Monday, April 18, 2011

cdixon.org – chris dixon's blog / Apple and the TV industry

Excerpt from some speculation about the possibility that Apple will introduce a new type of TV (i.e., the type you hang on your wall, not just the current Apple TV approach), a scenario I consider likely (via All Things Digital)

[…] let’s imagine Apple develops a TV that is as groundbreaking as the iPhone was. The biggest problem “smart TVs” have today is that they need clunky IR transmitters to control set top boxes because the cable operators won’t willingly interoperate. So a new Apple TV would have to drum up such incredible consumer demand that the operators would feel compelled to support it. This does indeed seem harder in the TV than in the mobile industry. At least in the US you had 4 nationwide mobile operators at the time of the iPhone launch. In TV, consumers normally have at most two real choices for traditional cable programming – cable and satellite – and two real choices for two-way internet – cable and DSL/FIOS.

cdixon.org – chris dixon's blog / Apple and the TV industry

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