Apple "iTV" Official Thread

[mrplow]

It's a shame that people will herald this as some magic new thing, when practically every samsung / sony / whatever other brand TV does all the gadget/app stuff. Trouble is, they do tend to do it kinda badly, because they're not software companies. Apple (sorta) is so their interface is bound to be a jillion times easier to use for all the apple evangelists.

I bet it will be great, it's just a shame that soon Apple will make almost every consumer electronic item and all the other companies will just sell 'iFridge magnets' and 'iToilet brushes' (with a 30% royalty fee to Apple)

[MJ10]

Originally Posted by ryan1087

Mac, all in one pc - new
iPhone - good touchscreen, new features etc.
iPod - New, you know the rest
iPad - Hm, maybe not new but started a revolution into tablets.

I hope this is a joke?!!

C'mon:
Siri - reinvented by Apple
Touchscreen - reinvented by Apple
FaceTime - reinvented by Apple
Portable music - reinvented by Apple
Portable tablet - reinvented by Apple

All of this has been done before in one way or another, it's just that Apple came along and did it a lot better but pretended like it was the best newest and best thing since sliced bread!

Apple take an idea, copy it, improve it , restrict its use and sell millions, then unrestrict it a little bit and sell millions of the next version too!

Saying that, I still love some Apple products!!

[mrplow]

Originally Posted by MJ10

I hope this is a joke?!!

C'mon:
Siri - reinvented by Apple
Touchscreen - reinvented by Apple
FaceTime - reinvented by Apple
Portable music - reinvented by Apple
Portable tablet - reinvented by Apple

All of this has been done before in one way or another, it's just that Apple came along and did it a lot better but pretended like it was the best newest and best thing since sliced bread!

Apple take an idea, copy it, improve it , restrict its use and sell millions, then unrestrict it a little bit and sell millions of the next version too!

Saying that, I still love some Apple products!!

Lol I was going to do that but the examples just weren't in my head.

The Ives iMac was a very pretty thing, so in fact it deserved to do well, but it wasn't exactly revolutionary. PCs had gone separate in the interests of upgrade-ability. When your iMac was slow, you had to through away the screen. That's pretty bad environmentally as much as financially.

Portable MP3 was pioneered by companies like Creative Labs and the ill-fated Diamond Multimedia. Remember those big Creative Jukebox things, they looked a bit like a discman? Apple rode the wave of the iMac and told everyone their product was better. The nav-wheel was a good idea but it didn't come until gen 2 (iirc).

Tablets...... well, actually, I almost want to give this to Apple because of the sorely unappreciated Newton tablet they came out with. Someone knew it was going to be popular, unforunately they were way way too early with it. They were pretty impressive little boxes, although of course palm pilots and the like made a bit of a splash in the late 90s.

Siri was simply bought by Apple. Again some great marketing (and some of their usual very good software engineering spit and polish) helped make them the ones to make it successful. My 2002-era Motorola phone could phone my contacts using voice recognition, but I never saw any reason to use it.

There are some clever and talented folks at Apple, no question, but not quite the visionaries and God-like figures that they are sometimes made out to be. I think their marketing people (including the late Mr Jobs) did a huge amount of very clever work.

I should say I have a mac mini and it's a bloody brilliant little box, and OSX is usually a joy to use. But whenever I want to do something a little out of the ordinary I find myself fleeing back to the PC as non-normal stuff is just too tricky on OSX. It will be harder soon, as I'm fairly sure OSX will become more and more like iOS with a closed app store and all-apple-vetted software. It has the double benefit of making their systems more secure (virii are propogating for mac more and more) and also making them more revenue (app store 'tax').

In 10 years will we all either have an Apple-powered home, or some kind of Google-Dell conglomerate system? Can't help but feel it'll be a strange scary place, lol.