Chuck Toporek: Why I Won't Buy an Apple iTV

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/2006/09/why_i_wont_buy_an_apple_itv_or.html?CMP=OTC-13IV03560550&amp;ATT=Why+I+Won+t+Buy+an+Apple+iTV+or+whatever+it+s+going+to+be+called' target='_blank'>http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/2006/09/why_i_wont_buy_an_apple_itv_or.html?CMP=OTC-13IV03560550&amp;ATT=Why+I+Won+t+Buy+an+Apple+iTV+or+whatever+it+s+going+to+be+called</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Okay, everyone knows I’m a fan of Apple. I love all the stuff that they do, and was waiting with bated breath for yesterday’s announcements from the “Showtime” event....So, the main reason why I won’t buy an iTV (or whatever Apple decides to call it later) is simple: It doesn’t record. Will someone please tell me why I should get jazzed about this device, because maybe the lobotomy didn’t work the first time around. I need an iTV like I need another hole in my head. If it doesn’t record television, it’s a useless interface to me. And you know why it won’t record? Well, you see the model Apple’s going after, don’t you? Don’t you?! Right. Good. They want you to purchase TV shows from the iTunes Store."</i><br /><br />I wonder, do you think this is really Apple's long-term play? I somehow don't think so, and here's why: the iTV seems to be a "last mile" device who's sole purpose is to bridge the gap between your computer and your TV. And, truth be told, given the utterly incompetent products I've seen from many vendors that try to solve this problem, there's definitely room for another player. In fact, the Xbox 360 is the only product I've ever used and kept to perform this purpose. Much remains to be known about the iTV; will it only work with content indexed by iTunes? Will it be able to see UPnP NAS drives? What audio and video codecs does it support? Still, in my view the iTV looks to be a very promising solution - as long as it's not shackled by Apple's "our way or no way at all" view of the world.

[Jason Eaton]

Tough call being so early, but I think I agree with the Author.

For me to get on board with an iTV I would want it to replace some of the mess under my TV versus merely augmenting the clutter with something I probably won’t use. The quick explanation is simple, I want the iTV to be something else rather then what it is.

No worries.

But if you managed to make the iTV a cross between a DVR, the media connector it is, and say a place shifting device I might take a second look. Would love to watch some of my shows on the go, without trans-coding, and without pre-loading, all with just an internet connection.

Yes I want iTV to be my own broadcast station… call it MeTV.

[Felix Torres]

Me, I'm into my second generation streaming box and I'm happy to see Apple trying to get into this market. Not because I'm likely to buy their box (if all it does is stream media off the PC) but because it may finally force Microsoft to unshackle the XBOX360 and let it grow into its full potential, and because it will likely grease the skids for Scientific Atlanta's next-generation STB within the cable companies.

Now, it may be that Apple really thinks they have something new to bring to the table other than hype and reality distortion zones and iconoclastic love-em-or-hate-em user interfaces (sorry but I'm closer to the latter than the former) and I hope they really have something unique to contribute to this particular dialog between consumers and content providers, but Apple is hardly stepping into an emergent market as they did with the Apple II and the pod; video is a long established market filled with heavy-duty players where their approach is merely one of many and where they are trying to change *established* consumer habits rather than riding the wave of a new practice.

What I find most unusual about Apple's announcement is the fact that it is pure vapor. Apple announced they were working on a product that they would actually define and show in January for shipment sometime next year.
For Apple, that is very odd.
Uncharacteristic.
(More typical of Sony, actually.)
They couldn't wait three months to at least show a working prototype and announce a ship date?
They had to pre-announce?
Smells like FUD, an attempt to freeze the market.
A premptive strike at something they can't quickly counter.
Something's afoot folks.

Possibilities?
Maybe the next-gen STB boxes from Cisco/Scientific Atlanta are ready to start deploying.
Maybe sales of MCE PCs are starting to concern Apple.
Maybe its the XBOX360 and MS dabbling in video on Marketplace. There is room for new blades in the 360 interface...
Or maybe its, yes, everybody's favorite whipping boy; the PS3.

I'm leaning to the latter.
Remember, bungling management aside, Sony has a nice piece of hardware in the PS3. It may not be a better game box than the 360 or even much better at digital media than the 360, but it should beat the crap out of any streaming solution you can get today, simply because it'll have a nice-sized Hard Drive and an always-on net connection. With a built-in browser, no less. And it runs Linux. And it uses standard USB interfaces. A PVR add-on should be trivial. Which means the box mr Toporek wants is a juiced-up PS3. Myth TV for PS3 anyone?

Now, we all know Sony want to hurt Apple (for "usurping" their righful place as rulers of the music universe) almost as bad as they want to kill MS. The latter ain't happening soon so they might go for the former. :twisted:

Unlike MS, which seems determined to cripple the 360 to protect the MCE market, Sony *needs* to promote the PS3 at all costs and if it hurts their PC business so be it. So, gaming aside, if we look at the PS3 as PSX redux, we find HD movie playback via BD-ROM, large Hard drive, enough onboard cpu power to implement the most sophisticated video-scaling algorithms so video d/ls can play at near HD quality, and possibly even a PVR option. Sony can easily provide software to feed music and video to their Walkmen and PSP from the PS3 and obviate the need for any PC or Mac in the loop.

Anybody notice that Apple only has Disney on board for their living room incursion? I'm thinking they may have a tough time getting Fox (owners of DirecTV) going along. And the other studios, for that matter. Cause DVD-quality downloads are going to compete with a lot of other video distribution channels and anything that runs through a PC or Mac is subject to hacking. The studios have been willing to risk it to extend their reach into the portable arena but this isn't a push into a new market, this is a push into their core relationships with the cable companies and OTA broadcasters. A lot trickier. Especially if Apple delivers on the one thing that consumers will demand: full (or at least near) HD quality.

Think about it; this is an 07-08 product.
It is designed (as Jobs himself put it) for connecting to HDTVs.
Plain old SD video isn't going to hack it. And the bandwidth (and local drive space) just isn't there for large-scale HD video sales. (Jobs is still against rentals, right?) We've already seen that video upscaling is a minefield where even 800 pound gorillas tread lightly. But without upscaling, what kind of video experience is the Apple box going to deliver?
Remember, TV's built-in upscaling relies on a fairly bandwidth-intensive analog signal; upscaling SD-grade MPEG4 is much harder because there is going to be a lot less material to work with. So Apple (or Sony, for that matter) is going to have to provide some serious on-the-fly image processing.

Like I said, this is an odd development.
I honestly expected Apple to continue on the track of evolving the Mac mini into an MCE/Myth TV equivalent. Instead, they're trying to do Roku one better. That doesn't compute.

Maybe its because after living for three years with a variety of streaming solutions, I've come to think that even when it works right (and boy, does MCE work beutifully with the 360) streaming is not a mainstream solution for the non-techie mediaphile. Sooner or later, somebody will deliver a standalone box that delivers full MCE capability out of a true CE box and that will be the box that will define the living room media experience for the next decade.

So far, this week, we've seen TiVo fail to deliver and now Apple seems to be headed in a...dubious direction...

By november we'll see how far MS and Sony are willing to push *their* platforms and by January we'll see if the Japanese connected-TV initiative or next-gen MCEs lead up to something or if we're to wander in the digital wilderness another year, waiting for somebody to bring PC power together with STB convenience at a reasonable price. A combo video disk player/PVR/media jukebox device. And yes, gaming. We should be looking to consolidate content sources in the living room, not adding more.

Is this really too much to ask for one box "to rule them all and in darkness (of the living room) bind them"? ;-)

[MitchellO]

Both my dad and I have Media Center PCs, and we are extremely happy with them for one simple reason: the ability to play/record TV. And they do it well. The MCE 2005 interface is quite simple, yet still powerful. Both my stepmum and sister, who are fine at computers but far from experts, were able to adjust to it very quickly.

And since Microsoft loosened up on who can built MCE PCs, I was able to build our own. That way we got exactly what we wanted. Dad's MCE was a P4 2.26Ghz with 384MB RAM, and amazingly it handled it very well. He has just bought a new Dell Dimension 5150 with a PD 2.8Ghz and 1GB RAM and total setup time, including:

* Installing MCE 2005
* Installing all the updates
* Installing two HDTV Tuners
* Setting up guide/channels
* Setting up connections to both TV (an SDTV via SVideo) and Projector (via Component)

Total time: 3hrs

That truely amazed me.

This Apple box will be overpriced for the functionality it offers, and may suffer from lack of compatibility with other products. If this thing doesn't support DivX then it will suck big time.

While Apple has made a good product from the iPod (although again a bit limited in formats), the iTV just seems like a big step behind Microsoft.

[Felix Torres]

While Apple has made a good product from the iPod (although again a bit limited in formats), the iTV just seems like a big step behind Microsoft.

Anything Apple could cook up now would *have* to be behind MS, they've been working this market from five separate angles going back to 1990.

The problem with iTV is that it is practically trailing-edge tech:

They lag MCE, they lag TiVO, they lag Scientific Atlanta, they lag DirecTV and Dish. They lag their own partner, Disney, who have been shipping Moviebeam for over a year.

They lag TV vendors like HP and Toshiba, among others, who are already shipping streaming solutions built into to their TVs:
http://h71036.www7.hp.com/hho/cache/366142-0-0-225-121.html?mtxs=home-hho&amp;mtxb=B2&amp;mtxl=L1
(Yes, the HP products streams DiVX natively, anime fans!)

http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/televisions/product.asp?model=42hl196
(check detailed specs for "THINC Ethernet Port")

A streaming box in 06 is a yawner.
Roku, Buffalo, Dlink, Pinnacle, and half of China Inc ships streaming boxes.

The thing is so underwhelming there *has* to be something else going on...

[Felix Torres]

Update:

Nintendo Wii also does streaming:
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3153622

Seams everybody and their nephew does streaming. ;-)

[Jason Dunn]

A streaming box in 06 is a yawner. Roku, Buffalo, Dlink, Pinnacle, and half of China Inc ships streaming boxes.

Yeah, but how many of those SUCK? Seriously, I've tried streaming video box products from ADS, Roku, and a couple of others and they've all sucked in one way or another - usually from the horrible user interface (ADS) or lack of proper codec support (Roku). The Windows Media Extenders are cool, but again, severely Microsoft-centric in terms of video file support. So I honestly believe there's room for a really great product here...maybe this Apple product is it.

[Jason Eaton]

I think that is the rub though.

Apple *could* make a really slick streaming product that is easy and intuitive to use. But looking at the crystal ball tells me that Apple would follow cues laid out by iPod and it would be Apple DRM based for copyright material and for personal home movies based on H.264 and .mov formats.

There was no ubiquitous movie/tv format like mp3. No one is shipping content without some form of 'protection/limiting' code slapped on. One might argue DivX but they haven’t made any in roads with the mass content distributors except porn.

So at best Apple could make a good streaming product, built around iTunes store and codec’s, but it would essentially become another 'wall garden' that is dependent on the content and distributors. Currently the leverage for content isn’t in Apple’s court.

The only thing that might give Apple leverage is the current build up of the iPod/iTunes name, capturing mind share where MS hasn’t been able to in the general public. If the public adopts it and distributors want to tap into the market… things might change.

Mobs have a wonderful effect on market dynamics.

Anyhoots. Just some ramblings.

[Felix Torres]

A streaming box in 06 is a yawner. Roku, Buffalo, Dlink, Pinnacle, and half of China Inc ships streaming boxes.

Yeah, but how many of those SUCK?



Right at the beginning of my first post I said I'm on my second-gen streaming solution.
And I did say I'm convinced streaming is *not* the way to go for the mainstream audience.

Being that I'm wordy, the point may have gotten lost: Apple is late to the party and I'm not sure it is a party you want to be at to start with.

That strikes me as seriously odd.
They're zigging when all the evidence (and as you point out there is a lot of evidence) is that the market doesn't *want* to zig.

Maybe they really think they can convince the market to follow them, but...

[Felix Torres]

Mobs have a wonderful effect on market dynamics.



The technical term is network effects.

But I prefer your phrasing. :twisted:

You're right that there is no common-denominator format for streaming video. Or for the transports.

Anybody want to bet Apple uses UPnP? I'm not willing to lay money on that. More likelt it'll be iTunes on the net. iTunes on the PC/Mac. And iTunes on the player.

Slick? Maybe.
Flexible?
Doubtful.
Good luck streaming your home movies.
At a minimum, transcode central, just like MCE. But at least MCE does a lot more than just stream media.

[MitchellO]

Yes the ball was kind of dropped on the selection of a universal video codec.