Why buy an Apple television?

by WyldKard on January 16, 2012

An -produced set is still in the rumour-mill, but the concept still mystifies us. Media outlets are proposing that Apple will do with the industry what they did with the computer, music, and cell-phone industries. But TV isn’t the same beast, because of much of what TV is is not the , or even the software, but the content distribution. That is to say, what brings value to your television beyond its size and image quality is what you have connected to your TV: a DVD or Blu-ray player, a gaming console, or simply your cable tuner. All of these accessories make use of content from different distribution methods, be it optical media, digital streaming, or something else.

Apple influenced computers by re-engineering the hardware and software; they made computers simpler.1 They didn’t invent a better internet. And they backed content distribution formats that already existed, favoring those with longer expected lifespans (first optical discs, now digital streaming) versus those that were on their way out (first floppies, now Blu-ray). People bought Macs because they were easier to learn, were more stable, and abstracted a lot of the things Average Joe hates about computers (blue screens of death, configuration issues, et al).

Apple repeated the process with the music industry by making a better mp3 player, and then pushing a distribution method that already existed (digital downloads), albeit in a pay-for-content form. People bought iPods because they had better interfaces than the competition, generally greater storage capacities, all wrapped in a robust package that interfaced nicely with Apple software.

When Apple took on the cell phone market, they took on hardware that, like PCs earlier, were built on a myriad of shaky hardware platforms, with non-intuitive software interfaces, and with limited downloadable apps available through expensive, extremely proprietary outlets. People bought iPhones because the price was right, and because the iPhone easily leveraged the market Apple built with the iPod.

With tablets, Apple further abstracted the things Average Joe hates about PCs, providing the iPhone’s intuitive UI in a larger format for better web browsing and general computer use. Arguably, they made the tablet space, which is somewhat of a first for Apple.2

But televisions aren’t tablets. While Apple may have thrown around the idea of taking on carriers directly with the release of the iPhone, they ultimately signed a deal with AT&T to use existing infrastructure. Now surely, in the television space, Apple is better positioned to take on the carriers, because Apple already has a distribution platform they’ve successfully used since the iPod was born. But unlike each area Apple tackled before, televisions aren’t inherently broken. You can argue that TVs should be easier to set up, what with channel scanning, picture calibration, input configuration, DVR setup, etc. But these are problems with accessories, particularly those utilizing legacy inputs. If Apple sold a TV that dismissed legacy devices entirely (as Apple once shirked floppies and Blu-ray), would consumers buy the device? Would enough consumers buy the device to make entering this market worthwhile?

The Apple TV of today (the iOS-running media box) is a perfect test of this market, and it’s not clear just how profitable it’s been for Apple. The Apple TV is great because it’s instant-on, and it’s not hard to see how embedding this device into a conventional TV may make sense, just as some TVs sold today already offer some internet services like Pandora, Netflix, etc. But if you can buy an Apple TV today for $100, why would anyone replace their entire television to the tune of $2000+ just to have a fully-integrated solution? For such a solution to be elegant, it would likely reserve only HDMI inputs, and no matter how Apple wanted to go about it, setup would remain tedious without lots of hardware being integrated off the bat (like an audio solution).

Sure, we can envision a sleek, Apple-branded television that comes with surround-sound speakers, complete with an audio configuration wizard to optimize sound. It would indeed be an elegant solution, but at what price? People don’t replace their TVs as often as they do their computers and mobile devices. If anything, most people wait until they actually have the space for a big-screen TV, their TV dies, or a major new display technology is unveiled.3 So sure, we can envision such an object, but not outside Apple’s research lab.

For a consumer product, Apple would be better off working with TV manufacturers to create “Apple TV-ready” televisions, where a designated HDMI port would always be the default when turning a TV on, such that the first thing a user sees is the Apple TV. With some fancy integration, attached Apple TVs could control access to other input ports to access attached consoles and legacy hardware, so in effect, an Apple TV “brain” would ensure a perfect user experience. With no Apple TV attached, however, the television would simply revert back to the “generic” menus most TVs have today.

Think we’re wrong? Drop us a tweet and explain what would compel you to shell out big money to replace your existing HDTV.4

Similar Posts:

  1. And more attractive. ↩

  2. One could argue that Apple redefined the personal music player and smartphone markets, but both gadgets were cool before Apple entered the game. Tablets were never more than a niche market; Apple made tablets into something consumers actually wanted. ↩

  3. A lot of premature television upgrades in the last ten years was likely because of space-saving opportunities due to newer technologies, where large (and heavy) CRTs were replaced with sleeker plasma, LCD (and now LED) systems. ↩

  4. And don’t say 3D, or your credibility is zero. ↩

Tagged as: , , ,