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Smart TVs are dumb

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Re: Smart TVs are dumb

#71

Post by gfodor »

jfb wrote: post #69
gfodor wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. The opportunity that will be there when I can hack out an app to run on millions of TVs is going to be as much a paradigm shift as the phone. (and yes, i know about the console attempts, but they are shit execution and only applicable to games really.) The TV ecosystem is basically the Apple playbook to a T: let the competitors try to design a more computer-esque smart version of a dumb device. Laugh heartily at…

The problem here is that the TV hardware business is chicken feed compared to the TV content business. And while Apple is very, very good at negotiating with content owners, the money in TV is tied up in really, really complicated and retrogressive contracts, and the TV people perceive Apple as predatory, entirely missing the point of what happened to the record industry.

Well, yeah. That's why it's 2013 and we still don't have our iTV. My prediction is at launch the contracts with the content providers will be fairly unappealing to consumers, once the fine print is understood, and the media will yawn. (HN will predictably announce iTV as a dud because of the content payment model being inferior to X, Y or Z.)

But the UX will be compelling and there will inevitably be a few "killer apps." Once the iTV is in the living room the experience will be frictionless enough people will probably start buying content that is technically more expensive than on competing platforms anyway. (all-you-can-eat vs pay-as-you-go, Apple will probably go for pay-as-you-go to start out.) That'll drive adoption so that Apple will build marketshare quickly enough to provide leverage to pull the content providers into the 21st century. But even the starting point they need to be to provide a MVP is probably tough to get to.

This has nothing to do with the fact that if and when it ever exists Apple will have basically rendered the current "Smart TV" user experience an embarrassment to the industry.

Re: Smart TVs are dumb

#72

Post by __david__ »

MiguelHudnandez wrote: post #10

One reason to resent the pervasiveness of new technology -- not that it's inherently bad or that we're becoming luddites, but we don't want to deal with each company's separate and probably-shitty implementation of something we can do well on our computers. My refrigerator does not need to tweet. My refrigerator is supposed to keep things cold. That's all I expect from it. I don't want a half-baked inventory manageme…

20 updates is ludicrous. It's strange they don't coalesce that down to one big update.

> So, now, given the option to connect something to the Internet, I probably won't.

That may be going too far. I recently had my XBox360's network disconnected without realizing it and put in an old game I had just bought. I played for a good 4 hour stretch, saved the game and quit. When I came back the saved game was corrupt. Turns out there was an update and I could have saved myself a huge hassle if I had had it plugged in to the internet...

Re: Smart TVs are dumb

#73

Post by gonehome »

chaostheory wrote: post #22
mietek wrote: post #7

It's time for Apple to step in and show everyone how it's done. Of course, once this happens, a lot of people will develop selective amnesia, as it happened with phones.

Too late. Roku's already done it.

I've heard the roku3 is different, but the roku2 I found really irritating.

First you pay extra for the roku with USB so that you can plug in a hard drive and play local content, but the roku doesn't even support .avi files - in fact it basically supports nothing locally.

The interface is also terrible, but I can forgive that since the box itself is a little under powered. What I found really obnoxious was that they put a banner ad on the bottom of the screen. I don't want to pay for a set top box just to have a giant ad on the front of it.

The only redeeming quality the roku had was the third part channel you can install on it, Plex (http://www.plexapp.com/). Roku should just replace their software team with the guys writing plex. Plex had a much nicer looking interface (with no ads) that connected to the plex server running on my desktop. All meta data was pulled down and all of my directories were immediately recognized and organized.

Re: Smart TVs are dumb

#74

Post by jfb »

gfodor wrote: post #71
jfb wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem here is that the TV hardware business is chicken feed compared to the TV content business. And while Apple is very, very good at negotiating with content owners, the money in TV is tied up in really, really complicated and retrogressive contracts, and the TV people perceive Apple as predatory, entirely missing the point of what happened to the record industry.

Well, yeah. That's why it's 2013 and we still don't have our iTV. My prediction is at launch the contracts with the content providers will be fairly unappealing to consumers, once the fine print is understood, and the media will yawn. (HN will predictably announce iTV as a dud because of the content payment model being inferior to X, Y or Z.) But the UX will be compelling and there will inevitably be a few "killer ap…

The idea of an app ecosystem for TV content is enormously appealing to the consumer, but in a world where one half of the internet access duopoly buys a content licensing company, the resistance from entrenched interests is going to be Stalingrad bitter.

Re: Smart TVs are dumb

#75

Post by readme »

I configured an LG smart tv while over my girlfriend's uncle's house on easter. I found the user experience quite frustrating. My biggest peeve was the OSD keyboard. When using the number pad, numbers on the remote did not have any effect (gf's uncle's qualm. This is why people can't configure their own stuff. It's not their fault. It's bad design.) Then, the OSD keyboard was also super confusing for entering capital letters or punctuation. There was a three state mode key that was always set to one of (abc, ABC, or punctuation) so that at any given time, one of the three states was inaccessible without having to reason about the three way toggle key. I found this incredibly confusing, Since showing both of the other states as two keys would have required the same engineering effort, I was disappointed.

Finally, we found that it had a section of horrible OEM crapware under "apps", including an app called "Angry Ducks". Finally, we found netflix under another section outside of apps called "Premium"

:|

Re: Smart TVs are dumb

#76

Post by macspoofing »

pavanky wrote: post #66
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Apple does something here, I guarantee you that you will be wrong. The big thing is the if . Apple isn't going to enter this space to create another "me, too" product. They are only going to enter the space if they can do to TV what the iPhone did to mobile phones. A lot of people think Jobs' implied that they had figured out the TV interface. I hope so, because I'm with a large majority of others in this thread:…

I really don't get it why people over here are heads over heels about Apple. They most definitely will not re-invent the wheel.

>I really don't get it why people over here are heads over heels about Apple.

Track record. They released several revolutionary products in the last ten years.

>They most definitely will not re-invent the wheel.

Maybe the wheel hasn't been invented yet. There is a lot of potential to disturb the "SmartTV" market. The current offerings are mediocre, at best.

Re: Smart TVs are dumb

#77

Post by josho »

droithomme wrote: post #63

My TV, which is fairly new and a well known brand, takes 30 seconds to boot up from a warm standby state, and several minutes from a cold state. What's more annoying than that though is that it takes a full second to change channels due to the needed signal capture and buffering for DTV signals. The interface is abysmal and even with a HDMI cable and the BluRay set to the right resolution (a chore in itself), I still…

Reading this & the OP I am stuck with one question. Upon purchasing your Smart Tv and experiencing that it really was rather stupid why did you not immediately pack it up and return it?

Not returning the tv tells Samsung et al that selling junk is acceptable.

Re: Smart TVs are dumb

#78

Post by antrix »

DaneelO wrote: post #44

I recently bought an LM558600 and my experience has been contrary to almost everyone elses here. I've found that the remote is very sensitive and usable, and a large improvement over standard n/s/e/w remotes due to the nature of modern interfaces requiring more complex input. It makes entering alphanumeric input far easier too. It takes a little getting used to, but I didn't have the problems others mentioned, nor th…

> Sony's solution is called Homestream[1] which is just a transcoder.

Sony's Homestream is just string replace s/Serviio/Homestream :)

Serviio: http://www.serviio.org/

Re: Smart TVs are dumb

#79

Post by JVIDEL »

georgemcbay wrote: post #23

In the last days of Chumby we were doing a lot of work with "Smart TV" platforms from Insignia[BestBuy]/Tivo, LG, Samsung, Vizio, etc, and this problem is (or was as of a year ago) pervasive among almost all the "Smart TV" platforms we developed for. It seemed ludicrous to me that they thought it was okay for your TV to have a 30 second to 2 minute bootup time. The Samsung TV we had was the only one actually smart en…

Try Android stick PCs, there are quadcore models on the way and its amazing how well it works considering its not much bigger than two packs of juicyfruit.

Re: Smart TVs are dumb

#80

Post by sxp »

This horrible UI is true of most "smart devices" that are designed by companies whose primary proficiency isn't software. I own a PS3, Vita, and Nintendo 3DS which all have unimaginably shitty UIs with long loading screens. Prior to these devices, my video game machine was an XBox 360 and a PC. While we all like to poke fun at MS for the quality of their products, they have amazing UI compared to the majority of companies. The only companies that seem to be able to be able to create usable UIs for complex machines are Apple, MS, and Google (disclosure: I work for Google) who have been able to apply their skills at creating general software UIs to creating high quality device UIs. Any time I use the UI on my TV, cable box, car, video game machine, or other "smart" device, I always feel like bashing my head against the device to make it work faster.
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