Marco Arment thinks Apple won’t make a stand-alone television, because TVs are a commoditized, slim-margin market. Neven Mrgan isn’t sure Apple will get into the TV business (at least, as anything more than a ‘hobby’) because Apple are in the computer business, and people don’t seem to want a living-room computer. Kyle Baxter doesn’t think Apple will make a TV because there’s no advantage to building a TV over a set-top box, as Apple have already done.
The more I think about it, though, the more I’m convinced Apple will create a stand-alone television set. Apple tends to enter markets in which the established players compete on specifications and place overall experience a distant second. Apple also likes to enter markets in which a paradox of choice makes it difficult for the average consumer to select the ‘superior’ product. Finally, Apple will enter a market only when they can offer a product different enough to that which exists as to be initially controversial.
It’s fairly clear that the television market is where Apple want to go next. The market has recently stablilised as HDTVs reach a saturation point, and television makers are clueless as to how to improve their product so as to push consumers to upgrade. 3DTVs are a ‘bag of hurt’ and Google’s ‘internet TV’ experiments have failed to resonate with consumers. There are growing numbers of potential consumers happy with their current five year-old television sets, but willing to upgrade if something compelling comes along.
It’s worth taking the time to consider Apple’s recent successes. Apple aren’t in the business of creating “phones” or “media players” or “tablet computers”: they are in the business of creating convergence devices. A convergence device is one which can replace several devices at once, either by offering a digital representation of a previously analogue tool (iOS devices can ‘become’ books, notepads, rulers, photo albums, board games, calendars, and so on), or by bundling several physical devices in a single hardware package (the iPhone is a video and stills camera, telephone, recording device, touchscreen, compass, and more).
A good way to understand what an Apple television might entail would be to see the device less as a television than as a large-form convergence device. How might this device function and what devices and tools could it replace?
To begin, it seems a no-brainer that the Apple television would eliminate virtually every device that currently feeds into the average television set. You want Blu-Ray? Sorry, not gonna happen. TiVo? Nintendo? What these devices have in common is that they offer hardware solutions to problems that could better be solved in software. After all, it makes little sense to hook up a gaming unit to a television if that television has the hardware to run games on its own. Similarly, it makes no sense whatsoever to hook a disk-based media device to a television that can wirelessly access almost every movie or television show ever made. My gut feeling is that an Apple television will eliminate all AV inputs in favor of a couple of Thunderbolt ports, and WiFi and Bluetooth antennas. That’s controversial, but it’s in Apple’s spirit to junk ‘legacy’ compatibility in order to focus directly on ‘skating toward where the puck is going to be’.
For the Apple television platform to be successful, it’s necessary to provide a single means by which to access all the content you might wish to consume on the unit. There’s no such thing as ‘lock in’ in the television market because content (the valuable stuff) is piped into the television, and does not presently reside ‘within’ it. That’s not Apple’s style. Apple’s convergence devices do not (broadly speaking) require add-on devices to add value. In order to derive more value from your iDevice, you either upgrade to the latest model or visit the App Store. If Apple lock out consoles and ‘dedicated content devices’, they’ll provide consumers with the ability to purchase a wide selection of games and associated content from the television’s App Store.
If Apple are in the market of producing convergence devices, what else could this ‘television’ be? I’d almost certainly bet on a touchscreen, not as the primary means by which to interact with the device, but as an add-on (like the iPad’s gyroscope) to be harnessed by developers. Imagine, for example, this ‘television’ becoming a whiteboard, a wall calendar, a place for scribbling notes to family or colleagues, a canvas for painting, a presentation tool, or a control panel. Imagine the television functioning as a photo frame in which the next image is accessible with a single swipe. To hypothesise further, would it be too much to imagine this device flipping to a horizontal mode and taking on functionality similar to the Microsoft Surface? There’s evidence that there’s space for a Surface-like device in our everyday lives, but a more elegant solution would be to combine a large-screen horizontal touch device with a large-screen television, and allow the consumer to alternate between the two modes at will. Can this be done simply and beautifully?
Why are we pondering about the possibility of an Apple television set now? I’d suggest it’s not because we want to see how Apple can redefine the television experience, but because we’re wondering where the iOS platform can go from here. iOS isn’t about touch or portability – at least, not necessarily. iOS is about expanding the scope of digital devices to provide unique experiences directly tailored for a specific form factor. Change the form factor, and you change the possibilities.