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Comment by hugh3 | Hacker News Reader

Now now, who says they can come up with the next iPod or iPhone even with him?

What other worlds are left for Apple to conquer? Where else in your life can you possibly put an Apple product?

On top of your television? Maybe. The AppleTV is actually a damn good product, but it still hasn't gained much traction. Many folks still aren't quite sure what it does. Heck, I've used one and I'm still not quite sure what it does. I know what it won't do, though, and that's play my DVD collection.

Games consoles? I'm doubtful -- Apple's strength is in making better user interfaces than everyone else, but when you play a game you're at the mercy of the third party developer's interface. (And yes, they already failed at this once).

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How about cloud-based services?

Apple has indicated their interest in this direction by plunking down a gigantic data center in North Carolina. And they have demonstrated their skills, judgement, and foresight at creating hosted services and platforms with iTunes and the App Store(s).

Worlds to conquer need not be new hardware segments.

If you posit that mobile devices are the end of the line of hardware innovation, then just imagine all the new software and connected intelligence that can be created for these devices.

I, for one, would welcome Jobs' continued contributions to the future of these technological domains. I really don't see a drop-in replacement for him.

Looking around the room at mass consumer electronics products which aren't Apple yet:

- Hifi

- Printers

- TVs (being done)

Looking at mass computer categories that aren't really done yet:

- Wearable computers

Granted they're not all likely, or even probable, expansion points for Apple. But if I can think of these in 2 minutes, I'm sure the crack team of product designers at Apple can think of a lot more (before culling most of them and picking the one most sexy option).

Hifi is iPod + AirPort Express. Apple tried to do speakers but found out they didn't have the competence for doing that. Besides, there is not much profit in selling speakers unless you are B&W. Amplifiers are an insignificant detail, somewhat like cables.

Even B&W has realized this: see all their iPod speaker products. As more and more teens become twenty-somethings with a wage, I expect this product line to grow to be a significant part of B&Ws revenue.

Young people (e.g. teens) don't use CD players. A CD player for them is like LP players: a historical artifact of old generations. Most radio channels today don't have good content, and the good stuff is available over the net. So no receiver either. The only source left for many young people is the computer/iPod/iPad/iPhone.

So Apple has the Hifi solved. They're just waiting for the old generation to get that CD players should be put into the trashbin like they did with the VCR player.

Except for people who are interested in actual hi fi, as in high fidelity -- people who wouldn't be caught dead listening to anything as lossily compressed as an mp3.

I'm no audio geek, but I can easily tell the difference between CD and mp3 for some of the music I listen to. I even have a CD of Beethoven's Ninth which I've never actually listened to because the audio equipment I have can't do it justice.

> I even have a CD of Beethoven's Ninth which I've never actually listened to because the audio equipment I have can't do it justice.

Because not listening to it at all gives you more pleasure than listening to it with the best equipment you've got?

I think you should consider the possibility that you may be an audio geek after all.

For hi fi, there is Apple Lossless (the reason my music is not on my portable/iPod but on a MacMini with an external harddrive).

Still no CD player: you let iTunes rip the CD using Apple Lossless.

Besides, you assume mp3's are 128 Kbits. When you get to 320 Kbit mp3s, most hi fi geeks can't make out the difference in blind tests. (they can always if the test isn't blind and they know which source is which – just like wine taste experiments).

Did you do a blind test? I cannot for the life of me tell the difference between 256 Kbit/s AAC and a CD in a blind test. (The best equipment I have are 150€ headphones, I tested with them. I did this test to decide whether I should start buying my music online instead of on CDs.)

Tests in which I knew what is what were completely worthless. I nearly always thought that I could tell the difference and that ability magically disappeared in blind tests.

I can tell the difference between 128 KBit/s MP3 and a CD, though.

I even have a CD of Beethoven's Ninth which I've never actually listened to because the audio equipment I have can't do it justice.

My advice: Spend $50-100 on a good pair of headphones, and you'll find more justice there than in hi-fi setups costing thousands of dollars.

I'm a bit of an audio geek. What sets me off though is not digital compression (although I'm sure you lose some fidelity, I rarely/never notice any loss with 256kbps mp4s). What is really awful is excessive dynamic compression in modern CDs themselves - and it's far worse than digital compression. Music simply loses its punch. It can be hard to do an apples to apples comparison here, but if you compare an older album (Beatles albums come to mind) and a "remastered" version, one of the differences will typically be greater dynamic compression in the remaster.

Some resources on the topic: http://www.turnmeup.org/ Some examples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ http://mastering-media.blogspot.com/2008/09/metallica-death-...

Hifi

Apple did have a shot at this with the iPod Hi-Fi. It was a speaker system with an iPod dock. It didn't do too well and it was canned in 2007, a year and a half after its introduction.

Printers + Most sexy option made me think of a 3D store. Launch it on your ipad, pick a design, tailor it, have it printed on a good 3D printer and delivered at your home. Apple takes a cut (30-70 split of the margin that the developer set), but guarantees that the designs do not leak out.

Of course, this is 'some time' (20 years?) off, but I certainly would like to see such a store happen.

- Wearable computers

I suspect they are going there.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/18/tiktok-and-lunatik-ipod-n...

Good point about what the Apple TV won't do - if Apple would bite the bullet and have installed a Blu Ray + DVD player in the apple TV and sold it for twice as much, then I would have purchased that instead of the PS3 this past holiday season. There are reasons for that, and it seems Steve Jobs has issues with the Blu Ray format, not to mention a deep seated interest in promoting downloadable/streaming media.

That said, my gut tells me that Apple isn't done finding markets to zap with their Midas touch (with or without Jobs, but hopefully with Jobs).

I've been thinking the same thing lately. We've just barely entered this post-PC era and it seems like SmartPhones and tablets are going to be where its at for at least the next 10 years. 15? 20? I'm not sure there's another 'next big thing' waiting in the wings anytime soon.

People were saying the same things before the iPod came out. And then before the Iphone came out. And then before the iPad came out. I don't see where they might take it next, but I'm not going to bet against them.

At some point they'll fall into irrelevance like all big companies do, but I don't think that will be this year. With or without Jobs.

Maybe (read: very likely) that Apple TV on top of your television will become that game console reasonably soon.

Man, if an App store comes to an Apple TV with any kind of decent input device that really would be a gold mine (complete with gold rush for devs).

This input device is, of course, your iPhone or iPod touch. The decent-ness of said device is questionable, however.

(But, it'd be perfect for Angry Birds TV!)

Touch controls would have to be pretty limited due to the lack of tactile feedback, but I could see some motion-based controls (though an ipod/iphone is a pretty expensive gadget to be swinging around).

How about now? Did you see that you can play The Incident on TV via iPhone and iPad TV out?

http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/10/12/02/the.incident.uses.ip...

I thought the hardware was way too underpowered for that sort of thing, hence the price. screens are expensive, but that wouldn't explain the > $300 price difference the apple tv and an iphone or ipad. now an apple tv 2...

edit: the ipod touch is only $229, but that's still $129 more than apple tv. anyone have more info about the possibilities of apps?

The current Apple TV contains the same cpu and graphics chip, and amount of memory as the iPad[1]

Given that the iPad has decent games performance at 1024x768, I could see the Apple TV handling most iPad games at 720p, or running them at a lower resolution and upscaling (as the consoles do with many games, for example Halo 3/ODST[2] and GTA IV[3]).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_TV#Technical_specificatio...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_3#Graphics

[3] http://www.ripten.com/2008/04/29/confirmed-gta-iv-ps3-is-not...

Apple should go for solutions in the automotive realm, personal transportation and the like.

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