minimalmac:

The iPhone, iCloud, iPad, iTunes, OS X Lion, iOS, Apple TV, the MacBook Air, and the iMac are all Apple products. But they are more than that. In aggregate they are one single product. Apple’s product lineup is, in and of itself, a single product.

Shawn nails it with this one.

Personally, I’m sorry to see this program go…

Click the headline above for Cult of Mac’s take on how and why Apple should use it’s billions to crush Hollywood, then come back for my take.

Ready? My take is “Yes, but…”…

I agree that Apple should use some ofnthe money they have tucked away to stomp on the dimwits who have held back the video entertainment industry for better than a generation. But build a TV set? Buy or start local cable companies? Give an all-or-nothing ultimatum to the industry? Wrong to the 3rd power.

I do agree with the first step here — buy Netflix. Boom. Giving Netflix the advantage of Apple’s advanced tech and human I terrace expertise and Apple an instant streaming service already adopted so widely would terrify the morons who control Hollywood policy-making.

But Apple doesn’t need a better DVR or a 50” plasma attached to an Apple TV box. Instead, spend money on compelling content. Go directly to the best and brightest in movies & TV and make deals to finance the creation of top-drawer exclusive content. Start with a number of Apple-only TV series by known hitmakers, with weekly episodes to which you can subscribe or buy/rent individually. Create a couple of killer movies that the Hollywood middlemen never get their hands on.

What could be created if Apple handed a group of creators around one billion dollars and said “make something insanely great”? What would a Ron Howard or a Tom Hanks or a Joss Whedon be able to do with cash in hand and the knowledge that they didn’t have to sell their souls or deal with one more Hollyweird dolt who couldn’t make a movie or TV series if his life depended on it, but who has the power to cripple one on a whim?

How many people would fork over $99 for an Apple TV just to watch even 2 or 3 killer series a year from such creators — especially if they knew the purchase would help drive a stake through the heart of the vampires at the MPAA?

Apple-created content alone will not bury Hollywood’s idiot elite, but it could force them to compete by trying to reach the same audience instead of thumbing their noses at it. And it may teach more creators that the “system” is not protecting them but rather just holding them back. And that could be, dare I say it?, revolutionary.

In an article at AppleInsider today, Josh Ong discusses reports that Apple may be working on a “Smart TV” prototype in a bid for the digital living room. Ong reported that “analyst Katy Huberty of Morgan Stanley wrote that the firm’s ‘checks in Asia suggest Apple is working on a Smart TV prototype.’ Though further details remained scarce, Huberty speculated that an Apple Smart TV could be an opportunity for the Cupertino, Calif., company to consolidate ‘TV/Video content, gaming, DVR, as well as other features like apps and FaceTime into one product,’ much like the company did with its strategy for the iPad.

Ong’s article is interesting, but I’m still not sure I buy Huberty’s thesis about Apple’s prototype, or Gene Munster’s similar long-held belief in an Apple-branded TV coming “real soon now”. I can’t make myself believe that Apple would enter such an already-glutted market of internet-enhanced TVs unless they can do two things:

1. Apple must bring a product to the table with a mix of features and potentialities that are so far beyond what the current market leaders offer that it disrupts that market and immediately establishes a new baseline for the category. As Apple did with the iPod, iPhone and iPad, Apple must produce a product which so fully outperforms the category that it demands attention.

2. Apple must do so in a way that establishes a clear and continuing profit center, with customers driven to upgrade equipment on a regular basis and supplement Apple’s income by supporting an Apple-dominated income stream tied to the device category. For the iPod, there is iTunes, for the iPhone there is the App Store, for the iPad it only starts with both of these — there will be more.

The first release of such a product does not have to be a total world-beater. Apple often takes time to refine a product’s focus over time. But from the first product it must show an exciting new direction that forces everyone else to play catchup from that moment on.

The iPod was not the first MP3 player, but it offered an ease of use and music capacity that made the category more than a high-tech toy. It offered a music player alternative that was so far beyond portable tape and disc players that it was not long before even casual music fans equated “iPod” with “music”. The companies already in the market never recovered their lead, and Apple owned the category before even much larger firms could gain any toehold.

The iPhone entered a market long grown stagnant in the hands of companies who thought of their consumers as captives. The market had abandoned innovation and customer-focus entirely. Apple offered a phone that was more than a phone — one that spoke to a long-suppressed consumer desire for an integrated portable information device. It was pricey, and it tied to a carrier not exactly known for flexibility and innovation, but it didn’t matter. The core concept was just right. Even a company like Google that was also known for innovation, dominating moves, and cutting-edge technology savvy — and running as hard as they can they still can barely stay within sight of Apple and the iPhone.

The iPad didn’t even have a market to enter, but it used the concept of a tablet computer to sneak under the radar. Some people thought of it as a big iPad Touch, some thought of it as a substitute for a netbook, and some saw a book reading device or a movie viewer. Most of the competition still pursues each of these goals and has no idea what the iPad is at all. The iPad 2 is the first refinement of what the iPad is becoming — a whole new device with its own set of capabilities that have yet to be explored.

The only way Apple will enter the TV market is with a device that is a quantum leap beyond where everyone else is right now. The original Apple TV was not such a device. It was a test to see what directions such a device would need to take. Apple TV 2 is a further refinement, testing other directions. But neither is a major diversion of Apple’s resources in the same way that the iPod, iPhone and iPad all were created.

I have no doubt that Apple can— and almost certainly will — dominate our living room media consumption as part of an ever-growing master plan. But I think they know already that an Apple-branded TV set won’t do it.

Apple must be able to offer a necessary package of category-dominating features and services effectively and in a way that brings maximum profits by providing the entire television package. And it is here where I think the concept of an Apple-branded television set fails. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how offering the whole TV package makes a stronger product, nor can I see it playing into Apple’s continual-upgrade or software strategies.

Apple might well build a prototype television set, but not as a serious product line. It would be more in the line of a proof-of-concept product like the existing Apple TV, or a showcase for an attempt to license a package of Apple technologies to tie third-party TVs to Apple’s ecosystem and services. This may be Apple’s next step, but it isn’t the goal.

If I knew the goal, I’d be helping to create it instead of just talking about it. But I do think it is bigger than an Apple television set. If I were in Steve Jobs’ shoes and had his position and abilities, I’d be aiming higher. The ultimate goal must be something that disrupts the whole cable/satellite/DVD/digital entertainment miasma and bypasses it to bring media consumers what they want in a clear, direct, and painless manner so that they separate themselves from their money without thinking about it. People will not replace large-screen TVs on a yearly basis, nor does owning the display screen offer Apple significant advantage over supplying a third-party display through a wire or a wireless connection.

The Apple TV 2 (and each further incremental advance on it) provides a way for Apple to send anything it wants to a third-party TV set without taking on the enormous manufacturing, marketing and support costs of making television sets. But these are peripherals, which need to be kept inexpensive so they can be frequently replaced with the latest model. The real breakthrough product will be a device that brings together everything you want to send to a screen and controls it all. Google wanted that from the Google TV concept, but (like so many Google concepts) it fails in ease of use. flexibility of execution, and consistency. Apple’s eventual solution will have all of that, in a way that leaves Apple holding the reins.

But it doesn’t need to be built into your display screen, and I just can’t convince myself that it will be.

I’ve been thinking about Netflix lately.

I’m preparing to buy a new $99 Apple TV to replace the original model that died with a temperature-sensitive failure a short time back. One of the cool features of the new model is the ability to show streaming Netflix content on your TV.

I was a very early Netflix subscriber, and called for Apple to make a Netflix content deal — or even buy Netflix outright — even before the Apple TV was actually released.

In those days (Feb. 2007) Netflix stock was selling at about US$23 per share. Today, it is worth about US$140 per share. Apple should have listened.

Unfortunately, Netflix parted company with me not long after the Apple TV release. My move to a new home coincided with the mysterious non-delivery of Netflix discs. Despite my sincere efforts to be sure nothing on my end of the equation was causing the problem, Netflix gave my my walking papers. I wrote about it in what became one of the the most-read and most-commented posts in my former blog.

CouchApple.tv 2/14/2007: Netflix makes it easy… to leave

The posting was linked and discussed on HackingNetflix.com. I received a lot of responses via email from other Netflix subscribers who had also been dropped with rather snarky letters implying that they had stolen the missing discs that led to Netflix severing ties with them. It was this aspect of the Netflix letter and my situation that I most objected to — the “subtle” hint that all would be forgiven if I just returned what I stole. Quoting my termination email from Netflix Customer Service:

We hope that by being alerted of this situation, you may be encouraged to locate the problem in your area and recover any additional mail that may have been compromised. If you are able to locate any of the titles that have been marked as lost on your account, or have additional information that would aid us in the recovery of our merchandise, please let us know. At that time, we would be willing to reconsider our decision and cancel any investigations that may need to be initiated. Please understand that we do not blame you for these losses.

So they didn’t blame me for the losses… but they would only reconsider and cancel further investigations if I returned the discs that were never delivered to me. Heck, I had requested that Netflix start an investigation from their end, as I had initiated with the USPS on mine. Instead, they dropped me.

But life went on and I enjoyed renting movies through my new Apple TV. I remained (and still remain) an admirer of Netflix’s business model. They’ve even sent me invitations to return. But (as I think you can tell) I have never gotten over being called a thief after spending considerable time and money to assure that the discs were never even getting to my mailbox in the first place. Especially after this appeared in my local newspaper:

CourierPress.com 2/13/2010: Evansville Postal Employee Sentenced for Theft of Netflix Movies

Yep, a postal employee in my home town was sentenced for theft of over 400 Netflix movies. Was he the one intercepting my Netflix discs before they got to my mailbox? I’ll never know for sure. But it was obviously someone like him — someone who got them before they hit my mailbox. And Netflix dropped me as a customer and implied strongly that I was a thief rather than investigate that possibility at the time. I’ll admit… that still hurts.

Now I am on the verge of purchasing a new Apple TV, and Apple is partnering with Netflix. There is no doubt that, even if you never get a disc though the mail at all, Netflix is looking more like a great deal than ever. But I still feel I was treated dishonorably. When I buy the new Apple TV, I’ll have a decision to make.

What do you think?

The new Apple TV has no internal storage, so it doesn’t look like we’ll be running Boxee on it any time soon. (Darn it…) But there’s still a USB port… A tiny micro-USB port, anyway…

The CouchGuy has been doing a lot of thinking about the September 1 Apple Event. As has become traditional, the invitation for the event seems to indicate a focus on music, and it is certainly time for the annual iPod/iTunes refresh. That may indeed be most of what will happen on September 1, but I suspect that there is a broader media strategy that is going to come out of this. Some may be drizzled out over the next few weeks and only hinted at in the festivities coming a week from Wednesday as I write this. Here is my predictions, however, for the scope of what the early Fall rollouts will bring from Apple.

HARDWARE

iPod Nano

The evidence seems to be irrefutable that we are going to see a major change (again) in the form factor of the iPod Nano. The new Nano will ditch the venerable click wheel for a square-shaped mini-touch screen, not a lot bigger than the current Nano screen is now.

The new Nano will keep the video camera (with perhaps some enhancements) and a standard dock connector, but all navigation will be done on the touch screen. This thing is small enough that it might even make a groovy-looking watch, though I suspect that it would be left to the third-party licensees to make a watchband case unit for it.

It is not inconceivable that we could see some limited rollout of apps for such a device, were it to have wi-fi — but I think that’s a stretch. Maybe next iteration…

iPod Touch

It is definitely time to bring the iPod Touch up to snuff with the iPhone 4, and again the evidence seems pretty clear that a new retina display, A4 processor, and front and rear cameras will be part of the iPod Touch’s new design. With cameras in place, FaceTime is a virtual certainly on the device, running iOS4.

It may or may not be a bit early for Apple to take this unit to a maximum capacity of 128GB, but I predict they will either roll it out that way or release an upgraded version as soon as they can secure the flash memory to handle it. Less likely (but possible) is a 3G data option similar to that for the iPad. After all, why should Apple (and AT&T) leave all that iPod Touch owner money on the table that is now going to devices like the Mi-Fi portable wireless hotspot.

Devices You Will Not See

Say goodbye to the iPod Classic, right away if the iPod Touch upgrades to 128GB capacity at the top end, or right after Christmas if it does not. I’ve loved the various classic iPods I’ve owned, but that design’s days are really over.

There will be no new iPod Shuffle, but I expect to see the current model (in my mind, still inferior to the clip-style unit that Mrs. CouchGuy clings to) stay in the line, perhaps for as much as another year. It is still useful for Apple to have a true low-end iPod.

If you are hoping for a 7” iPad, I think you are likely to be disappointed at this time. There is no incentive at all for Apple to introduce a smaller iPad right now when they are still selling the big one as fast as they can make it — especially with a heavy-duty refresh of the iPod Touch. I think it would really upset iPad buyers if Apple released a smaller iPad with features (like a camera) that the full size iPad lacked — and you are not going to see any more iOS4 devices released without a camera from here on in. Next year, they will certainly refresh the iPad with a camera-equipped model and maybe introduce a baby brother for it, but not until late 2011 at least.

Apple TV

It is quite possible that Steve Jobs will not unveil a new Apple TV at the September 1 event, but if not it will certainly not be more than a few weeks behind. It might be best to do it now, as it certainly would nail down the whole iOS4/iTunes ecosystem I suspect is behind the Apple media strategy at this time.

The rumored specs for the new Apple TV are probably pretty close to correct, but I just can’t quite bring myself to embrace the name iTV yet. No matter what it is called, however, expect an iOS4-powered device with a better processor (Apple A4?), improved graphics (though perhaps not 1080p yet), and relying on wi-fi streaming instead of internal storage. (Enabling external storage via USB is a possibility.) Apple will want to keep this unit lean and mean to keep the price down, so it will probably not support anything but HDMI video output, though they will keep both optical and RCA audio output from the original model.

The new Apple TV will provide all the same big-screen access to iTunes-based media files as the original, and be even easier to navigate and use.The big draw for the new model, however will be — of course — apps, enabled by the switch to the iOS4 operating system. Apple TV apps will be added to the App Store, and there There are hints around that some providers have already prepared apps, and there will probably be a way to run at least some iPad apps on the device from Day 1.

Wireless control of the device will be (preferably) through iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch apps, or through the new Magic Touchpad. App focus will include games (perhaps using the accelerometers and gyroscopes of the various iOS4 touchscreen devices for Wii-like action), infolinks for news/weather and entertainment, and — of course — access to internet-based entertainment media content via Pandora, Netflix, Hulu Plus, and many other vendors. This will simply blow the wheels out from under Google TV before it even gets started.

I can’t understand why, if Apple goes this far, they wouldn’t go all the way and enable FaceTime for this device as well, probably by way of a camera/microphone accessory device rather than building it in to the main unit. The base unit will sell for about $99, making it an easy must-buy purchase for almost anyone who already has other Apple media devices and iTunes-based content.

iOS 4.1

The new devices here are likely to run iOS4.1, and rollout of a software update for some (but not all) older devices is likely at the same time. I think it likely that the iPad version of iOS4 is still a few weeks away at this time, but it will be coming very soon and a firm date will probably be announced September 1.

I believe that one of the big additions to iOS4.1 will be wireless sync and updating across the whole iOS family — iPhone 4, new iPod Touch and new Apple TV are likely to have it at rollout, and iPad will get it as soon as iOS4 for iPad ships. It is possible (but I don;t consider it real likely) that the new Nano will have wi-fi and get this as well.) The capability will make devices a lot more independent (but not totally so) of desktop systems.

iTunes ecosystem

Wireless sync and update make it possible to change the focus of iTunes a bit, and it is about time. First of all, that name has to go, as familiar as it is. Something like iMedia is far more appropriate.

The iTunes software is far overdue for some real revision, and what Apple may do here is anyone’s guess. If it we my call, I’d move toward a new and much leaner iTunes (pardon… “iMedia”) client to ship with the new devices and be immediately available for download for all existing devices. This would handle a more basic level of media management and device support for all iOS4 devices, and be the minimum default hub for them. The current iTunes client is pretty bloated and getting prety slow and clunky because of it.

I would like to see the iTunes store functions spun off entirely into a web-based format for when you are not buying direct from a device. Apple has been beefing up the web presence of the iTunes store already, so it is reasonable to think they might go this route. More social media functionality could and should be added to the base iMedia experience through the basic Mac/Windows clients and the device-based clients.

What the iTunes (iMedia? Please?) ecosystem really needs is a hardcore and versatile Server version. The few problems I personally had with Apple TV streaming were mostly attributable to an overburdened iTunes install. A robust server would make an all-streaming new Apple TV design much more useful.

An iMedia server edition would be a chance to really provide enhanced file handling, sorting and streaming capability for those of us who make heavy use of iTunes-based media. the software should support remote administration via web or an iOS4 app, making it perfect for running on a headless Mac Mini dedicated to the purpose.

When iTunes was first designed, it was intended for a “rip and play” paradigm where a relatively modest number of music tracks were taken from CDs and moved to a single iPod device. These days, most families and a lot of individuals have multiple devices to be supported. The current iTunes client is essentially the same as the original client in many respects. It runs on an iMac that is my primary desktop installation. Getting it to support files stored on multiple drives requires a lot of workarounds and is not really supported well. Keeping up with multiple devices (my iPad and iPod Touch, Mrs. CouchGuy’s iPod Shuffle, our Apple TV, a Windows XP desktop computer running Media Server, and two iBook laptops) is a balancing act that works poorly.

A new iMedia server edition would be designed from the ground up to support both audio and video of all kinds with robust multidrive, network & cloud storage and backup options. Enhanced media sharing options should allow you to buy or rip media once, and use it across all devices. Individual accounts for family members should be easier to manage, and so should adding additional storage for more media files.

If Apple were to offer this kind of an iTunes upgrade, it should ship with all new Macs, but I would expect Apple to charge a modest amount for it ($49 to $99, tops) for Windows & existing Macs. Apple might even forgo a Windows version entirely. I don’t really expect to see all this rolled out September 1, but if Apple is serious about retaining iTunes (iMedia!) as the hub of your digital media world, it needs to make this sort of change, and soon.

Oh, yes… If Apple TV gets a refresh and we get a more robust version of iTunes/iMedia, expect DVR-type software like elgato’s EyeTV to get upgraded to take advantage of it VERY quickly.

“One more thing…”

The event wrap-up is where I’d expect a wild card, and what better wild card than the TV show rental program that’s been talked about for so very long. the CouchGuy is not convinced that a 99 cent per episode TV show rental program is enough to make the kind of game-changing move that Apple needs.

As much as it surprises me, I’d be more likely to buy into the sort of 99 cent monthly “subscription” program predicted by Leander Kahney recently in Cult of Mac. (See http://bit.ly/cj3A56 for more details.) If 99 cents bought a month’s access to a whole TV series, that might be both attractive to the viewer and acceptable to enough content providers to work out. Would this happen at the September 1 event? Maybe, or maybe soon thereafter. But it would be a great note for Steve Jobs to go out on if Kahney turns out to be right.

We’ll know soon, but it is fun to speculate. I expect the September 1 event is going to be the most interesting in quite awhile.

The past week’s Google TV announcement reveals at last Google’s plan to extend their search expertise and dominance to the much bigger potential market offered by the TV market. Google began their presentation of Google TV by pointing out just how big the TV market is, with 4 billion TV users (4 x the size of the PC user base) and $70 billion in ad revenue on the table. It is certainly understandable for Google to want to be as big a part of that ecosystem as it is of the web.

Nor can I find fault with Google’s explanation of why the TV market is that much bigger than the PC/web market. Google says in the opening minutes of their pitch that TV is big because it “just works”. Users do not have to worry about a morass of inconsistent and even conflicting standards for hardware and software. A user can turn on the TV and the content is just there, ready for the user.

Google also points out that TV faces a challenge now because, increasingly, the content isn’t “just there”. A lot of the content TV users want is in the cable and satellite boxes (which are more complicated and user-unfriendly than they used to be) but an expanding amount of it is on the web. People want to consume that content in the same comfortable, familiar way they are used to — on their living room TV sets. Instead, they mostly have to gather around smaller and less convenient computer screens to get that part of the content, using tools and standards with which they are less comfortable and less proficient.

According to Google, there is a gap between TV-based content and web-based content that makes the content users want to see harder to find. They say that TV users don’t care where the content comes from as long as they can find it easily and see it on their living room TVs in a consistent manner. In so doing, Google is essentially declaring that bridging the content gap requires making the web-based content as easy to find and use in the living room as the TV-based content. In other words, if Google TV doesn’t preserve the easy TV experience by catering to the desires of the TV user (as opposed to catering to the desires of the web user), it will fail.

So far, I find myself in agreement (with one reservation I will discuss later) with what Google lays out from the very beginning. From the top, it seems they have thought a great deal about entering the TV market in a place where they are most suited to offer something compelling.

The Goals of Google TV

Google TV is more than a single product. It is an ecosystem for bridging the TV/web gap which attempts to unite hardware, software and content vendors to assure this unified user experience. Is the course they have charted in their announcement capable of meeting this goal? Let’s take a look.

Google says there are four things they want to accomplish with Google TV:

1. Allow the user to spend less time finding content and more time watching it.

This is where the undeniable dominance of Google’s search experience gives them a powerful advantage. More than any other player, Google is capable of sifting through vast amounts of data from widely different locations and in widely different formats and boiling down the results into something that is useful to the user.

Powerful and versatile search capability is the only thing that makes the chaos that is the World Wide Web at all usable for the average person. The fact that millions of non-tech-savvy people use the web every day in a useful manner is a direct result of the efforts of Google (and of competitors driven to keep up with Google). They were not the first search company, but they have consistently grown and set the standards by which every other such effort is now judged. No question about it — Google has a massive head start at accomplishing this portion of their overall goals.

2. Allow the user to control & personalize what they watch and when they watch it.

Google is good at offering personalization options, but not as good at making those options attractive. They are more likely to throw massive resources at something to allow those who don’t want to bother to personalize something to survive despite without bothering to learn Google’s spare and unattractive interfaces.

Gmail is a great example of the success through sheer scale. Gmail has added lots of ways to customize and tweak your user experience but the majority of users don’t bother as long as the speed of search and the capacity of the mail storage makes it possible to function without learning the ins and outs of that interface. TV users are going to be even less likely to want to customize their experience if the interface for doing so is not, in itself, compelling and interesting. Google is great at creating functionality, but not so hot at compelling and interesting interfaces for those functions.

3. Make a user’s existing TV content more interesting.

Google intends to make it easy for users to integrate web-based non-video data into their TV watching (sometimes using picture-in-picture technology to put the data alongside the video), and by encouraging users to share their viewing experience with others through social networking.

This sounds very promising. There is strong evidence that many TV viewers like to multitask and often use laptops and mobile devices to pull up and read data about the programs they are watching. Even so, Google’s existing record in these areas is still spotty.

Three of the most widely used databases for info that is fun to access while watching TV are Wikipedia, IMDB and TV.com — and Google owns none of those databases, nor do they interface in a particularly compelling and interesting manner with any of them. Google does own YouTube, which is an undeniably essential source of supplementary video content that, if well integrated into the user experience could make Google TV more attractive.

Google has also been moving more toward making YouTube a primary entertainment source as well, offering professionally-produced content for rent. The interface for getting to that sort of content, however, is inferior to the interface for a larger base of offerings from competitors such as Apple, Amazon and Netflix. Moving to the living room screen puts Google in direct competition with the cable and satellite vendors with their on-demand material as well. Again, Google will have to come from behind in this arena.

Nor has Google really shown an ability to understand and create social networks. Google Buzz opened with something that sounded far more like a wet “plop!” than a “buzz”. It may build and grow over time, but other players seem to be doing far better in social networking areas.

4. Make the TV more than a TV.

Google wants to take TV farther by bringing both web-based and platform-based applications to users that will enhance the TV experience. Google is counting on their experience with web-based Google Apps and the fast Google Chrome browser to provide a leg up in the former area, and on their Android mobile app platform for the latter. In fact, they are building the entire Google TV platform around Android and Chrome — touting the open source nature of these software standards as being a big reason they expect Google TV to succeed.

A third non-Google standard will form the backbone of their presentation technology for web video. Far from being the strength of Google TV, however, I suspect these choices may turn out to be the real death blow for Google TV.

With friends like these…

Google explains that Google TV is not just a product, it is a platform. This is true, but it appears they truly can count on consistency from almost none of the aspects of that platform, and this is the real weakness of the whole concept. If we believe in Google’s core assertion that the success of Google TV depends on a user interface that caters to the TV user, not the web user (and I do believe in it), Google seems to have left themselves ill-equipped to provide such a user experience by trusting the fate of the platform to a morass of hardware, software and content providers who are given little real incentive to put the TV user experience first in their planning.

If Google is relying solely on their partners’ good will and shared vision to hold Google TV together, they are likely to be bitterly disappointed and so are the TV users themselves. Google’s key partners are all big names, that is certain. But they are big names with little to gain by focussing their efforts on a consistent user experience that makes every source of content equally accessible without hassle.

Google has lined up Sony to build Google TV interfaces directly into TV sets. Logitech will construct a set-top box to let existing HDMI-interfaced sets play along and use a version of their Harmony universal remote control tech to tie together the rest of the user’s home theater components. Dish Network will integrate Google TV into their operation as well. Each of these will use Intel Atom chipsets as the basis for the graphics, video and audio processing of their hardware. On the sales side, Best Buy has been recruited to see to it that all this technology is put into the hands of TV users in a way that they can integrate it all for their own little piece of TV heaven.

Since Google controls none of the hardware side of the equation, the decisions of how Google TV is implemented at the device level is up to each hardware vendor. Again, past performance does not bode well for a smooth and consistent user-centric and content-agnostic result to come about.

Sony

Sony is good at making their hardware work well with other pieces of their hardware of the same vintage, and not so great at encouraging buyers to exercise freedom of choice in peripheral vendors. Indeed, they change their own standards often to encourage users to dump old hardware for new and “better” (read “more expensive”) models. Upgradability is also not Sony’s long suit. Upgrades are obtained by buying new hardware.

Further, Sony is not just a hardware manufacturer. They are also one of the largest content providers, committed strongly to protectionist measures in their hardware interfacing that assures that users will be forced to buy the same damn content again and again and again in different formats — and, of course, stored on Sony-exclusive media wherever possible. Having Sony as a primary hardware vendor assures maximum use of DRM to cripple legitimate use of purchased content by legitimate users — no matter how much this may muddy that clean user interface Google says they want.

Logitech

Logitech has existing products that work well to pull together peripherals and content from a wide variety of sources and force them to work in concert. The methods they use, however, are still more suited to the more tech-savvy individual.

The Harmony remote line only works at all because it uses the web to store and manage control profiles for the myriad pieces of IR-controlled home theater hardware out there. Even so, there is no consistency in user interface within the Harmony line itself, and most Harmony devices require one technogeek in the family to get everything set up so the rest of the family has any shot at all of using it. Chances are, that individual will be the only one who can make the Harmony remote work consistently, while everyone else sticks with the stack of individual device remotes. Most Harmony remotes I’ve seen in households (including my own) end up in a drawer, or are used only to control one or two devices in a manner no different than far less expensive dollar-store “universal” remotes.

I don’t dislike Logitech devices — they make damn fine equipment for computer users and I own several Logitech devices myself— but Harmony is in no way a panacea and the setup and user interface is still too complicated for most primary TV users.

The Logitech Google TV set-top box itself, which Engadget was able to examine and talk about in some detail, has some pretty impressive features, including some things often appearing on “wish lists” for an upgraded Apple TV. The chipset is newer and more robust, of course. The show search and universal remote, controlled in the demo linked above with an iPhone app, no less, look very geeky and cool. This might get a geek like me to buy it, but it isn’t something my wife or my mother-in-law is going to use in the form it appears here. The interface is still aimed at the techie not the couch potato.

Intel

Intel Atom is probably the only choice for the processors for the hardware. The various hardware vendors themselves, however, will tailor their use of these processors to enhance their hardware-exclusive features built into their version of Google TV, more than insuring maximum compatibility with other parts of the ecosystem. Google has no leverage to bring here, either.

Adobe

Intel Atom’s leadership with chip power that maximizes power efficiency is especially required, because Google has made one decision that is absolutely certain to require the most powerful, most expensive processing choices available. Google has embraced (and the fervor of their mutually-expressed affection allows for no other word) Adobe Flash 10.1 to deliver web-based content to Google TV.

Google’s enthusiastic adoption of Flash, more than any other decision made on the Google TV spec, flies in the face of most of their stated goals for the platform. Trouble-free use, easy upgradability, and operational efficiency go out the window when Flash drives your web video. Flash works only when you put a lot of muscle behind it to overcome the platform’s creaky, outdated architecture. Using Flash assures that Google TV hardware devices will be expensive, bug-ridden, intercompatibility-challenged, upgrade-delayed, crash-prone, power-sucking hotplates. (You think the Apple TV gets hot? If it had the hardware necessary to run Flash properly you’d be able to cook on it.)

Throwing chipset power and lots of juice at the problem will work for awhile on living room hardware, as it has for the computers we have in our offices and homes. But it appears Google will sacrifice the increasing desire of people to use their media on the move on the Holy Altar of Adobe Flash. Will the newest line of Android phones, running Flash, manage to meet some reasonable standard of reliability and battery life? The jury isn’t in yet, but based on past performance I’m not even betting on that. It is a sure bet that older phones — even ones running Google’s Android — won’t.

I guess that’s OK because it will please Massive MediaCorps no end to break the legs of mobile media use anyway. Maybe that aspect will help Google make content deals. It sure won’t help the TV users that Google says are essential to success, though. Google seems to have missed caring about the mobility that today’s TV watchers are beginning to crave. They won’t find it here. It appears mobile devices in Google TV-land are remotes for controlling your home theater, not a place to view your video within the Google TV ecosystem.

Worst of all, Google has left themselves completely dependent on Adobe for future enhancement of the primary use-case of their entire system — bringing web-based video to the screen. Should Adobe choose to sit with their thumbs up their rectums on making Flash better (as they have so far in the Mobile and Mac arenas) there will be nothing Google can do about it.

If Adobe doesn’t keep all versions of Flash for all platforms feature-compatible, Google TV devices will have to settle for whatever lowest-common-denominator capability that Adobe chooses to provide, or sacrifice interoperability across the rest of the system. This is a decision so monumentally short-sighted that I can only surmise that it is made in a fit of pique over Google’s recent rivalries with Apple, solely so they can be Flop to Apple’s Flip. If Google made such a core decision based only on a desire to be seen as for anything that Apple is against, I give the platform no chance at all in the long run. 

“Open” as in “wound”…

Nor is the fact that Google owns the other two core technologies behind Google TV — Android and Chrome — helping to assure the ease of use and inter compatibility they say is essential, These technologies as applied to Google TV are both to be offered fully open source. This is good news for hardcore developers and hardware people who want to be able to shape their Google TV implementations to any personally-beneficial form they desire. but is is bad news for the average TV user who wants consistency and trouble-free expandability. As a geek, I love open source because I like to play and customize. As a couch potato, I want consistency, not chaos.

As has happened with Android phones, every hardware vendor will implement Android a little differently. User interfaces and upgrade path will vary so widely that you’ll need a scorecard to keep track. This will go just as it has for smartphones.

Tech tweakers who enjoy the “journey” of setup and frequent maintenance as much as using the device will love the “openness” of Android. Unfortunately, the TV users Google fully understands are essential to making a go of Google TV don’t want to play, and tweak, and poke and prod and chatter endlessly about how to make things work, They want to turn on the TV and watch. Sony will have an app store for their Google TV sets which will no doubt be largely incompatible with apps and stores to enhance the Logitech boxes, the Dish Network installs, etc. As went Android, so will go Google TV.

Best Buy as the lead retail vendor will certainly benefit from maximum confusion, however. Users won’t have a chance in Hell to make all their Google TV stuff work together without a troupe of Geek Squadders to tell them how to connect it all. I imagine Best Buy will be very sure that no one gets out of the store without being encouraged to drop nearly as much on the support and extended warranty as on the hardware. Talk at the Google TV introduction made it clear that the need for user support was a major reason Google is so happy to have Best Buy on board from the start. That does not bode well for the a seamless user experience that TV users need.

So, how is it looking for “it just works”?

In the short run, this isn’t going to appear as dire as I have painted it. Geeks like me hungry to do more web-based media on their big screens will buy into this fairly heavily. (I can’t imagine buying the Sony TV just to get Google TV, but I might look at the Logitech box if they could make it a little cheaper than the $300+ figure that is being bandied about.)

In the long run, though, Google TV does not simplify either the TV experience of the web experience. Actually, it just adds the limitations of each to the other.

The platform’s TV experience relies on those users adapting to additional variables like variations in Android, Flash and third-party hardware manufacturers. The web experience also relies on additional variables that web users will have to hope go their way, including hoping cable/satellite vendors build boxes that allow Google TV integration and waiting for web designers to optimize websites for Google TV. (This comes along just as we are finally getting past Internet Explorer optimization holding the web back for so many year

With Google TV as it has been described, there is no one vision setting and maintaining standards. What makes TV compelling is that it DOES have solid standards. Every TV, cable/sat box and DVD/Blu-Ray player MUST meet and support those standards. Where they don’t (as with the expanded capabilities of some Blu-Ray players and DVRs) the experience is less compelling and consistent and adoption is slow, sporadic, or stalled altogether.

Google says they understand that they need the cooperation of users, developers and content owners to make this work (true) and they are counting on the fact that they are making the Google TV spec an open-source part of both the Android and Chrome source trees to give these three groups an incentive to work together.

In fact, the “openness” works against the clean TV experience they want. “Open” means that developers and content owners are “open” to ignore, change or subvert any parts of the standard that don’t meet their immediate desires and goals — and their desires and goals almost certainly are not the same as those of the user.

The Apple advantage

Apple is focused on the user experience, and uses the numbers that user experience generates to give the developers and content owners a strong incentive to play along. Google is trying to please everyone because they do not have enough leverage or control to assure that the hardware, software, and content people otherwise have any desire to support the system. Indeed, these groups — Sony, Adobe, the cable/sat providers — have every reason to enhance their piece of the pie, even if it cripples the overall experience for others. The result is likely to be chaos.

I honestly feel Google has good intentions here, but any company — Google, Apple, Sony, ANY company — must be primarily driven by what is good for them as a company first. In this case, there is an essential disconnect between what the TV-centered audience wants and what Google must have.

The TV audience wants content delivered easily & consistently. This just happens to be consistent with what Apple needs. Apple’s strengths are in creating and selling easy to use hardware & consistent content. That is how Apple makes money. Google’s strengths are in allowing users to find things they want amongst all the noise (which supports what users want) but it makes money from showing them ads. This means their primary customers, to whom they are most beholden, are the people buying those ads, not the TV user.

This would probably be OK if Google could guarantee TV users that buying into their platform (and the ads) will get them easy to access, consistent content. Unfortunately, they can’t honestly make that promise. Getting to the content depends on the platform meeting the needs of a precarious mix of 3rd party vendors, content providers, and cable/satellite companies. Google has a lot of money and weight to throw around but in the final analysis they can’t make any promises at all about how all their independent partners will behave.

Apple has consistency and ease of use down cold. They have the control necessary (and it is necessary) to ensure that everything works together. They build the compelling hardware that attracts large groups of content-hungry users. The desire to reach those users force content providers to play and makes the platform irresistible to developers — even when the developers chafe a bit at having to meet Apple’s more rigid platform standards.

Apple can leverage what they have in the mobile space to enhance what they offer in the TV space — but they need to do so soon. (See my recent article about my vision for Apple TV 2…) Google does not have either the user base or the hardware/software control to assure they meet their stated goal of making the Web/TV experience as consistent and easy to use as it must be to hold into the numbers of TV users they tout at the beginning of their presentation. Apple can offer that.

Apple must broaden their content offerings to grow Apple TV beyond “hobby” status. They can best do so by maintaining their focus on the user experience and leveraging their mobile platform’s already-demonstrated strengths. Google TV seems unlikely to be consistent and compelling enough to attract TV audiences in sufficient numbers to demand the attention and compliance of the hardware, software and content partners. Even if they can manage to hold this crazy quilt together, it will be at least a year before they will have enough of it in place to really be called a “standard”. It seems unlikely Apple (not to mention everyone else) will stand still in this arena that long.

With the iPad turning the tech world upside down, it has been awhile since this blog focussed on the product that, in many ways, was responsible for the blog’s creation in the first place — Apple TV. The CouchGuy continues to find Steve’s Little Hobby to be an indispensable part of his own home media setup.

After long hours trying to make Windows Media Player run through a WMP Extender and appear on my home TV, the CouchGuy family was able to bring our digital video to the big screen with ease after buying the first generation Apple TV. Within minutes of receiving the unit from UPS, I was streaming iTunes-based content wirelessly and I’ve been happily using my Apple Remote (and later my iPod Touch) from the comfort of the couch ever since.

But looking at the advances in digital media handling offered by the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad are making the Apple TV look a little long in the tooth by comparison. Yes, the Apple TV has had some improvements along the way. Buying and renting video directly from the iTunes Store has pretty much eliminated any desire I had to buy DVDs or “upgrade” to Blu-Ray, even after I moved to a lovely new HD widescreen set awhile back. The newest incarnation of the Apple TV interface is much cleaner and easier to use than the original as well.

But my new iPad will do so much more. With the Boxee, EyeTV and AirVideo apps on iPad I have access to much more than I can see on the Apple TV. Boxee’s app-based structure allows their offerings to grow and change quickly and serve narrowcasting audiences as well as the mass market. The EyeTV app brings the off-cable recordings I make myself using Elgato’s DVR dongles on my iMac streaming right to my iPad. (I can even launch EyeTV on the iMac from my couch, should I forget to leave the application running.) Most amazingly to me, I can use AirVideo to stream almost any video file on my home network to my iPad anywhere I happen to be, and let my iMac do the heavy lifting of transcoding the file on the fly to something my iPad will display. That is so freaking sweet!

Moreover, with more and more video sites embracing HTML5 open standards and dumping the anchor-around-the-neck that is Flash, my iPad can bring me video from an ever-widening array of web-based sources. It seems odd that I can sit in my easy chair and watch this streaming stuff on my iPad, but can’t easily share it with Mrs. CouchGuy by putting it up on the big screen in the family room.

The iPad is such a great media device — much, much better than any desktop or laptop computer on the market for that sort of purpose. Not just movies and music but great gaming and instant access to information, plus a tie to a global community of friends and correspondents. All this power and it never even gets warm, holds a charge all day, and is the easiest to use computing device I’ve ever had. I want my home theater system to be this good, too.

The time has come for Apple to use all it has learned from their ahead-of-its-time hobby machine and all they have learned from the phenomenal success of the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad as mobile entertainment devices and bring it together in one cutting-edge new piece of hardware.

It is time for a second generation to emerge. It is time for Apple TV 2.

What is Apple TV 2? It is my notion of iPhone/iPad style cutting edge tech brought to the Apple TV’s tasks. It is what the next phase of the Apple TV experiment can be. What should it bring to the table and how can it work? Here’s my vision:

The Best of the iPad to the Big Screen

The Apple TV 2 should be based on a ten-foot interface version of the simple iPhone OS, and should incorporate the integrated custom-chip power inherent in the iPad. A ten-foot interface cries out for simplicity, which is what the iPhone OS brings to the table. Movies, TV Shows, Music, Podcasts, Photos, YouTube, Settings and the iTunes Store all launch from icons you can arrange, customize or hide to suit yourself.

An Apple-style simple remote replaces a touch interface for the basic controls here. Those with iPhones or iPads, though, can control Apple TV 2 with touch-interface controls and keyboard. In the case of the iPad, the interface screen itself can be mirrored on the iPad screen, making it the next best thing to having a touch-interface HDTV and arms like Reed Richards.

Inside the box, Apple’s new custom chip sets and solid-state flash memory instead of a hard drive bring reliability, quiet, power and integration to the Apple TV that rivals the iPad’s own — without the heat problems the current model suffers. (Yeah, the CouchCat will miss her favorite heated winter perch. She’ll get over it.) New chipsets provide even more reliable wireless networking and streaming, fast video processing, in-box transcoding, and graphics power that will open new avenues for Apple TV 2 entertainment.

To take full advantage of the additional power, Apple TV 2 has more I/O options than the original model. The unit features HDMI output with a pass-through port, so it doesn’t use up your limited number of HDMI inputs on your HDTV. It also supports direct output to Mini DisplayPort. Hook it directly to a big Apple monitor, if you like, instead of an HDTV. Component video, optical audio, analog RCA stereo audio and Gigabit Ethernet ports are there, along with USB 3.0 802.11n wireless networking and the built-in IR receiver.

Bluetooth is the big story, however, allowing all manner of wireless peripherals to enhance the Apple TV 2 experience. Wireless keyboards work, of course, as do Bluetooth headphones. If you want to integrate the rest of your home theater components, Apple will sell you USB or Bluetooth IR blasters that attach to your components and let you use the Apple TV 2 interface, your iPhone or your iPad to control those, too, with the same Remote 2 app that runs your Apple TV 2.

There’s a Vapp for That

The other way the iPhone OS manifests itself in the Apple TV 2 is to make it endlessly extensible via Video Applications (aka “vapps”). All the existing Apple TV functions are now launched as vapps, and the additional processing power of the Apple TV 2 let’s you call up new sorts of vapps as well. Apple provides several new built-in widget-like vapps. One lets you view and modify your iCal, for example. Some vapps like that one can even be brought up while watching TV or videos in a picture-in-picture format.

But third-party partners can build and provide vapps, too, through the Apple TV 2 Vapp Store. The EyeTV vapp not only streams EyeTV recorded shows, it lets you set up recordings from your easy chair with a program guide interface. Wikipedia, TV.com and IMDB vapps instantly answer those “what is that actor’s name” questions for you. Breaking news scrolls from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, etc. Can run as vapps as well.

Some vapps can even interact with live TV shows. Vote on Dancing With the Stars with the ABC vapp, or watch “pop-up” commentary by Nathan Fillion right on top of the latest episode of Castle. Some vapps are primarily gateways to content providers, like the TWiTtv and Revision 5 vapps, on which you can watch live streaming programming.

Unlike the Apple App Store, the Vapp Store is populated with fewer but more polished and comprehensive vapps from trusted partners. Most are free, some require subscription paid through your iTunes account. A SafariLink vapp, however, lets you stream almost any HTML5 standards-based video you can call up on your iPhone or iPad browser to view on your big screen if you want to do so. Many of those sources, however, have vapps of their own.

And, of course, inevitably…

Let the Games Begin

Some vapps are games, and the more powerful custom chipset in the Apple TV 2 allows for very, very cool games indeed. The usual array of casual games are here, as might be found from the better iPad App Store vendors. but you can also get much more sophisticated games, including some that allow multiplayer action and even live play against people around the world. You can even use specialized wireless game controllers with some Apple TV 2 game vapps. Games could rapidly become a major reason to buy an Apple TV 2.

Welcome to the Video Social

Game controllers are not the popular Apple TV 2 peripherals. One or more iSight 2 video cameras can be connected to allow the family to gather around and share a photo slideshow with Grandma or a family video night with loved ones across the country. Picture-in-picture video chat to share a favorite show with your friends could become a favored pastime, especially if encouraged by the networks. (Sing Along With Glee, anyone?) Access the camera from your iPhone or iPad when you are away from the house to check up on the cat.

Another popular vapp is a home message board. Turn the TV on (which most of the family does the second they get home anyway) and get a visual reminder in one corner of the screen if a message has been left by a family member. Pull up the vapp (even picture-in-picture) if you want to check a message. A message can be some quick text, or you can even record a video message using the iSight 2. Forget to leave a message? Don’t worry, you can leave one remotely from your iPhone, and check the Apple TV 2 family message queue remotely as well.

An Apple TV 2 could become a strong new product line alongside the Macs, iPhones and iPads — no longer just a hobby — if Apple chooses to apply all they have learned from the mobile experience to the living room experience. What do you think? Ready to pre-order an Apple TV 2 yet?