Apple's Next Innovation: TV Television viewers fumble with awkward remote controls and crave a richer array of on-demand programming. It's time for Apple to step in and disrupt the TV business
By Robert D. Hof February 14, 2013 MIT Technology Review March/April 2013 Steve Jobs couldn't hide his frustration. Asked at a technology conference in 2010 whether Apple might finally turn its attention to television, he launched into an exasperated critique of TV. Cable and satellite TV companies make cheap, primitive set-top boxes that "squash any opportunity for innovation," he fumed. Viewers are stuck with "a table full of remotes, a cluster full of boxes, a bunch of different [interfaces]." It was the kind of technological mess that cried out for Apple to clean it up with an elegant product. But Jobs professed to have no idea how his company could transform the TV. Scarcely a year later, however, he sounded far more confident. Before he died on October 5, 2011, he told his biographer, Walter Isaacson, that Apple wanted to create an "integrated television set that is completely easy to use." It would sync with other devices and Apple's iCloud online storage service and provide "the simplest user interface you could imagine." He added, tantalizingly, "I finally cracked it." Precisely what he cracked remains hidden behind Apple's shroud of secrecy. Apple has had only one television-related product--the black, hockey-puck-size Apple TV device, which streams shows and movies to a TV. For years, Jobs and Tim Cook, his successor as CEO, called that device a "hobby." But under the guise of this hobby, Apple has been steadily building hardware, software, and services that make it easier for people to watch shows and movies in whatever way they wish. Already, the company has more of the pieces for a compelling next-generation TV experience than people might realize. And as Apple showed with the iPad and iPhone, it doesn't have to invent every aspect of a product in order for it to be disruptive. Instead, it has become the leader in consumer electronics by combining existing technologies with some of its own and packaging them into products that are simple to use. TV seems to be at that moment now. People crave something better than the fusty, rigidly controlled cable TV experience, and indeed, the technologies exist for something better to come along. Speedier broadband connections, mobile TV apps, and the availability of some shows and movies on demand from Netflix and Hulu have made it easier to watch TV anytime, anywhere. The number of U.S. cable and satellite subscribers has been flat since 2010. ... http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/511091/apples-next-innovation-tv/ _______________________________________________ Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews_etskywarn.net
