Is there anything worth looking forward to about Apple TV, which has not been abandoned by Apple?

There are less than ten days left before the much-anticipated Apple fall conference. Judging from the information currently revealed, the long-silent Apple TV is finally going to be updated.

Most consumers would think that Apple is no longer optimistic about the TV business, but no matter how pessimistic the outside world is, technology giants such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and Sony are still determined to develop TVs and related products.

As users realize, TV is gradually becoming a decoration in the living room, but this also proves the backwardness of the TV industry in the field of consumer electronics. After PCs, mobile phones, tablets and other electronic products have completed a round of revolution, the TV industry has become the most suitable soil for the growth of revolutionary products.

In this environment, high hopes are placed on the next iteration of Apple TV.

We are here to see the remote control

At present, the information about the new Apple TV that has been exposed by foreign media includes: Apple's new generation of Apple TV set-top box is equipped with A8 processor, the new Apple TV will have a new remote control with integrated motion sensor, it also integrates touchpad and physical buttons, and supports Siri voice assistant. In addition, Apple may launch a TV application store for Apple Watch, and games will account for a large proportion of it.

In Apple TV's usual "box + remote control" combination, the focus of this hardware innovation is on the new remote control.

Every electronic product of Apple is designed to be very "capricious", including the humble remote control. If you look closely at the existing Apple TV remote controls, you will find that no manufacturer is willing to make such a complicated process. From an industrial manufacturing perspective, the Apple TV remote control is completely dug out from an aluminum ingot without any screws. This process, called unibody, is also used in the manufacture of Mac notebooks, but the small size of the remote control requires higher manufacturing technology. When interviewing a domestic user about his experience of buying an Apple TV, he replied: "Even if the content has no meaning in China, being able to see and feel the Apple TV remote control with my own eyes makes me feel that my money is not wasted."

As for the inclusion of motion sensing technology in Apple TV, it is indeed not groundless. As early as 2009, Apple had obtained a patent for the "Magic Wand" remote control. From the content of the patent, it can be seen that this technology can realize multimedia fast forward/rewind, rotate pictures, and adjust the screen size according to distance.

When the patent was first released, Apple said that this technology could provide users with a more natural control experience. In terms of effect, the Magic Wand is similar to the somatosensory controller of the Nintendo Wii, and the addition of the touchpad also increases the operable range of the remote control.

On the other hand, there is a strong demand for the Siri voice assistant to be integrated into Apple TV, but one thing to note is that Siri is not just a simple voice recognition. Currently, TV remote controls with voice recognition are everywhere on the market, and the biggest function of this type of remote control is to be able to find the corresponding content on the Internet TV through voice commands.

The difference between Siri and simple voice recognition is that it is better at understanding what users want and giving appropriate recommendations. This is easy to understand through the voice assistant on the phone. For example, when you pick up the remote control with Siri and tell it: "I am very tired today." Then Siri will say: "Then you need to relax." Then push some soothing music options on the TV screen, or it will directly prompt you: "You need to turn off the TV and take a rest."

Therefore, the model of Siri on TV should be: Siri = voice recognition + semantic analysis + data matching. However, there are also doubts about it. The TV usage environment itself is noisy. Can Siri accurately recognize commands? The public nature of TV will also test Siri's identity recognition of different users.

In general, the functions on the new Apple TV remote control are still worth looking forward to, or we would like to see how Apple perfectly adapts these not-so-trendy control technologies to the TV.

By the way, video games

When products such as Roku 3, Amazon Fire TV and Google Nexus Player were launched, their gaming functions attracted attention from the industry, but in the end, the TV gaming terminal was still dominated by Microsoft Xbox and Sony PS.

Although the outside world has always believed that Apple should strengthen its support for Apple TV's gaming functions, the touchpad and somatosensory functions of the new remote control exposed this time will also enhance the game control experience, and it is predicted that a dedicated app store will be launched to promote game development. Judging from the current leaked hardware performance, the games in Apple TV are still more inclined to casual games, and it is not possible to become a real disruptor in the home game console market for the time being.

As we all know, the main competition in the home game console market is game content, not hardware, and the construction of the content ecosystem is not a one-time thing. Judging from the recent major game exhibitions, the focus of console manufacturers is still "what our platform has, not how powerful my device is." If it is just porting mobile games, the game effects of Apple TV and Android TV boxes on the market are not much different. Perhaps this is also the original intention of Apple to build a special application market on TV - without porting.

It doesn't mean that Apple TV has no appeal in terms of TV games. Perhaps it can tell us how casual games should develop on TV. After all, there have always been many criticisms about directly controlling TV games with the remote control.

In addition, regarding the Internet TV service in Apple TV, according to a Bloomberg article citing "people familiar with the matter", "industry executives predict that Apple's Internet TV service may not be launched until later this year or before 2016 because of negotiations hindered by technical and financial issues."

Regardless, the industry is still looking forward to Apple TV, after all, the TV industry is in urgent need of new technologies to achieve breakthrough changes. But for domestic users, if you want to buy a new Apple TV to replace the cheap domestic TV box at home, I would like to remind you that under supervision, the expensive Apple TV may be thrown away in the end.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.