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Steve Jobs on HDTV, "I finally cracked it."

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dyls

Member
Liu Kang Baking A Pie said:
I hope this TV does come out one day and is actually pretty unique so we can all look back on dismissive quotes like this.
I think you're giving people far too much credit. In five years, when every TV maker has had their world turned upside down and they've spent two years scrambling to catch up with what Apple did, and they've finally gotten somewhere near doing so, Gaffers will go on about how the innovations Apple put forth were actually pretty obvious, and not all that innovative anyway because here's some obscure usage that happened WELL before Apple even thought of it and no the implementation was NOT total shit and lalalalalalalaIcan'thearyou. And Marty Chinn will lead them to revisionist glory.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
NullPointer said:
It'll be unique, and it'll be walled. And I'll be there to say that a TV with internet access would be better in every conceivable way.

Apple could then compete with their UI and offerings on an open marketplace, where they'd still kick ass.

Would you kindly explain (is as much detail as you're willing) what you mean by an open marketplace?
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
oh, and you wouldn't need this to be an entirely new TV, it could be a googleTV style box you plug into your current TV but rely on as the primary front end
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Zefah said:
Would you kindly explain (is as much detail as you're willing) what you mean by an open marketplace?
To the best of my (hyperbolic) knowledge it means no approval process so that people can sell flash conversions of NES roms and apps that access your hardware in unsavory ways.
 

rezuth

Member
mj1108 said:
Here, NOW Apple fans will like it:

ZPQvE.png
Hate it. ;)
B!TCH said:
What exactly is new about Jobs saying this? He talked about this at D years ago, so what? He also said why it couldn't be done and it's a more complicated problem than the phone problem. Did you forget to include that part OP?
He did as he always does. He talks about something and how its limited, then he turns right around and tries to fix it. He did this all the time. Who wants to watch video on a small device? Boom, iPod Video. A phone? No way, that is impossible with how carriers operate today. Boom, iPhone.

Marty Chinn said:
What's a UAX? I'm not understanding how your setup works at the moment. As far the back button, you realize the Harmony is a learning remote right? You can make it understand any IR command you want because of it. You're not limited to what's in the database. I have no idea why your input is so slow, but you can go in and tweak the timing. Maybe the profile that someone setup for your box was poorly done, but I have not had any type of terrible lag at all when doing any type of input on my fairly complex setup. I do hear the battery life is short with the Harmony One but you're supposed to put it on the cradle when not in use to my understanding, otherwise it only lasts about two weeks. My Harmony will last 4 months before I need to change the battery. It's that LCD screen and smaller battery that causes that.

I tried to make it understand but it simply does not work. As for the rest of the problems I wouldn't have an issue with battery life if it was not for the fact it eats it up like there is no tomorrow also when its not being used.
 

dyls

Member
mrklaw said:
oh, and you wouldn't need this to be an entirely new TV, it could be a googleTV style box you plug into your current TV but rely on as the primary front end
I don't think so. I don't see Apple getting serious about TV until they can get their interface underneath that of the cable company. The only way to guarantee that Apple's UI is always the first (and only) thing you see is to control the whole thing. The only way to do that is to build the tv itself.
 
OuterWorldVoice said:
If your Harmony misses a device, and I used a plant obscuring an IR device as an example, it gets totally out of whack. I am a "power" user and find it irritating that adding or removing a device from a stack is far from trivial. Activities are ool on paper but moronic in my setup.

That said, I wish phones came with IR blasters, because this shit would all be sorted by now with remote apps.

All you have to do is press Help and it will get things back in order. Plus if you have some obscure IR device hidden by a plant, nothing anyone can do is going to change the fact that the IR port can't receive the command. You could add an IR repeater so it will hit that obscure device if you want.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
mj1108 said:
Here, NOW Apple fans will like it:

ZPQvE.png
Doesn't work, because the major problems people have with it are bad usability and convolution, and those are two areas that Apple has made its recent name at being excellent with.

Or: Apple fans would love it because it wouldn't have any of the problems people complain about.
 
Zefah said:
Would you kindly explain (is as much detail as you're willing) what you mean by an open marketplace?
If the TV had a browser setup by default to a TV friendly UI/website without requiring a keyboard as input device, you'd get all of the benefits and possibilities offered by the internet, various cloud services and websites.

Apple can make a nice TV, and offer a hell of a friendly UI by default on these sets without having to close off or limit access to the entire online world.
 
A TV controlled via bluetooth with my phone would be pretty cool. The TV guides on every HDTV I have used are slow and clunky. Don't know why they are so much worse than what is available for my cable box.
 

rezuth

Member
Marty Chinn said:
All you have to do is press Help and it will get things back in order. Plus if you have some obscure IR device hidden by a plant, nothing anyone can do is going to change the fact that the IR port can't receive the command. You could add an IR repeater so it will hit that obscure device if you want.
The help button is shit and takes like forever to help you out. Does this fix it? No. How about now? No. What about if I do this? No. etc. Just fucking ask me the question that I answer yes on the most times first! I thought this thing was suppose to learn ;)
 
dyls said:
I think you're giving people far too much credit. In five years, when every TV maker has had their world turned upside down and they've spent two years scrambling to catch up with what Apple did, and they've finally gotten somewhere near doing so, Gaffers will go on about how the innovations Apple put forth were actually pretty obvious, and not all that innovative anyway because here's some obscure usage that happened WELL before Apple even thought of it and no the implementation was NOT total shit and lalalalalalalaIcan'thearyou. And Marty Chinn will lead them to revisionist glory.

You know, I've advocated for an Apple TV being built into the TV right? I think TV interfaces are shitty in their UI and they could stand to learn from something from Apple about a TV interface. What I find questionable in all this is the way Steve Jobs was mentioning DVD players and cable boxes as being confusing and he's solved all that. I just don't know what he could do that would be so earth shattering that didn't involve removing them out of the equation.
 

Windu

never heard about the cat, apparently
favouriteflavour said:
A TV controlled via bluetooth with my phone would be pretty cool. The TV guides on every HDTV I have used are slow and clunky. Don't know why they are so much worse than what is available for my cable box.
i think certain sony tvs have iphone apps that can do that. Not sure if it uses blutooth though, probably uses wifi
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
Liu Kang Baking A Pie said:
http://www.apple.com/appletv

You're all still talking about things that are possible with the Apple TV as it already exists.


Mine looks like it's a cool device, but the perf is hilariously bad and unpredictable. According to the internets, it seems like this affects a small but staggeringly ill-served and not insignificant proportion of owners.

It is the worst behaved electronics device I have ever bought. Has probably functioned properly for about an hour.

Googe: "Netflix on apple TV problem" or "streaming problem on AppleTV." Appears to be DNS related. Affects no other devices in my home.

But there's not much wrong with it when it works, that isn't related to how shit the Apple store is.
 
Liu Kang Baking A Pie said:
Um, we don't know anything about what Jobs thought up for the TV beyond "iCloud" and "I cracked it." What are you criticizing, exactly?

Because technology is not the barrier anymore - it's getting all content under one roof (or the challenge thereof), as Netflix is demonstrating for us.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
NullPointer said:
If the TV had a browser setup by default to a TV friendly UI/website without requiring a keyboard as input device, you'd get all of the benefits and possibilities offered by the internet, various cloud services and websites.

Apple can make a nice TV, and offer a hell of a friendly UI by default on these sets without having to close off or limit access to the entire online world.

So an Internet browser? What makes you think that Apple wouldn't include one in this theoretical television?

Or do you mean a more fully featured web experience complete with installing various plugins, codecs, other browsers, downloading files, etc.? I wouldn't expect any of that stuff.
 
rezuth said:
I tried to make it understand but it simply does not work. As for the rest of the problems I wouldn't have an issue with battery life if it was not for the fact it eats it up like there is no tomorrow also when its not being used.

Maybe you've got a bum battery. I know they are a bit short, but they aren't THAT short on lifespan.
 

C.Dark.DN

Banned
Liu Kang Baking A Pie said:
Uh, yes.

Channels aren't necessarily complicated, but they're dated. We flip through channels to find something to watch. Why don't we just find something to watch by choosing something from a listing of everything on one screen? Or some other idea that doesn't involve going through an unchanging numbered list one by one.

Anyway, you dudes are just talking about things that could be done with the Apple TV box that's out today. If there's a hardware TV coming from Apple, it'd be because they have a new idea for TV hardware itself.
Uh...

How is music separated on an iPod?

Artist > Album > Song

Hundreds of a Artists? Hundreds of Networks.

Network > Show @ Time.

So, let me know when they innovate this basic grouping concept on the iPod.

Edit: Have a pretty and much wanted UI is not going to change basic logical structure.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
giga said:
You're kidding. They're a terrible user experience. A "channel" should be an icon on a user's TV home screen. Couple this shit with Siri and it'll be awesome.
Sort of like the Wii's channel system? Press the home button and you get windows streaming whatever's on each channel and then you just point and select what you wanna watch? Because I think that would be amazing.
 
dyls said:
I don't think so. I don't see Apple getting serious about TV until they can get their interface underneath that of the cable company. The only way to guarantee that Apple's UI is always the first (and only) thing you see is to control the whole thing. The only way to do that is to build the tv itself.

Either way Apple is boned. They don't control the infrastructure to take over the living room because they're not an ISP, and ISP's (which also own content ala Comcast) rule the roost because of bandwidth caps.
 

dyls

Member
Marty Chinn said:
You know, I've advocated for an Apple TV being built into the TV right? I think TV interfaces are shitty in their UI and they could stand to learn from something from Apple about a TV interface. What I find questionable in all this is the way Steve Jobs was mentioning DVD players and cable boxes as being confusing and he's solved all that. I just don't know what he could do that would be so earth shattering that didn't involve removing them out of the equation.
Oh I think they definitely want all of those things out of the equation. Especially the cable box. Blu ray/DVD is a little harder to say whether they'd try to out and out remove functionality for it. It would certainly give their detractors some fodder, but that rarely seems to motivate Apple eithe way. I think they would want the Apple TV to plug into the wall, wirelessly connect to the Internet, and that's it.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Easy_D said:
Sort of like the Wii's channel system? Press the home button and you get windows streaming whatever's on each channel and then you just point and select what you wanna watch? Because I think that would be amazing.

I agree. An improved version of the Wii interface with various 'channels' and apps installed would be pretty damn awesome.
 

B!TCH

how are you, B!TCH? How is your day going, B!ITCH?
rezuth said:
Hate it. ;)

He did as he always does. He talks about something and how its limited, then he turns right around and tries to fix it. He did this all the time. Who wants to watch video on a small device? Boom, iPod Video. A phone? No way, that is impossible with how carriers operate today. Boom, iPhone.



I tried to make it understand but it simply does not work. As for the rest of the problems I wouldn't have an issue with battery life if it was not for the fact it eats it up like there is no tomorrow also when its not being used.
Steve says a lot of things. He also said he doesn't discuss new Apple products.

I love Steve Jobs but all these leaks from the book are starting to sound like random ramblings from a man om his death bed. I don't really know how I feel about all this but it feels wrong.
 

Kurdel

Banned
Akkad said:
lol@ trying to argue with Liu Kang about Apple, the guy will never admit defeat.
"I think of discussion in terms if win and defeat, because I am a well rounded and wholesome individual."

These threads always divovle into Apple hate jerkcircles.
 
Ninja Scooter said:
I just want a cable box with a UI that isn't horribly clunky and slow, and that finally does away with numbered channels. I don't want to remember that ESPN is channel 5540, just list it as ESPN, and put the channels in alphabetical order.


Exactly 3 button presses on a standard DirecTV remote. Jobs make some offhand comment and some of you are acting like he came down from a mountain top with the keys to your salvation. I usually don't comment on these subjects but the constant Apple fellating gets to be too much sometimes.
 
sooperkool said:
Exactly 3 button presses on a standard DirecTV remote. Jobs make some offhand comment and some of you are acting like he came down from a mountain top with the keys to your salvation. I usually don't comment on these subjects but the constant Apple fellating gets to be too much sometimes.
What Apple fellating? Ninja Scooter just described a common and reasonable complaint with the way things currently are.
 
Liu Kang Baking A Pie said:
What Apple fellating? Ninja Scooter just described a common and reasonable complaint with the way things currently are.


What makes you think I am responding to him only? I keep forgetting you're a true believer and defender of the faith.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Ether_Snake said:
How is using a TV complicated? lol.

Really?

Obviously TVs aren't complicated if you are relatively technologically-savvy. Their interfaces are generally obtuse cluttered messes, but they aren't necessarily complicated.

You must realize that the vast majority of people out there aren't very technologically-savvy, right?
 
Zefah said:
Really?

Obviously TVs aren't complicated if you are relatively technologically-savvy. Their interfaces are generally obtuse cluttered messes, but they aren't necessarily complicated.

You must realize that the vast majority of people out there aren't very technologically-savvy, right?


Are most people really this stupid? Is there an actual need to make the process simpler because my 4 year-old can turn on the TV and select the show she wants to watch and she only gets to see about 8 hours of TV a week.
 
dyls said:
Oh I think they definitely want all of those things out of the equation. Especially the cable box. Blu ray/DVD is a little harder to say whether they'd try to out and out remove functionality for it. It would certainly give their detractors some fodder, but that rarely seems to motivate Apple eithe way. I think they would want the Apple TV to plug into the wall, wirelessly connect to the Internet, and that's it.

See I don't think that's cracking the problem though. That's throwing everything out and telling people you'll watch TV how I want you to watch TV. A TV setup isn't just the TV alone these days and it won't be for some time to come. There are DVD/Blu Ray players, there are game consoles, there are sound systems and receivers and the biggest problem has never been changing channels on the TV. People know how that works and can deal with it. Sure it can be improved, but that's not the big problem. It's merging all that together so someone can use it easily with a press of a button.

Nobody likes figuring out what you need to turn on, or what input you are on because once you enter that territory, it becomes confusing and over whelming to someone not family with a setup. That's why I think Harmony remotes are a step in the right direction. They weren't the first to have macros, but they were the first to kind of streamline the setup. Once you get past the setup, just about anyone can use it. So to me they are one of the few who have started to solve the problem. So throwing everything out isn't cracking the problem IMO. It's just ignoring it and trying to step around it by removing things that people might still want.

sooperkool said:
Are most people really this stupid? Is there an actual need to make the process simpler because my 4 year-old can turn on the TV and select the show she wants to watch and she only gets to see about 8 hours of TV a week.

Seriously. I guess I never understood why some people here love how easy Apple products are for them. I guess I now have a glimpse since they're people who can't even figure out how to use a TV. If a TV is that daunting, I think we've got a bigger issue to address than the TV itself.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
sooperkool said:
Are most people really this stupid? Is there an actual need to make the process simpler because my 4 year-old can turn on the TV and select the show she wants to watch and she only gets to see about 8 hours of TV a week.

All I know is that every cable box interface I have used has been absolute shit.

Even people who aren't very knowledgeable can do basic operations on a TV, but that doesn't mean there isn't a ton of room for improvement.
 

Geek

Ninny Prancer
sooperkool said:
Are most people really this stupid? Is there an actual need to make the process simpler because my 4 year-old can turn on the TV and select the show she wants to watch and she only gets to see about 8 hours of TV a week.

Just from a remote standpoint, you don't see an opportunity to make the process much, much easier? I mean I knew how to use my shitty flip phone to make calls and send texts just fine, but I'd never want to go back to the pre-iPhone days of mobile device usability.

People worried that Apple might figure out a smarter way to interact with a TV, you really don't see any analogy here?

w4Pf3.jpg


I'm sure most of you are just being obtuse for the thrill of being contentious and anti-Apple on a message board, but there's obviously huge room for improvement throughout the experience, just starting with the means of interaction.
 
I would like to see a Apple television.

Apple being Apple I am sure all the inputs will be some apple only connector and to plug anything HDMI into it will mean you have to buy a $30 adapter.


Then again it will probably just be a normal high end TV with apple TV build in which would be ok I guess.

I want to see crazy 32 inch + iMac's as well.
 

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
We may laugh now...

but I wonder if this is the product that every other TV, game console + HTPC maker will be cursing in a few years, for eating their market.....?

And as an aside, between iPhone, iPad and "iTV" in people's homes, I could totally see dedicated computers becoming very niche.
 
sooperkool said:
Are most people really this stupid? Is there an actual need to make the process simpler because my 4 year-old can turn on the TV and select the show she wants to watch and she only gets to see about 8 hours of TV a week.
Pretty much anyone can figure out how to use a TV, but that doesn't mean there's not room for improvement. Most TV interfaces are awful from a UX perspective, and way more tedious to use than they need to be. Especially when you throw hundreds of channels, DVR functionality, and external devices into the equation.

I am kind of skeptical that anything really groundbreaking will happen on top of the current cable infrastructure though. I'm betting we will need a completely streaming on-demand system before the cruft can be completely eliminated.
 
Zefah said:
All I know is that every cable box interface I have used has been absolute shit.

Even people who aren't very knowledgeable can do basic operations on a TV, but that doesn't mean there isn't a ton of room for improvement.

Every interface is going to be some sort of guide, then select then watch. Even asking Siri to do that is the same process.


Geek said:
Just from a remote standpoint, you don't see an opportunity to make the process much, much easier? I mean I knew how to use my shitty flip phone to make calls and send texts just fine, but I'd never want to go back to the pre-iPhone days of usability.

People worried that Apple might figure out a smarter way to interact with a TV, you really don't see any analogy here?

I'm sure most of you are just being obtuse for the thrill of it, but there's obviously huge room for improvement throughout the experience.


Worried? Why would anyone be worried? Its television.... It really doesn't matter id the buttons are physical like your image or virtual like on an iPhone. Its the same process. Its the same process with voice actuation as well.
 

Geek

Ninny Prancer
sooperkool said:
Worried? Why would anyone be worried? Its television.... It really doesn't matter id the buttons are physical like your image or virtual like on an iPhone. Its the same process. Its the same process with voice actuation as well.
Maybe worried isn't the correct term for whatever this emotion is that drives people to defend their cable boxes, remote controls and current distribution methods and dismiss any notion of innovation. Maybe just stubborn? Myopic?

Anyway, yes, it does matter whether the buttons are physical or virtual. You've got a huge array of ever present buttons designed to deal with every scenario at once versus a dynamic interface that can roll the most important functions to the top to make the interaction easier.
 

dyls

Member
Marty Chinn said:
So throwing everything out isn't cracking the problem IMO. It's just ignoring it and trying to step around it by removing things that people might still want.
People don't want blu rays, they want the movies on them. They don't want to play XBOX, they want to play a game. They don't want a channel, they want a show.

I think Apple would want to break down those walls (and build their own, sure) and make it all about content. Of course, you have to have all the content to make that work, and that's still the really difficult part. The tv and movie and big game studios don't want to become like the music studios, completely beholden to Apple.

A small, cynical part of me can't help but think they waited out Steve Jobs.
 
Maybe they'll do something cool like put an HD camera in a simplified remote so that people can point at their televisions without needing to setup a camera or ir sensor.
 

dyls

Member
IrrelevantNotch said:
Maybe they'll do something cool like put an HD camera in a simplified remote so that people can point at their televisions without needing to setup a camera or ir sensor.
I still think Nintendo missed the boat big time by not licensing out their technology to TV makers. The Wiimote Would be such a great remote replacement since you would only need the necessary buttons showing up nice and big onscreen.
 
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