people in the room. The information you gave your content provider states there are only four people in you family.
Want to view the latest blockbuster on VOD with your four best friends? Nope. The system recognizes the difference between adults and children.
Yeah, it will happen.
Big Brother isn’t going to knock down our doors and jackboot his way all over us.
We’re inviting him in to watch the big game with us.