Sony beat the Apple TV without Google TV
ajaimk.com
Sony beat the Apple TV without Google TV
1–10 of 45 posts
Re: Sony beat the Apple TV without Google TV
#2The funny thing about buying a TV roughly every two decades (currently a twelve year old Sony Trinitron is doing its duty) is that I just don’t know that there are TVs which can do that.
It seems that TVs have turned into twins of the bloated laptops Sony likes to sell. I’m not sure whether I like that. Is that software at least user friendly?
Re: Sony beat the Apple TV without Google TV
#3My Sony TV is just a TV, and that is the way I like it, no apps, no internet; just channel buttons. Currently I am watching "Starwars II: Attack of the clones" in high def and commenting on this post at the same time.
Two screens are a far better experience than trying to both large video and interactive apps in one device. This is one of the reasons that interactive TV has never taken off. It just isn't feasible for general consumption.
Re: Sony beat the Apple TV without Google TV
#4Apple has missed a trick it should have learned from the iPhone in the value of allowing controlled third party apps on to a platform. Apple TV + downloadable/purchasable iOS apps aimed solely for TV use would be awesome. Or maybe they're hoping to pull the same idea off using the iPad->Airplay->Apple TV integration coming later in the year?
Re: Sony beat the Apple TV without Google TV
#5My Samsung TV has most (if not all) of that, and already has Hulu Plus.
And Hulu Plus was a huge disappointment. For those that don't know, ONLY 'plus' content can be streamed to a device directly. You can't watch the vast majority of Hulu's catalog directly on your TV/PS3/whatever. It cost me $10 to learn that.
Re: Sony beat the Apple TV without Google TV
#6Apple has missed a trick it should have learned from the iPhone in the value of allowing controlled third party apps on to a platform. Apple TV + downloadable/purchasable iOS apps aimed solely for TV use would be awesome. Or maybe they're hoping to pull the same idea off using the iPad->Airplay->Apple TV integration coming later in the year?
> Or maybe they're hoping to pull the same idea off using the iPad->Airplay->Apple TV integration coming later in the year?
Very likely. It seems Apple's strategy is that the Apple TV is a "dumb box", like a modem for your TV, that allows other devices (computers) to talk to it. They don't want to add an App store, because then it wouldn't be a "dumb box" any more.
The Apple TV is as cheap as it is now because they're targeting the market segment that doesn't care about anything other than watching movies, listening to music, and looking at pictures. These people won't comparison-shop based on the internal processor speed, or the hard disk capacity.
Apple got stuck in a spec race with the iPhone, and they don't want to have to do it again with the Apple TV, because spec races inevitably up prices—more speed, more capability, more storage—when what they want the ATV to be is a commodity that every TV has hooked up to it, so people can use their computers (specifically, their Apple computers) to stream things to them.
They want the ATV to do as little as possible, not as much as possible, just to act as a little adapter that brings your TV into your wi-fi network. It's not part of their computer or phone businesses; rather, it an extension of the "ubiquitous networking" strategy they've always had with the Airport Express (in fact, I bet the Airport Express and Apple TV teams are now merged under the "AirPlay" banner.)
Re: Sony beat the Apple TV without Google TV
#7My Sony TV is just a TV, and that is the way I like it, no apps, no internet; just channel buttons. Currently I am watching "Starwars II: Attack of the clones" in high def and commenting on this post at the same time. Two screens are a far better experience than trying to both large video and interactive apps in one device. This is one of the reasons that interactive TV has never taken off. It just isn't feasible for…
I'm personally not a big fan of the interactive TV idea myself. What I am all for is a TV that connects to different sources of media. I have music from Pandora and movies on netflix.
Re: Sony beat the Apple TV without Google TV
#8The funny thing about buying a TV roughly every two decades (currently a twelve year old Sony Trinitron is doing its duty) is that I just don’t know that there are TVs which can do that. It seems that TVs have turned into twins of the bloated laptops Sony likes to sell. I’m not sure whether I like that. Is that software at least user friendly?
It's a pretty good piece of work. Very simple 10-foot interface.
Re: Sony beat the Apple TV without Google TV
#9My Samsung TV has most (if not all) of that, and already has Hulu Plus. And Hulu Plus was a huge disappointment. For those that don't know, ONLY 'plus' content can be streamed to a device directly. You can't watch the vast majority of Hulu's catalog directly on your TV/PS3/whatever. It cost me $10 to learn that.
Also, doesn't Hulu Plus have ads? I will pay $10 for a bunch of ads when hell freezes over.
(This is why I don't read magazines.)
Re: Sony beat the Apple TV without Google TV
#10My Samsung TV has most (if not all) of that, and already has Hulu Plus. And Hulu Plus was a huge disappointment. For those that don't know, ONLY 'plus' content can be streamed to a device directly. You can't watch the vast majority of Hulu's catalog directly on your TV/PS3/whatever. It cost me $10 to learn that.
Also, doesn't Hulu Plus have ads? I will pay $10 for a bunch of ads when hell freezes over. (This is why I don't read magazines.)
Yeah, basically you're paying to have access to a larger catalog. It's kind of nice if you want to go back and watch X-Files from the beginning, I guess, but I'll probably cancel it when the month is up...