jumping into the shark-infested waters of TV set production
Agreed. It doesn't pass my basic test of rumored products. Would I buy it? The answer in this case is no. I have a relatively new 1080P TV which works just fine. It cost me less than $500. I don't think there's anything Apple could do that would entice me to replace it. This coming from someone who owns a wide variety of Apple hardware. If they can't convince me to buy one then we've got some serious problems.
I'm really starting to think the TV rumors are just total misdirection. I think Apple is happy to let everyone assume they are slaving away to compete with Samsung, Vizio, LG, etc when in reality they are preparing to compete with Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PlayStation. This won't just be a software update for the AppleTV. Has anyone else noticed the Mac Mini is absent in the rumors of updated Macs? Wouldn't surprise me if it's redesigned, renamed, and becomes the new iTV device running iOS6 with an entirely new TV UI to ship late this year. This will give Apple the horse power to really compete with high end console games in a box that is still quiet and small enough to be in your living room. In the short term there will be lots of iOS ports but by this time next year I think you'll start seeing some serious high end console games appear. (the existing AppleTV sticks around as basically an accessory to the iTV and iOS devices)
I disagree on the MacMini front. MacMini is the de facto server offering from Apple. Since they discontinued their actual server product many companies are stacking the relatively inexpensive MacMinis in their data centers.
So MacMinis will definitely not be converted to be running iOS 6. They will need to stay Mac machines.
If you read my article then you will know that my hypothesis is rather for an embedded iOS on-a-chip that TV makers can license and through that enable any TV with the AppleTV software.
Agreed. It doesn't pass my basic test of rumored products. Would I buy it? The answer in this case is no. I have a relatively new 1080P TV which works just fine. It cost me less than $500. I don't think there's anything Apple could do that would entice me to replace it. This coming from someone who owns a wide variety of Apple hardware. If they can't convince me to buy one then we've got some serious problems.
I'm really starting to think the TV rumors are just total misdirection. I think Apple is happy to let everyone assume they are slaving away to compete with Samsung, Vizio, LG, etc when in reality they are preparing to compete with Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PlayStation. This won't just be a software update for the AppleTV. Has anyone else noticed the Mac Mini is absent in the rumors of updated Macs? Wouldn't surprise me if it's redesigned, renamed, and becomes the new iTV device running iOS6 with an entirely new TV UI to ship late this year. This will give Apple the horse power to really compete with high end console games in a box that is still quiet and small enough to be in your living room. In the short term there will be lots of iOS ports but by this time next year I think you'll start seeing some serious high end console games appear. (the existing AppleTV sticks around as basically an accessory to the iTV and iOS devices)