foundational soviet: Switched On: Keeping the 'app' out of Apple's TV

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Switched On: Keeping the 'app' out of Apple's TV

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

Rumors continue to heat up that Apple will enter the television market next year, stepping up its Apple TV "hobby" into a greater revenue-generating vocation. The company would clearly like to repeat the kind of rousing success it has seen in smartphones. There, it entered a market at least as crowded and competitive as that for televisions whereas most of its Windows rivals have barely been able to eke out a few models with nominal share.

Indeed, the challenge is not as much about competition as commoditization. At first glance, this would be a curious time for Apple to enter the TV space. The HD and flat-panel transitions on which premium manufacturer brands and retailers once feasted has long passed. "Flat-panel TV" and "HDTV" are now just "TV." And prices for smaller sets are settling into a range familiar to those who remember what they cost back in the heyday of CRTs.

What's different, though, is that the state of the smart TV market looks strikingly like the smartphone market did before Apple's entrance. The market essentially has "feature TVs" that present a few popular canned services (YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, etc.) and "smart TVs" that are a fractured mixture of homegrown offerings (from companies such as Panasonic, Samsung, LG and Toshiba) and an experience-challenged licensed OS (Android from Sony and Vizio).