“My iPad has just killed my television,” David Coursey reports for Forbes. “It was murder, no doubt, but you could also say my TV died of loneliness. Maybe even heartbreak.”
“I’d long ago stopped watching the TV in my den. Earlier today, I realized that everything I care about on television is now available on my iPad or iPhone,” Coursey reports. “I then went into the den and found the Sony big screen lifeless, though I think that was because the cats stepped on the power strip and turned it off. Cheesy, maybe, but symbolic enough for me.”
Coursey reports, “For personal viewing, the iPad and even my iPhone are great. They are always with me and the screen size is fine for one (iPhone) or two (iPad) people. If I don’t need the video, it is easy to set the device aside and just listen… The iPad and iPhone are just too convenient and cable TV too idiotic and expensive for the love affair with my TV set to continue. Unless you have some reason — like kids or a sports/movie addiction — for investing in a gigantic screen, it is hard for me to imagine why someone would.”
Read more in the full article here.
Be careful, you are talking about a serial killer, it has already killed some companies and some products (like the PalOS or what ever it was called), the Playbook, the netbooks and some others.. and it is going to kill again…
The iPad raped my dog.
No need to completely abandon the Sony big-screen. Just use the Apple video cable to pump content from the iPad to the TV. What’s the big deal? For personal viewing, yeah, the iPad alone is just fine.
TV killed my TV and now I cancelled my cable and just use Netflix and iTunes video rentals. No more commercials.
Same here. Got rid of Cable (TV) and use Netflix and iTunes. My two teenagers are fine with it, they thought I would have a problem with cutting the cable since I’m an “old guy”. I’ve been a Mac guy since the late 80’s, and still have my Newton (my kids couldn’t believe you stuck a phone line into the modem card).
@BMWTwisty: “Just use the Apple video cable to pump content from the iPad to the TV.”
Or, better still, pick up the best accessory ever for both iPad and HDTV–an Apple TV. Then you can instantly pump content to your HDTV at the touch of a button.
Yep – I’ve just moved house and the TVs never made it.
Apart, that is, from a 7″ Sony BW from the 1970s, but that’s because of its form factor and retroness!
Did you enjoy the Super Bowl David?
It was broadcast online for free this year.
I personally call it, the Lame Bowl…
To me it was just another football game. Nothing special about it. Sure it wasn’t a one sided blowout and it went down to the wire that was anybodies game to win, but the hype just wasn’t there and there was no smack down excitement. It lacked the build up of an Apple new product announcement by Steve Jobs and there was more action at a MS developers convention with a Monkey Boy dance by Ballmer himself. Heck even most of the commercials were lame. Neither team was my team so I had no dog in this fight, but still, the game, the commercials just reeked of pure BLAND! An iPhone or an iPad would have been more than enough to watch that game.
We long ago gave up our cable TV services. We still subscribe to our cable provider but we have relegated them to ‘dumb pipe’ status. Instead, we subscribe to Hulu and Netflix. The cost comes out about the same as if we have the low end cable package. My wife (nursing a 6 month old) makes use of her iPhone to watch whatever she wants. We use the iPad to watch things together either in the kitchen or in the bedroom. PBS, ABC, ESPN, and so many others have direct apps that get you to their content! In our living room, our flat screen is connected to a Mac mini that pushes whatever content we want – Hulu (no ‘display’ restrictions!), Netflix, iTunes and direct (e.g. ABC, FOX, etc) – right to the display! It’s beautiful how well OS X scales to the big screen!
Cable companies are starting to see the writing on the wall. They have failed to innovate in this space and create meaningful ways of interacting, finding, and watching their content. I’m all for keeping ads in content streamed over the internet. What I’m not for is paying for the extra privilege of building my life around an artificial schedule (I know – that’s what DVR is for, right? but who wants to set up recording schedules through a clunky interface?).
The end is near for Comcast, Cox, Verizon and so many other cable providers if they don’t wise up to what they really are: content pipes.
The cable companies are far from dead.
Comcast just beat the streets estimates by adding 336,000 internet subscribers and only losing 17,000 video subscribers. Far from dead. They are profitable with a net income of 1.29 billion dollars, even with sustaining a hit on NBC Universal losing money.
They own the infrastructure and the pipes. Until that changes the end is not near, its not even on the horizon.
In too many places, cable companies hold the monopoly on high speed internet. To get internet service, you either have to pay thru the nose or at least buy the low end TV package. With DSL, you can’t just get internet, you also have to have a land line phone, want it or not.
That’s the way it is going to be for some time to come, I believe.
The reason many people will still want a TV is communal viewing, but yeah, AirPlay is a good way to go.
Just got a new 65″ panasonic plasma. My new iPad has made it even better. With an Apple TV and super easy streaming media from the iPad to the new monster plasma, I’m watching the big screen more than ever. Watching a movie or even an episode of anything on a 10″ screen is pointless with an Apple TV within range. Even podcasts like FilmState are better on a bigger screen. Bigger is always better for eyeballs, unless you’re in an airport with a 2 hour+ lay-over.
I remember when the iPad was introduced and the critics were claiming that nobody would watch shows on an iPad when they had that big-screen TV in the living room. I paid little attention to that because I had a big-screen HD Sony in my living room and yet I was watching most of my TV on my 15″ MacBook Pro via SlingPlayer. I’m more interested in content than I am screen size and it was easier to move my MacBook Pro around the house and watch what I wanted where I wanted to be. For me, I thought the iPad would be perfect since the battery life was longer and weighed even less than my MacBook. I think that the tech pundit know-it-alls know very little about consumers’ whims.
I agree that I am watching more and more TV programs on my iPad2, but if I’m home, watching TV on my giant flat screen just makes more sense. I have surround sound, I can change positions on my couch or chair and still have the same view of the TV, and the UI is so much easier for me. I have my DISH services, they offer an option to watch TV on my tablet or smartphone, but I would only use those when I’m not home. By far my DISH services beat out companies like Netflix; they just never had enough content for me. I have premium channels, DVR, local channels, news, and sports with a pay TV provider, all things that I couldn’t get with a cord cutting option.
“By far my DISH services beat out companies like Netflix; they just never had enough content for me. I have premium channels, DVR, local channels, news, and sports with a pay TV provider, all things that I couldn’t get with a cord cutting option.”
I used to have Dish. As far as premium channels, I saw the same half dozen shows and movies for a month, every month. Netflix is better. I use an antenna for local channels and local news. All OTA TV is now digital and HD. The signal is either there or not there, and the quality is generally better than cable or satellite. I get sports through the net (e.g. ESPN3) or OTA. I use ElGato EyeTV for my DVR. The one difficulty is that the cable and satellite companies have dictated the function of DVRs and have killed any OTA DVR option by killing off independent TV guide services like Titan TV. So I do have to program schedules rather than just selecting from the listings. My net connection comes via DSL, and that’s the only dumb pipe I pay for.
THe large screen TVs are beautiful but the content lacks! So many of the shows are for the dumbed down population. There are some, such as Masterpiece theater et al, that rate good but you don’t need a satellite to view them, nor go to the expense of a TV set.
No TV service here, just Netflix, Hulu, and GBTV is all I need. Heck, I’d even cancel Netflix if it wasn’t for the kids. There is a good selection of children’s shows. I can’t say the same for movies.
Depends on your taste in movies. In my house, we like oldies and obscure stuff. Netflix, Redbox is only new crap, cable is just the classic movie channel, and why do they sho their best stuff at 2:00 AM?
Gay/Bisexual TV? Enjoy it, but it’s not for us.
Well as much as we love our i Products, I can’t say that my 60″ big screen TV is not getting much action. True we don’t use it to watch TV Shows. Simply because most of the shows are garbage and caters to stupid celebrities with only narcism as their talent. LOL
Otherwise, ATV 2 and Netflix pretty much fills up our use of all our TVs at home.
iPad is great for viewing,sometimes. iPhone is great for viewing when it’s all you have available. But to give up the big screen? Kind of silly. I use my Apple TV all the time but I generally use the big plasma. Why wouldn’t I?
What’s “television”?
I agree that watching TV on an iPhone or iPad is OK. However I find that listening to the TV sound on such tiny speakers is totally unacceptable.
It’s not the fault of the gadgets as such, it’s more to do with the limitations of any loudspeaker as small as that.
The television in my room is a cathode ray tube that generates heat and light but little joy. For me, it has become a cast-off toy.
Last year, as I lay in bed recuperating from an accident, week after week, I played with my new toy, iPad. The things I wanted to see on television, I found on iPad. And when I was up and around again, I carried iPad with me from room to room; I spent more time with the iPad screen than with the CRT.
Steve Jobs may have “cracked” the television riddle by seeing that people want convenience, not spaghetti cabling, and they want choices; and they will happily pay a reasonable price for those choices and that’s it! They do NOT want to overpay for such things as Cable TV “packages” that are 87% junk.
If I’m right, Steve’s solution was that content should be delivered through apps selected by the customer, at a time and place selected by the customer, and at a fair price.
As for the sound quality, I often use headphones, but…I recently received a Jawbone Jambox (bluetooth speaker) to use with my iPad. I can hardly wait to try it!