This video of Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire demonstrating his company’s new dual-screen AirPlay technology is doing the rounds this morning, and it’s certainly an impressive demo, in which Allaire is able to use his iPad to do one thing while playing video in the background on his Apple TV at the same time. Is this what using a true Apple HDTV will be like?
Brightcove’s Allaire certainly seems to think so. He describes AirPlay as the “trojan horse that has put connected TVs into every household with an iPhone or iPad.
David Pakman, a venture capitalist and ex-Apple employee, agrees.
“The stuff I have heard about recently, what they are working on with Airplay, just makes my head spin….With Airplay, all the pieces of the puzzle are in place in a way that simply isn’t true for any other big tech company.”
Both of these individuals seem to be implying that the Apple HDTV will ultimately just be an AirPlay receiver integrated into a top-of-the-line television, with our iPhones and iPads transmitting their brains into the display to make it ‘smart.’
It’s an interesting theory, and one we’ve heard before, but I wonder how practical it all really is. Why sell an integrated HDTV for $2000 if all it does is match the functionality of a $99 Apple TV? Also, if AirPlay is going to be the driving force behind an Apple HDTV, a lot of things are going to need to change in the iOS operating system… not least of which the ability to beam video and audio to a connected Apple TV in the background, even while other apps are running in the foreground. People, after all, love to play with their iPads while they’re watching the tube.
Source: The Verge
