Apple TV Remains a Hobby without a Market

Ed Sutherland ()

Apple TV Remains a Hobby without a Market

Jobs doesn't see Apple TV becoming another iPhone.

Apple TV remains just a hobby, the Cupertino, Calif. company’s chief executive said in a Tuesday interview. The problem: the cable industry.

Cable operators “give everybody a set-top box for free, or for $10 per month,” Steve Jobs told an audience at the All Things Digital conference. “That pretty much squashes any opportunity for innovation, because nobody’s willing to buy a set-top box,” he said.

Offering just another set-top box, which consumers would add to their existing collection of cable box, dvrs, DVD players and associated cables snaking into a home entertainment center seemed pointless to Jobs. “Ask TiVo, ask Replay TV, ask Roku, ask Vudu, ask as, ask Google in a few month,” the Apple co-founder joked. The Internet giant recently unveiled its own Google TV software powered by its Android operating system and included in upcoming televisions and set-top boxes.

To make Apple TV marketable, the company would need to “tear up the set-top box, redesign it from scratch with a consistent UI across all these different functions, and get it to consumers in a way that they’re willing to pay for it,” Jobs said, adding: “right now, there’s no way to do that.”

That attitude is why Apple places a low priority on Apple TV – behind the iPhone and the iPad. “The TV is going to lose until there’s a better –until there’s a viable — ‘go to market’ strategy,” Jobs said.

He repeated the phrase many fans of Apple’s media box hate hearing: the h-word. “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.”

These latest comments appear to put in doubt reports Apple TV is still a viable product. A recent report suggested the Cupertino, Calif. will combine both its popular iPhone OS and the cloud-computing concept to create a television set able to stream programming.

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[via AppleInsider]

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About the author

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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  • http://www.ian.mb.ca ian

    Put a HDMI port on the Mac Mini and watch what would happen.

  • http://ihbs.co.uk Ben

    @ian… Nothing, it would still be the same device, just with a different output cable at the back. the same outcome bcan be achieved through the minis own current DVI connection, or by purchasing a 3rd party hdmi adapter, probably from hong kong on ebay

  • Helius

    Yeah, nice – Thanks Steve. Makes me feel so much better that I bought one – I don’t recall the words “it’s just a hobby” when it was announced….. It lasted 3 weeks and after buggering around hacking the tits off it, trying to watch Matroska files, I bought a MacMini and hooked that up to the telly instead. FS: 1 MacMini, hardly used. :(

  • Jaime

    @Ben I agree with ian. A mac mini with an HDMI port, coupled with an application like logitech’s touch mouse for the iPhone would make for a great Apple TV. It would only be lacking DVR capabilities.

  • alex

    I’d rather have macmini with hdmi output & bluray capability

  • Zeiche

    Migrate the platform to ARM, change the controller to something like a simplified Wii Remote and then open an App store. Then you will have a set top box people will pay for.

  • http://www.thislamp.com R. Mansfield

    Here’s a hint. Whenever Steve Jobs plays down anything, that means Apple’s about to enter the market full force.

    The AppleTV is not dead. And “hobby” is merely code for “Something bigger is coming.”

  • bubbakush

    the only thing apple could bring to tv is
    content ala cart.
    ive had my pcs setup to my tvs for ten years,they say tv is a rip since you have no time to watch all the channels.
    well, ive found that people want stuff played for them.
    with terabytes of tv shows in avi my family would switch to the cable they left on after i cancelled, to watch a show i had on the pc.

  • Justin Lawrence

    1. Google revitalised the commercial viability of search engines.
    2. I don’t believe the cash is in set-top boxes. It’s in advertising and creating a platform where others can thrive, like the App Store is to the iPhone.
    3. Apple sit atop the potential to usurp the content industry. I’m sure they know it. I agree with R. Mansfield – I think they’re obfuscating.

  • Jeffery Siegmund

    hehe someday, Apple’ll surprise us that Apple TV is actually, besides whatever it is supposed to be now, a game console. haha

  • http://www.running.com Benita Averett

    terrific story