“It’s nice — and essential — that Siri can find me stuff I’ve asked for,” Peter Kafka writes for Re/code. “But if she can’t tell me I’m more likely to like ‘Project Greenlight’ than ‘Transformers 4,’ then what’s the difference between The Future of TV and Good Old Dumb TV, where NBC hoped you’d watch ‘The Single Guy’ because they ran it after ‘Friends?'”
“Here’s an alternate scenario: Apple TV becomes popular, which means Apple starts building up a big database of stuff I’ve asked Siri to find for me,” Kafka writes. ” Then Siri gets really smart (not a foregone conclusion) and can start suggesting stuff for me based on what I’ve asked for in the past.”
“This seems like a good thing for me, the Future Of TV watcher, and good for Apple. Not so good for the likes of Netflix, since this nudges them closer to ‘people who have things to watch’ and away from ‘people who find me good things to watch,'” Kafka writes. “So if the future of TV is apps, then maybe Apple thinks the future of TV also involves Apple acting as my TV guide — whether the TV programmers like it or not.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: When you’re talking with s friend about a TV show or movie you like and they say, “if you like that, you’d probably like this one, too.” When it works, and you do like the suggestion, it’s great. If Siri can begin to do the same thing, it’ll be like magic.
The thing is, it’s still nice to see a schedule, or grid to know what’s going to be on, you can then maybe decide to not watch something now because something else is on that you may prefer to watch live, and the first thing is repeated or available upon demand. What would be nice is if you could train TV guides to never show things you absolutely hate and have no interest in ever watching. That would make it easier to see what you are interested in. Often a lot of things I watch are things I just have on, almost as background. I wouldn’t want them suggested to me to actually watch.
I’m not a huge TV watcher. When I want to kick back and watch something, I can skim through a grid enormously more quickly than interacting with a computer that is evaluating what is available now and from the past. Sheesh!
And yeh – fantastic if I could tell the TV what to leave off the grid. But computer search and suggestions? Blech!
iTunes Genius for tv shows and movies in Siri, what about that?
Nexflix has that “recommends” but I cant find the logic in their recommendations.
I think this is what Steve Jobs referred to when he spoke about the future of TV. It was very funny to see all those companies trying to get ahead of apple and releasing all those “voice activated TVs” that were no more smarter that an old feature phone with voice dialing.
a TV with an Apple TV is the real SmartTV.
Most of the time friends say if you like that you will like this they are more often than not off the target, as is the norm when I do the same for them. So Apple had better start working on the mind reading app asap. Or maybe a brainwave reading device that can match responses might do the trick if it were complex enough.
Anybody who has read my posts here knows that I’ve long waited for the new Apple TV and an Apple cable bundle to replace the cable company. Well, I’m starting to rethink at least half of that. Once I got my new Apple TV, I found some good stuff – Siri is much better. But it appears that – much like a cable company – Apple moved a few steps forward in one area and a few backwards in other areas. I’m not a big gamer though I’m not opposed to it. I’m an IT guy. Simple is best. The constant typing, the rigorous method of finding apps – if you do, and the lack of streaming apps – not really Apple’s fault but considering the attitude of the dev community about lack of discoverability this might not change as quickly as we might have expected. I was really excited over the weekend but as the fog has cleared, I’m realizing I have functionally the same old Apple TV I’ve had MINUS some functions that I kind of took for granted and really miss now. So the question is: Do I really want this company to be my cable provider. At this point, the answer is a blazing NO WAY! I’ve called Apple with problems about iTunes Match. They’re sympathetic but that was back when I got my iPhone 6 and the problems still exist on the 6s Plus so as Apple really as responsive as I perceived? They’ve given us a voice control remote with a more intelligent search but can we find the apps we want? Can we expect those apps to be available soon? Apple has acted like my cable company so I’m left asking why trade one for another. It will be a LONG time before I upgrade my other two Apple TVs based on the experience of the first. And I won’t be jumping on an apple streaming package very quickly now. This is a rare case of Apple building expectations for a product and really letting me down. I don’t rebound from that quickly. I consider it a big fail when I upgrade an application and my client loses functionally at any level. When I can’t fix that loss quickly or dramatically balance it with additional features, it’s disastrous. For me at least, this new Apple TV is on the level of disaster at this point. I spent $200 for a voice-enabled remote. It’s in Apple’s hands to change that perception and like most cable companies, they are silent.