DirecTV: Apple TV won’t “obsolete our technology” | Hacker News Reader

DirecTV: Apple TV won’t “obsolete our technology”

gigaom.com

14 pointsiProject10 comments

Palm CEO Ed Colligan discussing Apple’s imminent release of the iPhone in 2006:

  Responding to questions from New York
  Times correspondent John Markoff at a
  Churchill Club breakfast gathering
  Thursday morning, Colligan laughed off
  the idea that any company — including
  the wildly popular Apple Computer —
  could easily win customers in the
  finicky smart-phone sector.

  “We’ve learned and struggled for a few
  years here figuring out how to make a
  decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not
  going to just figure this out. They’re
  not going to just walk in.”

http://daringfireball.net/2006/11/colligan_head_stuck

I bet that's exactly what Blackberry thought right before the iPhone came out, too. Not saying it will be that level of game changer (or that it even exists), but I think we've seen incumbents are notoriously bad at predicting when a new technology or competitor is about to take their business away from them.

It's probably also what Sega and Sony said before Pippin[1] came out.

I think there is room for a game change. From the juggling of remotes, to the horrific user interfaces[2], and just plain broken device interfaces[3]. The industry tolerates user abuse.

EOM

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Bandai_Pippin

[2] Toggling subtitles in less than 18 remote presses would be a nice feature. I'm looking at you AT&T.

[3] If I have had the same TV plugged into the same DVR for 2 years, it probably should stop choosing random resolutions and aspect ratios and just stick with the one I move it back to three times a week. Also 10 seconds seems like a long time to switch from one HDMI input to another. Audio that is synchronized to the picture, like in 1950, would be pretty cool too.

AppleTV is a middle of the row product in the set-top space in terms of software. Perhaps they have been holding back and now have something revolutionary. Who knows.

It would take a blow-me-away type of product for them to truly crack open this industry. In away where they could force the hand of cable companies like they did with AT&T. So it's going to be interesting to see what this hype is all about.

They aren't directly forcing the hand of cable tv companies, which is quite clever, imho.

We, the Developers will be tasked to do that with our content and that starts whenever they introduce APIs, likely to be this year's WWDC. Once we've built out Apps in the AppleTV app ecosystem, the consumer demand will follow.

The TV Channel/Show/Content is now an on-demand App. This will all coalesce slowly as people continue to unplug and switch over via internet as content is made available. I don't want to make any predictions about the AppleTV box vs iPanel but my guess is that both will coexist - with AppleTV box offering the best UX within its bubble while the iPanel will offer a more integrated comprehensive experience. Both utilize the same App ecosystem.

Apple has been laying the foundation for a while. Download the iOS remote control, play with any of the AirPlay functions, the regular tweaks to AppleTV's OS, etc... It's all right under our noses.

Who are "we the developers" in this scenario? This has already been played out on other platforms. Vimeo, Revision3, etc. will jump at the chance of reaching AppleTV devices but CBS, ESPN, AMC, etc. will not.

Your background is primarily in Chrome and Android - are you sure your reply to my post isn't biased?

I use that term to include anyone who develops for the iOS platform and wants to develop an App for AppleTV. Feel free to take yourself out of that.

How do you know that Apple hasn't created new parterships for their upcoming efforts? Do you have AppleTV? Have you noticed a slow growth in subscribing to new content? You can even purchase it In-App if you'd like.

There's many different potential ways to challenge the incumbent Cable TV business model. Don't assume that top-tier content producers are not interested. By the looks of what I'm seeing on AppleTV today, they are slowly coming on board.

You are mistaken on my background, and I have no preference on whether future Apple TVs succeed or fail.

What are you seeing on Apple TV that suggests that cable channels are going to embrace an alternative to cable?

Netflix was really close to disrupting Cable TV. Unfortunately, the cable providers and satellite providers can pay more to the content producers. I imagine that Showtime left Netflix because they realized the cable fees brought in more cash. Someone is going to have to show Internet distribution will result in more profits.

DirecTV's technology is already obsolete to be honest. Their ability to make changes is so slow.

DirecTV: Apple TV won’t “obsolete our technology”.

Maybe, maybe not but they will obsolete your customer base.

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