Of all the things to worry or not worry Apple execs, I don’t think Uppleva even registered on their radar. An ambitious project, it was clearly doomed from the start, just as Apple’s foray into Dining Tables and Bedside Cabinets would’ve been.

Your grasp of the written word is amazing! I’m speechless! You must be a technological wizard of sorts!

or call it the App Store and Game Center. Oh wait… it’s already called that.

Well, I mean with the iPad Apple is giving up their interface. None of that matters though because we’re on the same page in that neither of us think the single coax solution is in the near future and that Apple needs to move studios/cable co. in the direction of changing their business model. That, and Apple should remain the leader in interface design. While the ATV NF interface isn’t perfect (compared to the desktop browser interface) compared to my BR player, there’s no real complaints — okay, I do with they’d show what you viewed like they do with home sharing. That does bug me, but ATV is still one of the easiest to browse. 
Well-timed as it relates to this discussion, an update for the EyeTV software came out last night that supports UniCable. I wonder if a new ATV would roll with something like that because there is still the problem of gaming systems on a TV and I think we’re still far off from people giving up their video players. 

I get what you are saying with apps in terms of their UI not being seamless, but I don’t see how selecting between them would be different than pulling up shows from a guide. I do see where you are coming from in that it’ll muck up the design factor. As much functionality as I have with XBMC on the ATV, I still hate accessing it. You’re totally right that this isn’t the direction we want to go. This is why I don’t see this happening anytime soon. I really hope that Jobs did crack a way to convince cable cos. to change their business model. Like you say, that’s the only way this can work and be revolutionary. 

TiVo still doesn’t really count because it is a result of a mandate from the FCC, and even when cable companies themselves issues TiVo’s they strip out the over-the-top streaming services like Netflix because they don’t want their VOD to be on a level playing field with competing services. The opportunity to integrate only the linear offerings of cable TV has sailed, if you don’t include VOD, as far as most consumers are concerned, what’s the point?

The Comcast iPad is Comcast’s UI, not that of the iPad. The Comcast, Verizon, DirecTV and TWC demos at CES last year of set-top-box-less programming on a Samsung TV, were all using the provider’s UI, not that of Samsung.

Haven’t you always wondered why Apple doesn’t do Apps on the Apple TV? Perhaps it is because they know that switching Apps on a TV to find programming would be just as jarring as switching inputs? Look at Netflix on the ATV, while most just use the Netflix UI, Apple wrote their own. And guess what, it is one of the best Netflix UIs out there. Who else built their own Netflix UI? TiVo and Microsoft (Xbox and MC). Without unified search and consistent experience so matter who makes the show, it will be a fail. 

I firmly believe that to deliver an “Apple experience” they’d have to control both the hardware and the software. Just like they always have.

As for the “coax” discussion. This is a technical one that is easily overcome once the political and business hurdles are dealt with. I have no doubt that Apple could emulate the cable co’ encryption or that we could see IP based delivery like what is used on the new Xbox dashboard Live TV coming next week. I mean hell, Verizon’s VOD has always been IP based and delivered via coax.

And the TV is the biggest, most dominate screen in most households where the majority of media is still consumed. There is no doubt Apple, and everyone else, will continue to try to find a way to bring it into the 21st Century.

Look at my statement again. I said that there’s “no way” it’ll be a single coax, then after that pointed that they’d have to include a card slot. Now ask yourself why I need to ask myself if Apple would support CableCARD. I then go onto to mention additional reasons it can’t just be a single coax so we might be getting a bit redundant here by continuing with the single coax factor. 

I don’t think anyone is arguing against it and am wondering if Muster was misunderstood or taken out of context with that line. No matter how far-out you go with how it could work, it still doesn’t make sense. We’d be talking about, at the least, changing the way cable companies scramble channels and eliminating modems. I think modems are a bigger factor than STBs at this point. Of course, Muster may have been thinking of a wifi enabled TV and web-based content, and not factoring in the other things people plug into their TVs. That starts to make sense, but ultimately there’s no way it would be a single coax unless it came with some sort of WiFi device router for video players and the like. Which would be very cool, but then why the need for a coax at all? I’d like to know the full context of that statement – do you have any idea on that because, like you, I think it sounds like crazy talk. 

Coax aside, my initial point was that there is evidence where the cable companies do give up their user interface. I used TiVo because that is probably the biggest example. Another, probably more appropriate, example concerning user interface would be Comcast’s iPad app that allows you to stream their premium and VOD, although that doesn’t apply to the TV market. Still, the point of the ATV thus far has been Internet-based content, so an app seems more in line with what we might be looking at.

Still, as much as I like to consider how all of this might work, I’m not convinced a full-fledged ATV is going to happen. I can’t see there being much of a market for one because it almost feels redundant with all the other options out there. iPad, iPod and iPhone worked but they were entering a market that wasn’t already as mainstream as internet TV. On a personal level, I’d just rather see them upgrade the ATV box and work to improve functionality. That, and I feel like this would end up being a Newton scaled failure. 

You brought up another point on your blog that reflected my initial thoughts in that Jobs’ seemed opposed to entering the TV market. I’d hate to think that he’s being ignored and hope that his “cracking it” refers more to a more seamless way to view TV or a way to create a mutual agreement with studios and hardware manufacturers, and not actually a step to entering the market.  

I wish I agreed. The problem is that there is no AT&T in the cable industry. No provider has nationwide coverage. The sat companies are the closest and I’d bet Apple hates dishes as much as they do set-top boxes. The other big different is that most markets don’t have real competition so the providers really don’t care. Hence why the boxes are so bad.