What’s Next for Apple’s Living Room Strategy?

Michael Wolf
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
5 Responses

When Dictionary.com defines the living room as a room of leisure, its clear the online dictionary isn’t referring to the consumer electronics industry. Otherwise, the words “bloody battle to the death” would likely be included. With Circuit City going out of business, Toshiba retreating from a bruising loss to Blu-ray, and the Big Three of gaming throwing billion-dollar elbows, the room where consumers go for leisure is where upstarts and giants of technology go to die. Even Apple knows this. After a decade in which nearly every move by the maker of the iPhone was golden, the company’s effort at a next-generation set-top in Apple TV stands as one of its few disappointments. The company set expectations going in, pitching the device as more "hobby" than "hit" from the get-go. But, two years after this “hobby” hit the market, it's worth examining what Apple will do next in the living room. […]

Question of the Week

Do you think a revamped Apple TV is Apple's best strategy to control the living room?

Featured Responses

Neil Golding

2009/07/22 at 05:34

There's still lots of scope for them to push the VoD angle as this market is only going to grow - one key thing they are missing from Apple TV though is the content deals to air mainstream programming.

Sharp Sees HDTV’s Future Mapped Out

Nice piece on Sharp's efforts to push LED backlit LCDs. These are LCDs, friends, not as disruptive as OLED, but will be here much sooner and at much lower cost.

Submitted by Michael Wolf
Dell’Oro Group: 802.11n the Only ‘Bright Spot’ in WLAN Market for 1Q 2009

Older piece, but a good overview of recent wireless networking market activity with data from Dell 'Oro. 802.11n is ramping up, but not as fast as I would have expected.

Submitted by Michael Wolf
Netflix Streaming Coming To Sony TVs, Not Yet The PS3

Yawn, another day another Netflix hardware partnership. They're ubiquitious at this point, which is good for them but hardly a hardware differentiator. That said, Sony, add it to the PS3 already.

Submitted by Michael Wolf
Starz Joins Comcast OnDemand Online

Online authenticated streaming is becoming the way of the world, it seems. Starz announced they're part of Comcast's OnDemand trial, beating HBO to the punch.

Submitted by Michael Wolf
What Features Should the New Apple TV Have?

Om did a follow up to my Weekly Update, asking readers what new features they would want on a new Apple TV. Great readin in the comments, and I think much of what people want echoes my piece for what I predict Apple will have.

Submitted by Michael Wolf