“Apple has a figured out how to play a part in the reinvention of television, and here’s how it’s about to do it. Meanwhile, Google’s attempt to emulate Apple TV with Chromecast underlines the weakness in that firm’s television strategy so far,” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld.
“You’ll be able to plug your Apple television into your choice of cable provider, and you’ll be able to access the services you pay for. You’ll do so through an Apple-designed user interface, including apps and gesture, and Siri remote control support,” Evans writes. “You’ll be able to download apps… and you’ll be able to add some international channels to your experience… You’ll be able to skip ads on what you’re watching for a fee… and you’ll be able to rent iTunes Movies in UltraHD…”
Evans writes, “I imagine that after the inevitable failure of Chromecast (loads will buy one, few will use one, in common with the rest of the Android ‘experience’), Google will be driven to do something similar, though when it tries to do so it will be hard-pressed to deliver a viable business plan with which to please the very content providers who have been litigating against the company’s search services for the last few years.”
Much more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Google unveils updated tiny screen ‘Nexus 7′ tablet, iOS-compatible ‘Chromecast’ Web TV device – July 24, 2013
As long as there is Internet, there is no need for a cable service.
As long as there is Internet and a willingness to break the law*
The Pirate Bay is your friend.
I don’t know how things work where you live, but our cable company jacks up the internet rate if you don’t subscribe to cable, and they have a monopoly on high-speed internet.
Same here, I have Comcast and if I drop cable TV they jack up the internet cost. The increase in Internet is more than my monthly cable bill so I just keep cable.
Only use Apple TV and Netflix
Time for Apple to build a very fast Internet pipeline service. How many billions could it take? 10? 20? 40 Billion? Be worth it. Also finally get rid of the slow upload speeds we now suffer through.
There has got to be competition from other sources. I live in a small town in Canada and I could get internet from two cable companies or two phone companies, over cable, copper phone lines, or fiber. I pay a very reasonable price for internet over fiber and have not had cable in this house ever and dropped satellite TV years ago.
My Internet uses cable lines to get to my house.
Where are you that you have no data cap ?
Apple TV is dead. Cable is dead. Apple is stuck in yesteryear with no innovation. Companies love Chromecast and they will be putting Chromecast EVERYWHERE. Your radio receiver, your TV, your car, EVERYWHERE. This is a brilliant device and will sell BILLIONS
No.
Companies do not love Chromecast. Content companies do not. Without the content available, why would they use it?
Google needs to furnish a business plan for TV as it exists. Their sociopathic new world order tendencies must be curtailed.
Keep on drinking the Goolaid Jerry.
Thanks for the daily laugh on clueless opinions. (But I suspect it’s a put-on.)
Bring it on!
Won’t matter how lame Google makes it: They’ll make it free because open is better, and Samsung will build it into their SmartTVs, and the tech press will get paid by Samsung to write glowing reviews, and Samsung will report shipments of 2x their old TVs and Wall Street will pump Google stock up over $1000/share.
Sound familiar?
One of the reasons, in fact the main one, why I would never even think of buying a Google product is they have never found a way to make a product whose interface doesn’t suck.
The only interface they make that doesn’t suck big time is the one they ripped off iOS, but other than that every other Google product has had significant interface design problems.
Here is how’d I’d like those the home TV / entertainment space improved by Apple:
1. Make a kick ass looking TV in 3-4 sizes. (No need to worry about 4K/UHD yet)
2. Allow the TV to have a card slot for cable / Dish companies to decrypt their signal without increasing the TV footprint. This kills the cable box but allows for cable still.
3. Insert a cable modem and time machine / router in the TV with a 3 -6 TB hard drive without increasing the footprint of the TV. This kills the headache and complexity, and unsightlyness of home networking. It also provides DVR service, file back up, house WiFi.
4. Sell accompanying wireless speakers for not just the TV system, but for the whole house if you want to have a larger system. The sound system needs to have the ability to stream2 independent sound streams. (iTunes on one and the TV on the other for example). The speakers can be told to listen to whatever stream they want. Essentially, a SONOS killer.
5. Video chat / FaceTime through the TV of course.
6. Invent / improve the “iOS” for the TV to allow ease of management of all these features through the new apple house hub.
7. Other features I’d like to see apple integrate in this house hub:
-Home security
-Thermostat
-Smart appliances / electricity.
-family calendar
-Internet browsing
8. I almost forgot this, but is KEY: Game Center. They need to make or encourage 3rd parties to make an actual hand-held game controller with tactile feedback. Any games on your idevice could be played on the big screen, and over the Internet.
9. An important extra seller would be wifi extension. Essentially an airport express or device similar that has one job: make the network signal strong in the whole house. A 50$ device you plug into the TV to flash the settings to it, and then plug into the wall in each room. Bam…done with network extension.
This is a 7k$ machine that would make your life better, simpler and cooler. I’d buy it in a second and absolutely require my in-laws to buy it.
“This is a 7k$ machine that would make your life better, simpler and cooler. I’d buy it in a second and absolutely require my in-laws to buy it.”
You are seriously out of touch if you think that there are more than a few thousand people that would pay 7K$ for an entertainment device. I say this as one of the few that could afford to do so.
He’s a cuckoo bird living in cloud cuckoo land.
Stupid idea. This is Google thinking. Microsoft thinking. Not Apple thinking.
Do you work in Google’s R&D department?
I have heard that 3rd party game pads are in the works for iOS devices. And its about freaking time ! Playing EA soccer or ESPN hockey on iPad sucks balls big time because of the horrible controls.
I can’t afford to buy a new TV yet. Can Apple provide a device as cheap as Google’s (which I’d hate to have to resort to) that does more?
It’s called atv3, which is slightly higher priced than Chromecast but has far more capabilities which are worth the cost.
I do not think that Apple will not make a iTV. Instead I believed that they will expand the capabilities of it’s current ATV. They will not deal with the cable providers but instead with individual channels like the CW. The cable companies has it too good and they will not give it up because the current model they are making millions.
That’s because Google never wants to license there TV options. They think they can do whatever they want but found out really fast that providers have a different view. Apple takes longer to get there products out because Apple goes to the providers and gets there content licensed. It’s easy relatively speaking to get hardware to do what you want. But when your talking about getting content from someone else you better make sure they approve of it first.
Speaking of which, Google says there new product does IOS. I wonder if they got a license from Apple to do that. Knowing Google probably not.
Good points. Apple has been trying for a long time to get its act together regarding the living room and in the end they may be successful. And they may not. The studios don’t get nervous when Apple walks into the room. Trust me. They’re not the record industry. If it was easy to do everyone would have a new media device/system for sale. Studios and content providers have the upper hand in this situation. I believe that Apple will eventually make things happen. But clearly it’s not easy as the long drawn out negotiating indicates.
“You’ll be able to plug your Apple television into your choice of cable provider…”
That’s funny – my AppleTV doesn’t plug into a cable box and it works just fine.
Yeah…the way the author sees it, your Apple TV becomes the interface for your entire cable experience. It sits in the middle to provide a feature laden enhanced cable using experience. So you perhaps get to shout at your TV and get Siri to change the channel, or tweet your reaction to the news, etc.
I wonder if Google will count each Chromecast sale as an Android activation…
Oh, no. Inhatko continues cheating with Google- buys two Chromecasts “by accident,” keeps both while testing a Nexus. I wouldn’t mind the experimentation, why not?- but he’s becoming a Google fan boy. Very annoying- I might have to unfollow him on twitter, he’s sold out.
Just saw a live demo of Chromecast. I wouldn’t recommend it unless you have a high speed fiber connection or higher. Apparently Google forgot to mention you need an extremely high speed internet connection or super computer to get a full screen video to play like the latest unreleased Mac Pro. Waste of $35 in my opinion. I see many returns in Google’s future after people try and stream there videos full screen and find them freezing and choppy and not viewable.