How Apple realized the TV that Steve Jobs wanted

Rumors about the next generation of Apple TV have been circulating since Steve Jobs passed away in October 2011. In March 2012, Apple released the third generation Apple TV, which obviously failed to satisfy everyone's appetite. Now more than three years have passed, and we still haven't seen the "legendary" Apple TV.

Rumors about Jobs and Apple TV

Before asking what the TV that Jobs wanted looked like, it's worth tracing back to the source of the rumors about Jobs and the Apple TV project over the years.

• In 1997, Jobs told Jonathan Ive, "I just don't like television, and Apple will never make another television."
• In September 2006, Jobs demonstrated the prototype of Apple TV, iTV, to the media, and the product began accepting pre-orders in January 2007.
• The book Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs mentioned that at Apple's annual Top 100 meeting in October 2010, Jobs commented on the Apple TV 2 plan proposed by David Moody and Jeff Robbin: "TV is a bad business. They don't need to be updated, and the profits are extremely bad."
• In October 2011, Walter Isaacson wrote in his biography Steve Jobs that Jobs had told him he "wanted to create an all-in-one TV device" that "would sync seamlessly with all your devices via iCloud," and that Jobs had said he already had a solution.

The seemingly contradictory statements here can be interpreted by adding some contextual information before the object of expression "television": what Jobs hates is the extremely poor user experience of current televisions, which have no profit and Apple will never make such products; so Jobs wanted to do something to change this situation, and thus iTV (that is, Apple TV) came into being.

After several years of market testing, Apple released the second generation of Apple TV in September 2010, and the internal meeting in October was probably to discuss the future Apple TV. The bad business that Jobs mentioned should refer to the current TV market. He would not do bad business, but he did not say that he would not turn bad business into good business - think about the story of Jobs changing the music industry with iPod. From this point of view, Jobs' idea of ​​reinventing TV equipment to change the TV industry is actually consistent.

At that time, Isaacson revealed in the interview with The New York Times that Jobs wanted to reinvent television, textbooks, and photography. In terms of photography, Apple has indeed been improving the iPhone's camera at the pixel level, and people are more often using their mobile phones instead of buying cameras to take pictures. Regarding textbooks, Apple released iBooks Author software in January 2012 to help people create e-books, and then students around the world began to turn to interactive teaching materials on iPads. As for television, the current third-generation Apple TV is obviously far from Jobs's idea of ​​"seamlessly syncing TV programs with all your devices through iCloud."

According to previously leaked emails, the basic plan proposed by David Moody and Jeff Robbin in 2010 was this:

8. Apple TV 2 - David Moody, Jeff Robbin

- Strategy: stay in the living room game and make a great "must have" accessory for iOS devices

(Market strategy: Enter the living room gaming market and make it a “must-have” component for iOS devices)

- sales so far, projections for this holiday season

(Current sales, forecast for this holiday season)

- add content:

(Additional content:)

- NBC, CBS, Viacom, HBO, ...

(NBC, CBS, Viacom, HBO, ...)

- TV subscription?

(TV subscription service?)

- where do we go from here?

(Where else can we go from here?)

- apps, browser, magic wand?

(App, browser, magic wand?)

At the end of the discussion of this plan, "Can we talk about iPad?" Jobs finally said this. However, Apple did not stop the TV project. On the contrary, it showed unprecedented patience for the TV market. From iTV to now, Apple has been studying the TV market for almost 10 years: when Apple TV was first launched in 2007, it had a large hard drive, and you could only sync content to it through iTunes on your computer. It was not until a major software upgrade in January 2008 that you could use it independently, and the content was only iTunes Store, Flickr and YouTube; the second-generation Apple TV in 2010 abandoned the download function, and all content could only be watched online through streaming media. Netflix was added to the content, and AirPlay function was supported; the third-generation Apple TV in 2012 supported 1080P, and began to add TV channel content after its release, but live content generally requires TV Everywhere authorization. From this, we can see that Apple is actually still approaching the idea of ​​TV step by step.

Two months ago, at Apple's spring conference, Tim Cook announced a price cut for the current Apple TV and a partnership with HBO to bring HBO NOW streaming subscription services to Apple TV users, which will then be available to iPhone and iPad users. After that, The Wall Street Journal, BuzzFeed, and The New York Times broke the news about the new version of Apple TV and predicted that Apple would officially announce it at this year's WWDC conference. So, will Apple TV's TV streaming service really change the TV industry like the iTunes Store did in 2003? Or is this TV project just a self-fulfilling prophecy that would only happen under Jobs' powerful reality-distorting force field? We're about to find out.

The next generation Apple TV leaked by the media

According to the information that has been circulated, the configuration we know at present is: the internal storage space of the new version of Apple TV will be much larger than the current 8G capacity, the processor will be upgraded from A5 to Apple's latest A8, the format supports 1080P video output but cannot support UHD/4K video, and it also integrates Siri function and a complete App Store, as well as a redesigned remote control with a touchpad.

Abbas Jaffar Ali also wondered: Is Apple TV ready to compete with Xbox One and PS4 in the field of video games? He wrote an in-depth analysis on tbreak website on April 9, the main points of which are as follows:

• Considering that Apple hasn't updated the Apple TV in three years, I think this claim sounds pretty believable.
• The current version of Apple TV is more than capable of outputting 1080P video, and video games can take better advantage of the added performance and storage space. After all, both the PS4 and Xbox One currently only support 1080P, and Apple competing on the same standard could make things easier for game developers.
• Although Logitech's experiment with a game controller as an iPhone shell wasn't well received, things look quite different when you can use it on a big-screen TV in your living room. Apple has also tried using an iPhone or iPad as a game controller, which is also possible with the new Apple TV.
• I definitely find myself playing games on my phone more often, and it would be more fun if I could seamlessly switch between my iPhone and Apple TV.

A seamless gaming experience from mobile devices to TVs sounds really cool, but how can we seamlessly switch the cable TV quality live streaming experience from TVs to mobile devices? Everyone knows that the live streaming content alone requires the cooperation of cable TV networks, but the HBO NOW service, which was launched on all iOS platforms on April 9, has in fact initially proved that Jobs' vision for the TV industry is feasible.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple plans to provide an Internet-based TV streaming subscription service for all iOS devices including iPhone, iPad and Apple TV starting this fall. This may not reach the level that Jobs described, which allows you to "seamlessly experience it with all your devices through iCloud", but it is a good start to start with mobile devices.

Changing the TV industry?

In addition, Netflix's original content projects launched since 2011, especially the great success of "House of Cards" in 2013, began to put pressure on the television industry, which was originally complacent. This is also an important reason why HBO, which has a large amount of high-quality content, launched its own streaming service and moved towards cooperation with Apple. The Wall Street Journal reported that ABC, CBS and FOX are very close to reaching an agreement with Apple, while Disney hopes to connect more of its TV channels to Apple TV, but the negotiations between NBC and Apple seem to have reached a deadlock. Because NBCUniversal's parent company Comcast already has its own Internet access service and TV streaming service, there will be greater differences with Apple on the specific content of the agreement.

It can be seen that no matter what specific strategies each TV network ultimately adopts, the trend of breaking down the walls of TV networks is irreversible in the face of the Internet's technological and cost advantages. Netflix's success is inseparable from its real-time data processing technology for collecting and analyzing user behavior. It knows what users watch and what they turn off at all times, which is undoubtedly much more accurate and effective than the data that traditional TV networks can only obtain through telephone surveys by third-party agencies. Therefore, it is no longer surprising that a popular series like "House of Cards" appears.

At the same time, Netlix does not need to maintain an additional data transmission network with hardware, which is the extra cost that traditional TV has to pay to maintain an independent data transmission network. Because of the unchanging TV sets and cable TV service packages, Jobs must have smelled the smell of the TV industry long before most people realized it. Just like the music industry, the fact that TV organizations no longer control TV services does not mean that TV content will no longer be important. On the contrary, people will just be freer when creating high-quality content.

Even if the negotiations between Apple and Comcast eventually break down, a competitive market is good for consumers. We will have to wait until WWDC, which starts on June 8, to get more information. In addition, Apple's HBO NOW service is currently limited to the United States, and the current version of Apple TV can provide different content in different parts of the world.

Although China's share in Apple's second quarter financial report is about to exceed that of the United States, considering the policy restrictions on TV services in mainland China, it will be difficult for Apple to launch this product in the mainland. However, if Apple's move really becomes a landmark move that affects the global TV market, even the domestic TV industry will surely be difficult to remain unaffected. In the face of the power of technological evolution, everything that was originally clear will become unpredictable.

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.