[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXS5VHw7rwA[/youtube]
The latest rumors from the Apple company suggest that a TV will be the next product launched by the giant from Cupertino. Steve Jobs said in his biography that he discovered the secret of developing a really good television for consumers, but 13 years before he had a completely different opinion about such a product. In the video clip above Steve Jobs gives some pertinent reasons why the TV is still not good enough and said that the TV manufacturers have not yet understood how such a product should be built.
10 years later Steve Jobs resumed his ideas in a discussion with Walt Mossberg at an All Things Digital conference, but 3 years later things changed completely. To have understood Steve Jobs how to build a television that will become extremely popular among consumers? Probably yes, it wouldn't be the first time that Steve Jobs discovers the key that makes a product extremely loved by consumers. Below is an excerpt from Steve Jobs' discussion with Walt Mossberg, and I, for one, am extremely curious to see what an Apple TV will look like.
The problem with innovation in the television industry is the go-to-market strategy. The television industry fundamentally has a subsidized business model that gives everybody a set top box for free, or for $10 a month. And that pretty much squashes innovation because no one is willing to buy a set top box. Ask TiVo. Ask Replay TV. Ask Roku, ask Vudu, ask us, ask Google in a few months. Sony's tried, Panasonic's tried, we've all tried. So, all you can do is add a box onto the TV system.
You can say, 'I'll add another little box with another one'. You end up with a table full of remotes, cluster full of boxes, bunch of UIs. The only way that's ever gonna change is if you really go back to square one and you tear up the set top box and design it with a consistent UI and deliver it to the customer in a way they're willing to pay for it. Right now there's no way to do that. So that's the problem with the TV market.
We decided, do we want a better TV or a better phone? The phone won out because there was a way to get it to market. What do we want more, a better tablet or a better TV? Well, probably a better tablet. But it doesn't matter because there's no way to get a TV to market. The TV is going to lose until there is a viable go to market strategy, otherwise you're just making another TiVO.
That makes sense?
It's not a problem of technology, it's not a problem of vision, it's a fundamental go-to-market problem.
There isn't a cable operator that's national, there's a bunch of operators. And it's not like there's GSM, where you build a phone and it works in all these other countries. Not every single country has different standards. It's very "tower of Babble-ish", no that's not the right word. Balkanized. I'm sure smarter people than us will figure this out.
But when we say Apple TV is a hobby, that's why we use that phrase.
