What's the point of Apple TV?

Because of it's minimalist feature set most* commentators and reviewers are missing the key to the trojan horse that is the new Apple TV. Rather than taking the TV in a new direction, Apple is taking us back to the future with it's most important feature. Airplay.

Catching up on some Mad Men re-runs

To understand why Apple is massively changing the game "again", you have to remember what the humble television was originally for.

Television was for watching broadcast content with family and friends.

Before we could afford to have one in every room people gathered round and watched television together, and still do. The television has ruled the entertainment world since the 1950's and shows no sign of losing much of it's shine in the 21st century despite the rise of the pc and the smartphone.

In latter half of the 20th century, instead of just pushing broadcast stations down to TVs, things started to get complicated. We got the remote, the vcr, the gaming console, cable tv and finally the dvd. But fundamentally, all we got was more content sources to 'push' to the TV and a bunch of complicated remotes to make it all happen from the comfort of the lounge. Reflecting the shared nature of the experience, consoles had multiple controllers, people bought their own dvds to share and play, and places only had one cable connection to fight over what everyone would watch.

Who's got the remote?

The living room started to take a different path when we turned computers into personal content consumption devices, and then put the computer into the living room with the HTPC. Dedicated entertainment devices like vcrs transformed into dedicated digital recorders like the Tivo, and consoles like the PS3 and Xbox started adding media and recording capability. Multiplying controllers got merged into multi-device remotes to rule them all, like Logitech's Harmony.

Living room politics and the increasing complexity of the device came into play. People fight for control of 'space' to record on the hard disk, and the household technology enthusiast, becomes a benevolent or otherwise dictator over the media center, with whole rooms dedicated to complex home theatre setups.

So here we are with the impending launch of Google TV. It's yet another iteration of the computer invasion into the living room with a multiplicity of controllers, all glorified computer accessories, bringing cloud content to your TV. Basically you have a keyboard, a monitor, and if it isn't already built into the screen, a computer (if not in name), plus a fancy remote. Oh and cause we're into smartphones you can have an app to control it as well.

But the TV as computer path that is Google TV is doomed to fail, going the way of every niche media hub before it. The current Google concept falls short, partly because it's not cheap, but mainly because it ignores some fundamental truths.

1. Like they were in the beginning, televisions and things that are connected to them are primarily for viewing content with others and not as a personal interactive device to browse or do email on.
2. Other devices (ipod, tablet, notebook, smartphone, computer) will always be preferred for internet interaction, and are increasingly replacing the TV for personal content consumption.
3. Dedicated hardware button or simulated software remotes suck at controlling complex devices. Having to drill down menus with hardware remotes is as fun as Nokia's symbian OS was for phones.
4. There is simplicity in the 'push' delivery of cable, free to air, dvd's and even console gaming. Multi-function media hubs such as the PS3 are ugly crap when pulling, and dealing with external content. Only owner enthusiasts can genuinely love them.
5. I'm yet to meet an home theatre system enthusiast who is a woman. I'm sure they are out there, but from polls we know the console they buy is the Wii which has the least home theatre capability. That's a pretty big disenfranchised market.

Don't get me wrong, I've lusted after many a dedicated media device and listened excitedly when someone swears by their setup, but the effort expended in organising media and connections could pull small countries out of recessions, and it always falls over on something simple, like playing a slideshow in the order it's owner intended.

I just can't actually bring myself to enjoy any of them.

Sony's Remote. They can't be serious..

Google TV in it's current frankenstein form, rather than spelling the end of cable tv is more likely to go the way of the internet that mated with the LG fridge or Telstra's T-Hub that mated the internet with the fixed line phone (not dead yet but it will be). The Logitech Revue implementation of Google TV looks like a cunning plan to sell more keyboards and webcams, and the purported Sony control device looks like E.T. crossed with a dymo labeller (it definitely needs some life breathed into it!). 

So along comes the new Apple TV, and once you look closer at this little puck, it's not hard to see what the strategy is, we just have to wait until November to see the execution unfold.

The Apple TV is about allowing you to share or display your content with family and friends on the television. It's about your content on your friends television, and theirs on yours. That content is going to come from the iOS (or pc) devices you're most comfortable using for most of the day for personal consumption and interaction; iPhones, iPods, iPads, and iMacs. This is technology for the luddites, technology that will work for women as much as men, a critical requirement given one source had 70% of recent iPhone purchasers in Australia being Women.

Apple TV

With Airplay and Apple TV, the television is devolved back into the basic 'push' device it was at it's conception, and will succeed as long as iOS remains successful. Usage is simple, and not 'controlled' (except perhaps parental locks) by one person in a household. The only difference is that instead of a console game, or dvd, anyone with an iOS device can pump their own tv show, slideshow, or other app content output to the television to share with others. 

The user functionality of the Apple TV itself is almost irrelevant. It just has to be simple enough for even the most hardened luddites to use with the basic remote to call up a movie or tv show and supplement their existing cable box or dvd/blu-ray player. It is the functionality of the iOS devices and apps that push content to it that is important.

The pricing is not so expensive that it won't get thrown in as a shared christmas present in the household that already has a few iOS devices. The kids with their "trainer" iphones (ipod touches) will be dying to show off their latest video of their exploits to Mum on the big screen.

The living room will move from the dictatorship of the HTPC to the democracy of Airplay. The iOS device becomes the remote that people actually know how to use, controlling everything except for on screen controls and the on/off button on TV, though no doubt there'll be apps for that as well.

Quite a few commentators have been arguing for apps on the Apple TV but again that's just turning the television into the computer again. Your own personal apps are on your ipod, iphone or iPad, you just need to get the content or application out. People already do content out with ipods and docks, and syncing apps from your itunes software, Apple just needs a future Apple TV to cache applications from the sending device as well as content via wifi.

There are already games that use one iOS device as the host, so the opportunities for multiplayer games are enormous once you begin to design apps and an ecosystem that turns the iOS device into a copycat wii controller, and host the game on an Apple TV (just don't throw your $1000 iphone across the room!).

Maybe they'll merge the Apple TV into televisions, but my sense is that at US$99 they'll want consumers to upgrade with their phones, to take advantage of improving hardware, and TV's are big ticket purchase items that don't get upgraded frequently.

Of course we haven't seen the final working Airplay/Apple TV duo yet, and maybe they won't get it right first time, but like the iPhone, we'll be back in 12 months, and then the imitators will start coming out, Google and all, bringing some new more 'open' copy of Airplay to market badged as a new iteration of their existing Google TV.

This time it's definitely not a hobby.

[Update: It appears some Windows 7 Phones have similar capability with DLNA capable TVs, which cuts out the middleman. We'll have to see how well it is executed, but it certainly makes the Windows 7 phone platform more interesting.]

* Some commentators are on the money. Here and here