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Announcements now in California and also at the earth's largest electronic devices fair, the IFA in Berlin, have set the wheels in motion for a highly competitive fight for domination of how we percieve our movies and listen to our music.
Google and Apple - who've moved from being partners to competing with each other in an increasing quantity of fields have both announced their set top boxes. Sony announced their strangely named Qriocity. The most popular theme of all is the fact that music and video content is now what will dictate the prosperity of devices, and each of these devices should be able to connect with the net and to each other.
The Apple TV is really a tiny new set-top-box that connects to the television and allows streaming download of TV shows and movies from the web. It is really tiny and it has exactly the same heart as the iPhone and iPod/iPad products. Actually, Apple TV has been in existence for a few years now, but hasn't gained much traction. The latest version is smaller, cheaper and, but will it's enough to alter the way we watch television?
One significant new feature from the latest Apple TV is that it can stream content out of your PC, as well as from your iPhone. On your TV, you can watch slideshows of the photos which are stored on your PC, and if you think about it, where to see photos around the largest, clearest display you have in the house, is the TV. Like a population, we all love our TV's.
Unfortunately, the Apple TV doesn't include a internet browser. Personally I'd love a chance to have a decent internet browser integrated into my TV and surely this will have been easy for Apple to attain. Instead, they've handed Google a present. Google TV gets the Google Chrome internet browser built-in (ironically this internet browser has largely been developed by Apple, who now should be rather sick that Google are utilizing it to compete with them).
Apple seem to have missed an enormous opportunity. By not allowing developers to produce apps for that Apple TV they are making the Apple TV a closed device and hence, have missed the opportunity of extending your TV watching experience into entirely new and un-imagined possibilities. Yet, Apple are the individuals who pioneered 3rd party app development for the iPhone and iPods, which accounts for their huge success. This really is doubly odd, given that the iPhone, and now the much larger iPad, are great games devices. Why haven't they enabled the Apple TV to have apps, an internet browser or games? Maybe it'll come?
Google TV, however isn't an actual device, but just operating software for manufacturers of the devices or TVs. It's based on Android and crucially, it will offer support for a wide range of 3rd party apps in addition to including a very good web browser.
Remember back to the first times of the Windows operating system. In the early 80s despite the fact that Microsoft had a substandard product towards the Apple Mac, they licensed it with other companies leading to their total world domination from the PC market, pushing Apple's market share down to the present sub 10%.
With this new emerging market, Apple will only sell you the Apple TV device, whereas, Google TV will be licensed to some number of firms that will create both set-top-boxes and integrate the knowledge into the TV directly. Have Apple not learnt anything from history?
To add to this mixture, Sony have announced a competing service, with the unusual name of Qriocity. This will have a similar online store of TV and movie content that you could stream to your TV. Even Amazon are getting in around the game by providing streaming TV and movies for 99cents from their website. These two are only currently available in the US. Apple TV streaming will initially be accessible in the US, UK and Germany in addition to a few other key countries
So what exactly is the future of your TV?
In the forseeable future it'll all be included in your TV. In the short term, until you change your TV, you will need a set-top-box to bring these types of services for your existing TV. It includes hard disc recording of programmes with stop and rewind of live TV. Quite simply all the functions of a PVR (personal video recorder). An integrated internet browser is a full web browser, not some crippled or clunky half-browser. It will include a slick integrated program guide, with one-click recording of TV programmes and series. Streaming of media out of your PC, and that means you can play movies from your PC, play your music out of your PC or watch slideshows of photos stored on your PC It will likely be in line with the Android os operating-system, or some derivative of.
What does this suggest for DVD sales?
Well it's the end, or at best the beginning of the end. Just as music download and online purchases have stunted sales of CDs, the same may happen for commercial movies and DVDs.
