Steve Jobs: We Still Haven't Figured Out The Living Room

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/steve-jobs-we-still-haven-t-figured-out-the-living-room-aapl-

by echair • 18 years ago

27 19 18 years ago

thedob• 18 years ago

It's clear what people want: Any movie or TV show ever made, at the press of a button, in high quality.

Now realistically forget the 'ever made' part, and focus on classics + all recent content, there's no reason why cable companies shouldn't be able to deliver this soon. Merge the on demand libraries with streaming video sites like Hulu, and we're almost there already.

biohacker42• 18 years ago

Ah yes, but you see the telcos don't own the content, and content owners don't own the pipes.

And yet both hate to share profits, additionally the content owner are still trying to find out what price the markets will bare.

To do that they start high and slowly work their way down. And that slows down adoption.

netcan• 18 years ago

And both are big asset oligopoly industries. Content owners specifically don't have any reason to believe that better distribution channels will improve their bottom line.

Actually I think with record producers, video content owners & to an extent, publishing giants are all in a similar (leaky) boat. They are in a situation where life has been good, they are on top of the world. Only way to go is down.

Any move in the directions that technology is pushing towards like better, wider distribution, reduced production costs & power to the consumer is troubling. For one thing, they have a better hold on the here & now then the long tail. Sure they own most of it, but better distribution opens the doors to a groundswell of small producers. Expensive special effects, 1000 actor scenes, are no longer as big a differentiator. Now you want to give these $100k budget jokers access to living rooms?

Will better distribution make people watch more TV? probably not. Why take a chance?

danw• 18 years ago

This misses one of the core appeals of TV viewing - it's a lean back experience.

On demand is lean forward with the viewer having to think and decide explicitly what they wish to watch.

With TV you can lean back, not think too much and watch whatever the channel has chosen for you tonight.

mariorz• 18 years ago

The success of products like Tivo suggest that dictated scheduling is something a lot of TV viewers are happy to loose.

timcederman• 18 years ago

Hulu through XBMC is awesome.

Supplemented with Easynews and basically you can get anything you like on-demand.

cmars232• 18 years ago

How do you watch hulu with xbmc? That sounds really cool...

modoc• 18 years ago

Give me an AppleTV that will output 1080p HDMI, do high quality upscaling, and will play not only my iTMS content, but also stream a wide range of other codecs and containers (divx, mkv, etc..) from any source on my LAN, and has a DVD drive built in, and I'll put one in every room! Double points if it hooks into the NetFlix streaming option and/or Amazon Unbox.

I generally love Apple stuff, however I'm already using my Xbox 360 to stream DLed video content from my desktop, so it's hard to justify getting another device that just does that. If I could replace my DVD player or another device, that'd be something to consider.

GHFigs• 18 years ago

You're asking for an AppleTV with everything that was intentionally omitted.

cconstantine• 18 years ago

The only way I can imagine getting an Apple TV (or similar device) is if it replaces my current cable subscription. I can't justify canceling cable until they offer live-tv for things like the news, and sports.

I'm ok with paying for TV shows ala-cart with no monthly subscription. With how little I watch it would probably be cheaper anyway. The only reason we have cable is for football and a handful tv series.

inovica• 18 years ago

I have a MacMini which I use EyeTV on and FrontRow. Its not perfect but its still impressive and beats an Apple TV in terms of functionality. If the Apple TV was a bit more powerful and allowed for watching/recording of TV then it would be a winner. I use mine with a projector and love it. It is a shame but Apple have a tendancy (such as with the ipod/iphone) to try to lock people into their way of doing things

bigthboy• 18 years ago

I think Steve Jobs is right in saying that it will likely remain a hobby for this upcoming year, but in the same sense I believe thats because nobody is really taking a truly proactive, innovative, or scalable approach to it, Apple (and Boxee) included.

The industry has before been isolated because of the lack of content. However, more recently there has been an explosion of content availability. But further adding to the problem has been the usability of that content.

I, personally, own a Media Center PC which I built myself for the purpose of exploring the idea of accessing my TV over the internet. I must say that I've gone away from that route because everything was bulky and much more complicated than using my Satellite receiver that I already had. This is a problem that could be overcome if the effort was put forth to actually overcome it.

What needs to be done is someone needs to create a single simple box that includes the DVD player, USB ports, infarred, Ethernet port, various A/V input, and S-Video, Composite, and HDMI outputs. On this device load a very simplistic, efficient software base which can do the following... Load DVD, Load External Signal, Load "Full Internet", Watch "NET TV"... I quoted NET TV because it is something that would need to be treated different than the Internet. NET TV we could think of it as going to certain content website (like Hulu, YouTube, or even iTune's music store, NetFlix, etc.) and browing them through a simplified interface (rather than their traditional interface) and navigating through them to find the shows you want. This would be done, in a way, like tailoring sites to mobile phone users, only this would be to TV users. Included could be a new service which is truly "Live Stream" from the various news sources.

Just a concept btw...

chaostheory2• 18 years ago

microsoft and sony are the closest with their game consoles, though they have stuff holding them back:

Microsoft is unwilling to give the 360 killer features (such as internet browsing, being a media center without Media Center) at the risk of canibalizing Windows Media Center and Windows sales

Sony just doesn't have the software development expertise that Microsoft has. This is compounded by the dificulty in programming for their Cell architecture which has resulted in delays in many products.

wayne• 18 years ago

Do you really know that many people who hook a Windows Media Center to their main TV? I can count the number I know of on one hand.

The Xbox is already pretty good for watching paid movies/TV shows, and will be pretty cool for watching Netflix stuff in a month or so. I'm guessing it's more that no one wants to surf the web on their TV.

chaostheory2• 18 years ago

I'm not defending MS's decision. In fact I think it's stupid and short sighted (I did say it was holding them back). All I'm doing is stating what I'm seeing in the market.

For me 360 is still too expensive to watch TV shows and movies; and I'm not really excited about the Netflix deal considering you still need to be some premium Netflix subscriber for it to work.

tsuraan2• 18 years ago

I have a Roku Netflix Player, which is a $100 device with no moving parts; plug in power, HDMI, and put it on your wifi network, and away you go. The netflix selection is rapidly growing (they just got the Starz network, which really helped their selection), and the device will hopefully support hulu.com in the next few months. Between Netflix instant play, hulu, and a great little device like that, I'm not sure what else is needed for TV over the internet.

LogicHoleFlaw• 18 years ago

Netflix is moving strongly in this segment. This November their player for the Xbox 360 is coming out, which I'm greatly looking forward to.

tsuraan2• 18 years ago

Yeah, I was considering holding out for that, but my 360 is just loud; I don't mind it for video games, but I don't need that thing humming along while I'm watching movies. The Roku's really nice that way.

mapleoin• 18 years ago

the title sounded more fun than the article was.

While the page was loading I imagined a discussion on the current paradigm of entertainment focused on individualism (think mp3-players and computer games where you basically lock yourself out of the world). Traditionally, the living room has been about socialising, spending time with the family etc. Here is where a lot of improvement is just waiting to be done. I was hoping he wasn't going to talk about TVs and movies though. The real question is: What will kill the TV in the living room?

Steve Jobs: We Still Haven't Figured Out The Living Room

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