“Who will emerge victorious in the fight for control of our digital living room? In mid-December we surveyed 228 consumer electronics industry professionals on trends for the digital living room – including which companies stand to win or lose,” Paul Carton of ChangeWave Alliancewrites for SeekingAlpha.
Carton reports, “Going beyond the latest Apple TV announcement, the survey focused on the future of ‘media centers’ – which we define as high-powered devices capable of managing a variety of digital content in the living room or around the home (e.g., video, pictures, music, etc.). In a finding sure to make Steve Jobs chortle, industry respondents cite Apple as the media center manufacturer with the best chance of mass market acceptance.”
Looking at currently available products, which media center device/manufacturer do you think has the best chance of mass market acceptance?
Apple – 43%, Sony – 14%, Microsoft – 11%, TiVo – 8%, HP – 7%, Samsung – 4%, Cisco – 4%, Dell – 4%, Other – 17%
Survey results in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Macaday” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
ZDNet’s Graham: Apple TV hits a number of sweet spots, poised to make a big impact – January 25, 2007
RUMOR: Apple TV sales blowing away Apple’s internal expectations – January 25, 2007
Steve Jobs moves to control the living room with Apple TV – January 10, 2007
Cringely: How Apple plans to own your living room – September 15, 2006
Hrm, Apple’s closest competition is the unnamed “others”!
Let’s hope with each new product announcement, “Apple, Inc.” will become a household brand even more broadly. Whether it’s the iPhone, iPod, AppleTV, or the Mac / Leopard — any one or more of these products should resonate with the general public.
Connor,
“There can be only one…” We’ll be on Apple!
Apple needs to do a better job educating people.
I still bump into pc people who think the iPod and iTunes ONLY works on macs.
I wonder how many of them think AppleTV will ONLY work on macs too.
The new ipod tv commercials don’t say Mac & PC on them any more.
“I still bump into pc people who think the iPod and iTunes ONLY works on macs.”
Those people are hopeless. How could anyone still think that? You could pick up
a newspaper and find that the iPod works on PC’s. Sheesh.
Does any body knows how is the “Windows Media Center” market share vs “Apple TV”? It is my believe that Apple TV will take in one year the market share that took 3 years to microsoft to build.
MegaMe,
I also run into people who have misconceptions about Apple’s products. Some think that one needs to have internet access to use iTunes, etc. Another is that MS Office files are incompatible with Macs (even though they’ve been interchangeable since 2001 — although I don’t know what’s going to happen with the Office 2007 version for the Mac). Yet a third, is that most people don’t realize that one can now run Windows on any of the Intel Macs.
Thorin,
All of us here live mac, breath mac and are “geeks”.
But the world is full of joe blows who can’t change the time on their vcr. Yes, vcr because they don’t know what a dvr is.
For apple to make real money with AppleTV, they have to get into the living rooms of the joe blows out there.
I even have pc friends who call me to ask stupid questions like “how do I delete an e-mail out of outlook”
Apple has the best chance with average people, but Apple needs to constantly remind people that their lifestyle products run on both pcs and macs.
Wow . . . what are the results going to be when Apple actually has a “media center”?
Apple doesn’t promise everything but delivers a hell of a lot which is still more than people probably need.
Microsoft et al. promise everything but deliver very little in an over complicated and underdone way.
Cisco and Dell were that high? A Mattel or Fisher Price media center would probably shame either one.
Apple TV simply does not do enough to warrant a $300 proce tag. The content on iTS is not even DVD quality, there is no legal or easy way for me to take all the movies and TV shows I have purchased on DVD and rip them for streaming to my HDTV and without DVR funcionalty the Apple TV is yet another box I must add. I want an Apple TV as much as anyone, but even I, an extremely loyal Apple and Mac fan, can’t rationalize spending the money. What turned me off the Apple TV was downloading an episode of Scrubs last week and playing it thorugh my iPod on my 42 inch HDTV and the picture was very choppy. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good quality compression of the TV show, but it actually cost me less to go buy the DVD of the entire season than purchase the entire season on iTS. So I get better quality picture for less and I cna’t use an illegal ripping tool to put lower quality video on my computer to watch on the go on my iPod. ANd I don’t feel like a thief because I bought the physical media. Watching iTS stuff purchases on an iPod is great, but on an HDTV through Apple TV is just not good enough… “yet”
Sorry for the typos:
“Price tag”
“So I get a better quality picture for less and I “can” use an illegal ripping tool”
Those results are a freakin’ landslide! Apple garnered almost a majority let alone a pleurality of the votes.
So Jay, you won’t be one of the first to get an TV, obviously MANY disagree with you, and pre-orders have been much higher than even Apple anticipated.
BTW, 640 X 480 from iTS, 720 X 480 from DVD, not a huge difference! : )
Apple needs to get these things into all of the Best Buy’s, Circuit Cities, Good Guys, Fry’s, et al.
If Apple had teamed with Tivo (can you imagine the new HD Series 3 with n-wifi and full Mac-compatibility?) it would be a landslide (90%) plus. Tivo trumps the appleTV in too many ways. It has already had wireless sharing of iTunes and iPhoto for years, and now it does podcasts and internet radio. With third-party apps it can transer recorded files to the Mac.
The appleTV is way too limited as a stand-alone device. Too many competitors have it matched already. I hope Apple has new funtionality it hasn’t revealed yet, or there just won’t be a reason for me, or people like me, to buy it. TV content from cable, satellite, or DirectTV is still too compelling to replace with computer downloads a day late, lower resolution and dollars more (not to mention the backup factor).
FUDsucker Proxy: So Jay, you won’t be one of the first to get an TV, obviously MANY disagree with you, and pre-orders have been much higher than even Apple anticipated.
That was an unsubstantiated rumour. All we know is that it is at the top of Apple’s sales chart.
I’ve just started toying with the idea of buying one. At the moment, I have a G4 Cube connected to the TV, router and hi-fi amplifier, with my iTunes library and TV shows/movies on a 2TB NAS. Music is fine because I just use iTunes and a couple of Airport Express modules. However, my partner can never be bothered to watch anything unless I am there because it involves messing around in Finder to locate files. For my situation, this would be a godsend.