“Canadian telecoms company Rogers and Bell [sic] already has Apple’s hotly anticipated iTV device in its labs, a report in Canada’s Globe and Mail has claimed,” Rob Waugh reports for The Mail Online.
“Two unnamed sources speaking to the paper report that the flatscreen device will be voice controlled, using software similar to the Siri voice control on iPhone 4S, and will offer iPad-style apps,” Waugh reports. “It will also offer gesture control, with users able to manipulate apps from the sofa using hand gestures to type on an on-screen virtual keyboard.”
Waugh reports, “Apple is widely rumoured to be introducing such a device this year. The details tally broadly with details leaked from a survey from U.S retailer Best Buy – asking customers what they might think of an ‘all-new Apple HDTV.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: This report is a compendium of many of the current rumors and reports floating around about “iTV.” Note also, that Canadian carriers Rogers and Bell are separate companies, not one entity as the article states.
It’s not going to be called “iTV” for exactly the same reasons why the current product is called Apple TV.
How about we put together an Apple Snopes web site? It’d be chock full of stuff in no time!
Sounds an unlikely sort of kludge for Apple.
So showing it the middle finger brings up Google search?
nice.
No way does Apple think people want to sit on the couch and gesticulate in mid air to operate a remote keyboard.
Why not ? Too Kinect-ish ? Its brilliant if it works well.
MDN also forgot to write that “Globe and Mail” is tabloid. “Reporting” piles of nonsense is their everyday job.
Except that the Globe and Mail is the oldest, and one of only two national daily broadsheet newspapers in the country.
Touchscreen tv? I would chop someone’s fingers off for putting they’re fingerprints on my tv, and I wouldn’t want to be yelling to Siri across the room while my family is asleep just rooms away, not even a good rumor 😪
Sam – you misread the article. Its like kinect, your not touching the screen to do gesture control.
Wow, we often see there for their, but they’re takes it to a whole new level Then the followup uses the ubiquitous your for you’re. Quite the daily double.
Your not kidding. 😉
I seen what you done their.
Most likely the touching will be done on what we would normally call the ‘remote’, à la Touchpad. You don’t seriously expect Apple would invent something that might require people to get up off the sofa???
Yet all my coworkers have no problem putting their fingers all over the screen of my 17 inch MBP, and I’m being “difficult” for objecting!
Jeez. I wonder when the iHaters will be calling iTV “just an oversized iPod. Nothing special.” That’s what they said about the iPad, so you never know what’s going to come out of a fool’s mouth whenever a new Apple product is introduced.
I’ll take a long serious look to see what the iTV will offer me, but if it’s even halfway decent and the price is $1499, I’ll buy it. If it offers programming choices where I can choose to pay for only the channels or shows I mostly watch, then all the better for me. Give me the History channel, the Science channel, NatGeo channel and KBS World and I’m set.
Stop calling it iTV. There’s a story that Steve spoke to Independent Television here in the UK in an attempt to buy the ITV initials. So far I’ve heard precisely zero about him being successful in this. I can’t imagine the commercial television network in the UK giving up a name that an entire country has grown up with for over half a century.
Maybe they’ll call it the ATV.
Samsung will have their copy out in June.
The great advantage of the remote control is that you can be lying on the sofa/couch and just move your finger and go through all the channels. If I wanted to be waving my arms around to do things I’d just get up and change the channel. Surely the most logical interaction is to use an iPad (or iPhone maybe – scale permitting) which would show whatever was on the screen, or the entire interface and just leave the tv to show the media. In which case why do you need an Apple TV screen? Surely with the power of iPad (and Apple TV) the only thing you need is the software and possibly some way to interface with third party hardware?
I think I have this already…. Mac mini, external 1tb drive, elgato DTB dongle, gigabit network to 4 other macs with my music, pix, work etc, 22 mb Internet connection and an app on my iPad and iPhone called “mobile mouse”. App changes touch and functions depending on what is being done on the mini, supports fronts row, and looks great on the nice big Sony LCD. I think if apple is going to transform TV in the way it has done with phones and tablets etc then there will be something truly exceptional that we and the other pundits have not even imagined. I would also imagine that Apple would keep this very secret until launch time. Jobs said “he’d cracked tv” so it would seem the idea has passed common sense test for useability. It would then be up to the team to then execute the technical and design solution in line with SJ’s vision. They have done it before, totally changed the way we see things that we thought we were familiar with. Remember the first time you saw someone scroll though their music library on an iPhone? It appeared to be magic.
For the SJTV concept to seize the market’s imagination it will have to make my setup look mundane awkward and old hat. Nothing I have read here or anywhere else suggests that. So let’s sit back and wait. Patiently. Because when it comes to launch day, Apple may, once again, truly blow our tiny minds. The Dr.
Gesture control would be the ultimate remote control. You’ll never lose your TV remote again. The real killer feature would be if the iTV could also control you DVR, Blu-Ray player, surround sound system, etc.
There’s An App For That!
What happens when you fight over the virtual remote?
I still do not get it. I think an AppleTV would be even less successful than 3D TV has been. I doubt many well to do folks like me who already have 60″ and bigger TVs are going to downsize to 42″ even with an Apple logo on it. My neighbor just got an 80″ TV. 42″ inch may be fine for the bedroom but not at a premium price. I believe Apple will enhance the AppleTV to plug into any HDMI screen instead. I could be wrong of course but making TVs is as likely as starting their own 4G network. Great to talk about but neither is gonna make any money there…
I think it’s an interface box, like, the current Apple tv, except it will be a larger unit to accommodate a microphone and camera.
It will be about 3 inches tall, 12-14 inches wide and have to sit on top of your tv cabinet, kinda where some people set their center channel speaker.
All your components go hdmi to the atv, then out to the ” monitor “. The remote (iPad)will then show controls for all components , DVD , receiver, etc.
It will have DVR ability, current atv ability, apps for shows, work with voice to your remote (iPhone, iPad).