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“Google wants input one on your TV. Apple wants input two. The difference? Input one is where your cable box goes. Input two was where your VCR or DVD player used to live. It’s a port that’s up for grabs.”
“The DVD player is looking long in the tooth. The problem is that the TV experience has entrenched behaviors that won’t change soon, and Apple needs to educate the consumer,” Gartenberg writes. “Apple released the iPhone with no app marketplace at first to teach new ways of using a phone, and it’s doing the same with this Apple TV reset… With a base to show to developers Apple can then safely unveil an SDK and get the developer machine in gear…”
Read more – highly recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: As usual, Gartenberg’s analysis is insightful and sound.
I can’t resist any longer. I have heard you yanks talk relentlessly about Netfix as if it is something miraculous. Unfortunately us poor Brits cannot receive Netfix but I’m still dying to know what I’m missing, so please someone, put me out of my misery and tell me what I’m missing.
@ Macduff:
Netflix is a DVD & Blu-Ray rental service via post, now also offering video download rental service. it’s a modestly priced subscription with a good selection of titles – no forced ads.
Elgato’s Eye TV-HD is already a Mac Cable-Sat HD-DVR. $199.
If you want to record a movie or a TV show you can still do it by downloading them into your desktop, laptop or mini. Mostly I only watch movies or TV shows only ONCE, 99.99% of the time. If I feel a movie deserves extra love, I will simply purchase a Blue-ray or DVD copy. It’s too tedious to watch a movie all over again, when you already know the plot of the story, and it’s 2–3 hours in length.
Songs are different from movies: you don’t get blasé listening to songs over and over again. Songs are of short duration and can be used flexibly in many different situations and environment. You can also do other activities while listening to songs.
These you cannot duplicate when you are watching movies: they require your undivided attention and you are rooted to only one location. You cannot study, cannot drive, cannot made love, cannot do hundreds of other activities together while watching a movie.
So renting a movie is the better choice and buying songs is a non-brainer. I think the AppleTV should not be encumbered with storage and synching. As I have pointed out the different paradigm between a movie and a song, it would be a waste of effort and money to buy movies.
@Cubert
Thanks for redecorating my iMac screen with coffee. Ave. B FTW!
If you look at the IFA keynote, the “Input 1” approach, integrated with DISH Network, isn’t bad. You type a term like “Top Gear”, you get result that include what’s playing on DISH and hits from YouTube and the web. Even though DISH is a fringe player as far as content providers go, the fact that Google has a partner with access to network and cable content is significant.
Issues of the quality of that integration aside (*cough* Wave *cough*), Google’s partnership with DISH puts it ahead of Apple’s approach to TV. And anyone who reads my comments on MDN knows that I’m *loathe* to admit that.
Dispute it all you want, television is primarily a medium to access “channels” – diverse content from network and cable providers. It’s going to be that way for a while. The technology that gets a head start will integrate itself with this model.
Gartenberg hit the nail right on th head. When Apple launched the iPhone, it did not shoot for anything, they just made the best product what it could and let the masses take it from there. When everybody found a new way to use a cell phone they made it even better by adding apps. Now the iPhone is a big hit. I think Apple is repeating the success they had with the iPhone and is doing it to ATV. Apps is going to come to the ATV. It is just a question of when. And you are going to be tied into these apps with your iOS device in some way. Apple is just trying out this now with only movies and other media. This will be good for the whole picture. If you buy a iOS device make it better by buying a ATV and vice versa.