Apple TV

Apple's been selling it's Apple TV for a long time. The internet connected digital TV box that currently has about as much usefulness as a lump of coal. It never really concerned me that Apple released a cutting edge product that didn't have a particularly huge market or set purpose. It's Apple.. Steve might have just liked the look of it. But Mr Jobs isn't a total nutcase, he's quite a visionary.

What would actually happen if Apple managed to get deals for distributing TV content? If there was a handful of network shows and a low subscription price then Apple could compete directly with cable providers. Sure there is a decent cable infrastructure in the US but other places really aren't so lucky.

How cable runs in the rest of the world is beyond me but in Australia we have the shoddiest cable provision you could imagine. The costs are high when compared with internet connectivity, the equipment can be expensive and the content is quite limited consisting mostly of B grade movies and endless re-runs of the same shows on multiple channels. There's only one flavour of cable and it comes with advertising built in. Not the home shopping channel, but intermissions during programs trying to sell life insurance and skin creams.

Advertising is the primary reason I don't often watch television and exactly the reason why many Australians don't have cable. But there are an awful lot of people who have digital TV's and would jump at an ad-free on-demand viewing platform even if it choked their internet connection.

My suspicion here is that many countries are closer to the situation in Australia than the US. People want the good stuff, at release time when they want to view it. Timeliness, quality, simplicity and value for money. Nobody wants to have to record programs on their jailed cable PVR... search, click, watch! Provision of a service like this would sell and Apple knows this. There's a larger market for television than music and Apple's music store has been running in high gear since inception. An on-line subscription television service with matching easy to use PVR is a killer combination, as in category killer.

Look at the boxes in our lounge rooms. Every company from Microsoft to Sony has been trying to get a smart unit onto every coffee table in the world. And the company to take the lounge room will own the next era of content delivery. And the market now spans the globe. Forget the provincial ideals of Comcast or Time Warner, these are bear corporations afraid of change and busy hanging onto existing returns. What's important about this brave new world of content delivery isn't current returns, it's the potential for returns.

So Apple has plunged ahead... driving the market once again in the direction consumers want to go. Is the Apple TV a wonderful successful shining example of Apple's innovation? Certainly not... yet. But once those content deals pass muster, ooh ahhh! We're moments ahead of world changing distributed entertainment.