Is something happening with Apple? Sign of things to come?

[rocketpig]

HappySqurriel said:
I think you missed my point on the connected TV ...

With how many XBox 360's, PS3's, Wii's, set-top boxes, media centers, PCs, Laptops, Ebook Readers, smart-phones and tablets are on the market and all of the video on demand/streaming services that already exist what "killer-app" can apple provide for a connected TV that other devices are not or could not offer? Beyond what already exists, and knowing what I know about how backwards thinking the telecommunications/cable companies and broadcast networks are, I just don’t see the potential in the market.

Because, outside of the 360, no one is even close to getting it right and even the 360 has a lot of room for improvement. People were making smartphones before the iPhone came along but that didn't stop Apple from looking at the problem from the outside in and creating an innovative solution to peoples' issues with these phones.

Imagine a connected TV that can stream from Hulu, Netflix, and broadcast networks while renting or buying movies and shows from the iTunes Store. It also has streaming NBA, MLB, and NHL games along with things I'm not even thinking of here.

Now imagine that all of this is controlled seamlessly by Siri with a stored index (a la Spotlight). There's no more browsing through menus and fucking around with trying to figure out where something is and how to find it. You say "play Criminal Minds" and Siri searches for all episodes of the series across all platforms and displays them for you. You say "play the third episode" and bam, you're there, watching the show you want in ten seconds. People will pay for that and that's probably only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to where television can go with modern technology.

If you remember way back to 2006, the CEO of RIM actually laughed at the iPhone and said "Apple has never made a phone before. We're not worried." Think he regrets that now? When it comes to revolutionary technology, there's no company in the world that even comes close to Apple. You can argue that they're terrible at the evolutionary part of tech that follows but when they enter a market, they enter with a giant fucking bang.