Listen to Jobs:

The problem with innovation in the television industry is the go-to-market strategy. The television industry fundamentally has a subsidized business model that gives everybody set-top box for free, or for $10 a month and that pretty much squashes any opportunity for innovation, because nobody is willing to buy a set-top box. Ask TiVo, ask ReplayTV, ask Roku, ask Vudu, ask us, ask Google in few months. Sony tried as well. Panasonic tried. A lot of people tried. They all failed.

According to Apple CEO, we end up with table full of remotes, cluster full of boxes, bunch of different UIs. That’s the situation we have today.

All you can do is add a box under the TV system, Jobs said.

The only way that it’s ever going to change is if you can really go back to square one and tear up the set-top box and redesign it from scratch, with the consistent UI, across all those different functions, and get it to the consumer in a way that they are willing to pay for it.

And right now, there is no way to do that! – Jobs said firmly (damn…!)

So, that’s the problem with the TV market. We decided what product do we want the most: a better TV or a better phone. The phone won out. But there was no chance to do a better TV because there was no way to get it to market.

What do we want more: tablet or better TV? Well, probably a tablet, but it doesn’t matter because if we wanted a better TV there is no way to get it to market.

The TV is going to lose until there is available go-to-market strategy.

Otherwise you just make another TiVO. That’s the fundamental problem – it’s not a problem with technology, it’s not a problem with vision, it’s a fundamental go-to-market problem.

Is there any chance you partner with some cable operator? – Steve has been asked.

Then you run into another problem, which is: there is no cable operator that is national, he answered.

There is a bunch of cable operators. And than, this is not like there is a GSM standard where you build a phone for the US and it also work in those other countries. No, every single country has different standards, different government approvals, it’s very balkanized.

I’m sure smarter people than us will figure this out. But that’s why we say Apple TV is a hobby; that’s why we use that phrase.

Well, this could all mean that Apple focuses on iPhone and iPad, and they are not planning to introduce a new TV (new set-top box) in the near future. Hopefully there are people who see things differently: Engadget notices that Steve has all this stuff really mulled over – according to the guys at the tech blog this confirms that we’ll be hearing some next-Apple TV news at the WWDC10. TechCrunch even thinks that this all may push Apple to build televisions.

We hope Jobs hasn’t really figured out that there is no way to figure out good go-to-market strategy for the new TV by Apple.

Also read
New $99 Apple TV with iPhone OS, A4 CPU, 1080p and cloud storage

“The device is said to be quite small with a scarce amount of ports (only the power socket and video out), and has been described to some as “an iPhone without a screen,” says Engadget.

Engadget also claims that Apple will be focusing the new ATV on cloud-based storage, although there will still be an option to utilize a Time Capsule as an external storage component.

We can’t say we are surprised. We say: this is exactly what we expected to see happening.

First, Apple introduced iPad. What does the iPad have to do with Apple TV? “Well, take the Wi-Fi iPad, remove the screen and the battery, add A/V ports and presto, you have then new AppleTV hardware,” said awmyhr on his blog a few month ago. So, we already had the hardware.

Then, a job offer has been posted:

The Core Platform team within Apple’s Core OS organization is looking for a talented and inspired manager to lead a team focused on bring-up of iPhone OS on new platforms.

That was a first signal Apple was thinking of powering new platforms with iPhone OS; of expanding iPhone OS beyond iPhone, iPod and iPad.

“With the iPad having already been introduced, many believe the next logical device to receive the iPhone OS is Apple TV,” noted eWEEK. “Apple TV is the obvious choice,” confirmed Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research.

Gottheil said the primary benefit that the iPhone OS would bring to Apple TV is its browser. “In addition to being able to play your own content and App Store content, you’d be able to browse the Web,” he said.

Later, Apple introduced iPhone OS 4. We got brand new, powerful OS.

And finally, Google introduced Google TV. If Apple have already been working on the new set-top box for a while (according to Engadget, “this project has been in the works long before Google announced its TV solution”), the only choice they had to cat the “oh!, ah!” Google TV disccusions was to do a controlled leak about forthcoming update to the Apple Tv. Besides, iPhone OS for Apple TV is just a logical response to Android powering Google TV.

Also, MacRumors.com reported that Intel’s forthcoming Google TV hardware platform to be found in Sony TVs and Blu-ray players and in a standalone set-top box from Logitech utilizes the same PowerVR SGX535 graphics processor used in the iPad. “Hardware similarities between Google’s television offering and Apple’s mobile devices further reinforces the idea that such a transition [of iPhone OS to Apple TV] could be relatively feasible,” said guys from MacRumors.

Apple TV handles very well with the local content. But what is missing? Online content. We think: add apps with the ability to stream online content and you kill Boxee Box, Roku’s HD XR, TiVo Premiere.

Then, App Store is the world biggest free games platform. We say: add games (not only free) and — with the accompaniment of some good controller (iPhone?) — you kill Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii  and Sony PlayStation 3.

And Blu-ray? Don’t be funny! Apple wants us to BUY content (iTunes, apps), not to PLAY already paid content.

The only thing that is quite surprising — if Engadget is right — is that Apple will not introduce its new addition to our living rooms at the upcoming WWDC. We thought that it is going to happen after MacRumor revealed an e-mail exchange between Bryan Webster and Steve Jobs. “I hope you have some good WWDC announcements to blow [Google] out of the water,” Webster wrote to Jobs on Saturday. “You won’t be disappointed,” the CEO responded.

The mail may be fake. Engadget may be wrong. Anyway, we’re counting down to Steve’s keynote.

• File Identification Progress (shows how many files Boxee is scanning, has identified, and doesn’t recognize within the media collection)
• Manual Movie & TV Show identification (you can now tell Boxee what’s in your collection and/or change incorrectly labelled files)
• Facebook & Twitter in your Boxee feed (recommendations from friends on Facebook & Twitter can now be seen within Boxee)
• New & Improved RSS Management (a brand new way to manage, discover and play RSS feeds in Boxee)
• hundreds of bugs fixes.

Find the latest version of Boxee here.

Source: Boxee

With these rhymes Andrew from Boxee tries to encourage developers to participate in “TV Meets Telephony” Hack challenge. Boxee has partnered with Twilio, a SF-based startup that has a very cool web-service API for telephony, to host a hackathon to see what kind of Boxee apps people can come up with using the telephone.  The contest will culminate in a 29-hour Hack Day on April 10th and 11th in both SF & NYC.

More details here.

[update] And the winners are:

1st place: Bring the Popcorn (Drew Baumann and Brett Hazen)

2nd place: Find My Phone (Fuzz the Destroyer)

Bring the Popcorn

Bring the Popcorn is a fun app to quickly organize a movie party directly from Boxee.  Using a simple interface and leveraging the Twilio API, users can add their friends, sort out who brings what, and SMS those friends to see when they are coming over.  The app was developed by a team of Luther College CS Majors Drew Baumann and Brett Hazen.

Find My Phone

Prolific Boxee developer Fuzz the Destroyer adds to his extensive portfolio of Boxee apps with a dead simple and crazy useful entry called “Find My Phone.”  The appropriately titled app uses the Twilio API to find where you put your phone with a clean interface and a wry sense of humor.

Source: boxee

Yeah, Wednesday’s presentation was quite impressive and I have to agree that it would be nice to have such a device. But if I already have a computer and an iPhone… the only reason to buy the iPad would be that is not so expensive and that I love to have gadgets.

But I have to be positive on it. I think it will make a huge difference and it’s the first of a new category of devices that will come sooner than expected.

I see two main market segments for the iPad. Well, three if we include the geeks.

Who does not have a photo album at home? The experience of opening the book, sharing and commenting the pictures while handling it and sitting close to our friends… Digital photography has reduced the amount of printed pictures, and we have started to use TV and computer slideshows to view it.

I can imagine my parents using the iPad just like they were using an ordinary photo album, having it ready to show the pictures of their grandsons to unexpected guests. No need to open the TV, no need to bring the computer.

In order to fit in this category it will require over the air iPhoto synchronization, something that Apple TV already does. Also, it would be great to have bi-directional synchronization to be able to play with the photos (re-arrange, comment, tag) on the iPad.

Another area is a segment of professional applications. The list here is long: from doctors handling it in the hospitals, decoration outlets and architects showing their projects and interacting with their customer’s work, to more basic, like a restaurant menu or beauty salons offering it instead of newspapers and magazines.

What the device is missing?

Clearly it needs a video camera for video conferencing. It would be great if it also had a rear camera.

Size is important… and most probably we will see this device in smaller, portable 6” format as well as in a larger format to facilitate reading newspapers and magazines.

A memory slot and USB connector to connect with the rest of the world are also more than welcome.

And networking capabilities! Why do I have to have the media in the iPad? Why not let the device mount an AFP or SMB drive, so that it could have virtually unlimited storage capacity?

My conclusion is that it is only a first step, but the iPad is definitely a revolutionary device.

Joduba

Originally appeared on Smartphone.Biz-News.com

The guide assumes that you have SSH enabled on you ATV and you know how to log in to it to issue commands via a Terminal and that you know how to copy files over from your PC/Mac. But in case you were a complete noob, Jim has also given a short explanation on how to do this.

It was already verified on the latest ATV 3.0.1, as well as on ATV 2.4 software.

Find the guide here.

The FAQ and comments below the post clarify a bit how to solve some of the Beta issues (online content, scraping issues).

Great job, Jim!

It will be coming to XBMC on OSX, Linux, and Windows via the Broadcom Crystal HD Hardware Decoder (BCM970012). It is available now in a mini-PCIE card with ExpressCard and 1X PCIE form factors.

Good news is that it has a common programming API and it’s an open source solution with full source code for driver and library available for OSX and Linux under a GPL/LGPL license. Go ahead, 3rd party developers!

The Windows driver binary, as well as the Linux source code for the driver and library can be found at the Broadcom web site. For OSX, the binaries and source code for the driver and library will be hosted at google code. Users in the USA can purchase the Crystal HD mini PCIE card from Logic Supply for $69, and of course there’s always ebay for those outside the USA.

Source: XBMC

The new additions – global menu – makes it easy to access helpful resources (Logout, Settings, Queue, Feed, History), the main menu (Photos, Music, Movies, Home, TV Shows, Apps, Files) and shortcuts to our favorite apps, TV shows or movies.

The Boxee sidebar has been extended to Music, Photos, and Apps.

Boxee overhauled Movies and TV shows to include both internet and local content. If you know what it is you want to watch, there is no need to go through an App now.

The Beta organizes TV shows by season and episode, and let’s you filter by whether freely available or not.

Along with the Beta Bexee introduced three new Content Partners – Clicker (a TV Guide to the Web), The Escapist (a video game review site), and Suicide Girls (sexy nude photos & videos of tattooed girls).

Boxee team have also increased what people can do with Boxee Apps.  Developers can now use OAuth to give Boxee access to private resources meaning users can easily access their accounts across the web.

We can now not only watch video, but also start browsing websites that don’t already have a Boxee App or RSS feed using a Boxee browser.

The Beta also brings official support for Snow Leopard and Ubuntu Karmic.

The graphical back-end has been switched from OpenGL to DirectX to take advantage of Direct X Video Acceleration.  Boxee has also worked closely with NVidia on their ION platform to offload video processing with DXVA and Flash 10.1.

Boxee Bata will be open up to the public at CES 2010, Jan 7th.