Spring launch for Apple OLED TV with Siri, says retail mole Apple's voice-controlled 42in OLED TV could be out this April. Assuming, of course, that the Mac maker is indeed working on such an improbable beast. That it's gearing up to launch such a product on the late April/early May timeframe has been claimed by "a high-ranking source with a major electronics retailer", cited by …
"Apple will be competing with Samsungs other markets."
That should be interesting. I can't wait to see how Apple will differentiate their products (and justify their customary premium pricing) in the shipbuilding, construction equipment, capital infrastructure construction project, aeroengine, bio-pharmaceutical, and insurance markets...
Hint: Samsung don't just make 'phones, fondleslabs, and cheap TVs... :-)
"Hint: Samsung don't just make 'phones, fondleslabs, and cheap TVs... :-)"
You missed the point - the point being that Samsung turned the tabled on Apple by directly competing (copying) it's products (despite being a supplier to Apple) and now things are reversing. Was not suggesting Apple were about to start building ships - but it's a fairly high-risk strategy to compete with your customers.
If you look at the price point Apple chose when launching the iPad and consider how well it seemed to work. Ok some cheapskates wanted it to be sold for $99 but I think the general consensus in hindsight is that thay got it about right.
My guess is that Apple will approach pricing of their TV (if there is in fact one) in the same way.
If history is anything to go by, the existing TV manufacturers may well get a big kick up the posterior.
We shall all just have to wait and see won't we?
It's Friday. The sun is out. Off down the Canal to the Pub for Lunch.
Whoopee.
Seems fairly pointless to me having voice control on a Telly. I imagine the commands would be
"TV ON"
"Switch to Sky channel"
*use Sky remote for next 3 hours*
"TV Off"
Seems another instance of Apple adding Shiny Shiny at the expense of functionality, I'll stick to my Bravia thanks. I mean it wasn't exactly cheap, but I still expect it to be half the price of this thing, with better picture and sound.
The current Apple TV is available at under a ton on the high street right now, and no one is buying it. Just because it's designed in Cupertino doesn't mean it will sell. Simply adding a big screen and voice control to the current proposition doesn't really change the equation. I'm sure Apple already know this. However, hate Apple as much as you like, but in creating the iPhone and iPad they have learnt a thing or two about what makes a truly disruptive, market defining, product. It'll be interesting to see if they manage it again with this new evolution of the Apple TV, or if it will be another flop. My money's on something new and something interesting that will have competitors racing to emulate it faster than you can say android.
Basically the big players are burning big piles of cash in the TV business with little chance of getting it back. Hence Sony's credit rating downgrade. Things are somewhat brighter for those with LCD plants (LG and Samsung) but for everyone else it is a brutal business of falling prices, 6 month lead times on panel supplies and aggressive competition from everyone else who needs to sell the quantities they planned 6 months earlier.
And if you do plan reduced quantities someone else will buy the panels cheaper and you will have an even bigger problem selling the products you do have at a reasonable price. Don't forget the dealers and their significant margins either. If they get out of the market entirely the will be many displaced staff, no opportunity to return to the market, loss of ability to sustain branded retail stores (Sony Centres, Panasonic etc.) and therefore big risks to other perhaps profitable sectors such as cameras. Then there is pure ego and hope, we can turn it round, next year will be profitable becausewe have ....(great product, cut costs, the market will pickup, rising star will run the division etc.)
Unlike the computer business there isn't the same level of fairly steady selling price for increasing performance either so although I don't have numbers available to confirm it the total market revenue has probably fallen massively over the last few years even if TV quantities haven't.
This doesn't mean that Apple can't enter the market successfully but it won't be easy.
If rotten Fruit sell it, people will buy it. They'll pay way over the odds for what is essentially a low quality item with a high prestige badge.
Of course, the people who will buy such a thing will be of low gene quality to do so and of questionable mental capability, but that is the core buyer of the rotten fruit brand - Mentally deficient, emotional retards with too much money and not enough sense to come in out of the rain who ought not to be allowed to breed, but that's only my humble opinion of course.
NB: The "I'll get my coat" actually looks more like a corporate fruit person stealing from someone's coat to me but what do I know?
... a few different workable form factors for computers
... a couple of workable form factors for phones
... a couple of workable form factors for tables
Apple can sell a limited range of products and still compete in those markets.
TVs come in many, many form factors, because they have to fit in with people's available space and lifestyle choices. TVs come in all price ranges from cheap to ludicrously expensive.
I seriously doubt there is room to make Apple-style profit margins in the TV marketplace.
i want a new tv/digi recorder. I can't find anything to export to the ipad easily to be able to watch recorded shows on trips - so i really hope apple will enable it and therefore holding out to buy anything until they have it, let's just hope it's under 2k, since a good TV is anyway around 1.8k. So at least I am ready to buy one, if it works like that, because I want my units to work well together.
...I guarantee it will run IOS and have a wireless link, enabling it to act like a giant iPad. Apple fans will flock to buy a device easily providing full-screen angrybirds and instant-on youtube served in a way that is familiar to them.
So again it's less about the hardware, and more about the percieved quality of services it can access.
to the plan (assuming there is a plan, and this isn't just another Tony Smith random rumour.)
Apple is primarily a content company. The ability to open up the TV market and claim a slice of TV advertising must be irresistible.
Apple already has iTunes. An open TV content market similar to the app store and to iBooks would be an easy win.
Of course, content would only be streamed to the Apple TV and iDevices, so you'd have to buy one before you could start creating your own content.
This is used to be called podcasting, but Apple-specific iOS TV hardware would take it to a new level.
Whether this is good or bad is debatable. Good TV still costs shedloads of cash to make. But enough people are earning a few pennies on YouTube to make it worth thinking about.
And Apple only needs to host the content and charge its usual 30% tax/toll for provider access to make an even bigger pile of cash than it has now.
...all Apple needs to do is address the following points:-
1. Integrate STB and TV and make the software fast and responsive - I'm frequently being greeted with "Please Wait..." messages or very slow redraw times.
2. Make the UI intuitive. Most UIs I've seen have "designed by programmers" written all over them - on my STB it takes four or more clicks to record a program (click V+, select set new recording, select record from TV guide, select All channels, scroll to find program - slow, click to record)
3. Get rid of almost all the buttons on my remote control - really, why are we typing in channel numbers? I'm sure a controller with a click-wheel and a good UI could do everything my 30 button controller could do.
It amazes my that no other TV / STB maker has taken the Apple UI ideas and produced something that has Apple's quality to it.
I did see one remote control many years back that just had a central clickable scroll wheel with a volume rocker to the left and channel change rocker and the right. It was so easy to use.
Some TV systems have hundreds of channels. If I'm watching channel 2 and I want to go to channel 619 (say) then it's much faster to type the three numbers than to scroll through hundreds of channels I don't want.
Granted there are UI options such as lists of favourite/recent channels, but sometimes typing the channel is faster.
Given the experience of the existing AppleTV though, any new Apple remote may be very minimal so you may end up happy.
It's amusing to see how many people in this thread are saying how they don't want the features the Apple TV will offer before they even know what they are!
Having seen what effect Apple's arrival had on the music industry, digital music players, tablets, netbooks and laptops, and mobile phones, I imagine TV executives are not sleeping too well at the moment. This is the lull before the storm for them. This is not a good time to buy a TV.
If Apple sells 100,000 TVs, the media will hail it as ground breaking success that will change TV watching as we know it.
If exactly the same TVs, with exactly the same technology, were released by any other company, they'd only be covered in the specialist AV press and they'd have almost zero impact on the man in the street.
Apples power to influence our world is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy - the same products, released by somebody else, won't have the same impact.
Can't see either LG or Samsung licensing OLED to Apple as it will give them a serious competitive in the same field. I guess there is room for someone else in, maybe China or Taiwan, to make the screens but these plants are humongously expensive to build and this takes time. Both Samsung and LG have invested heavily in the technology and, therefore, own a lot of the patents even if the process technology for scale might be coming from someone else (Dupont).
FWIW Samsung's gone from zero to hero in electronics in just over ten years. It's currently charging similar prices for hardware to Apple and, as the figures show, selling its devices nearly as well.
Two articles of possible interest: the history of Samsung and where it's going (good background reading for the author).
http://www.economist.com/node/21530976
How little Samsung makes per I-phone and, therefore, a damn good reason not to sell Apple components*:
http://www.economist.com/node/21543174
* Patents on screen manufacture and design gives plenty of reasons to *license* technology to competitors.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
