Family Learning Center

Posts Tagged ‘Tv Product’

Google TV Should Finally Push Apple TV Beyond A “Hobby”

For the past couple of years now, when talking about the Apple TV product, Apple likes to throw out the word “hobby.” It’s as if they’re ashamed of the device. And considering sales are anemic next to Macs, iPods, and iPhones, it’s no big surprise that they talk this way.

But there’s actually nothing to be ashamed of. The Apple TV is a good product. Apple just needs to put some proper time and energy into it, to expand it to its full potential. And news today about the so-called “Google TV” should do just the trick.

Apple and Google are on the verge of war. The formerly close allies are increasingly competing in key spaces for both, and the living room is likely to be a new battleground because it’s still very much up in air. As the New York Times reported yesterday, Google is working with partners including Intel, Sony, and Logitech to bring a Google TV experience into the living room. This is, of course, where the Apple TV resides. And Apple would be foolish to simply cede any ground it does have to its new favorite rival just because it’s focused on other things (*cough* iPad *cough*).

That’s a Microsoft move.

As Nick Bilton points out, this Google TV would be based around the Android platform. This means that the key idea is likely to have third-party developers work on it to make applications built for a television set. That’s easier said than done, but Android’s open nature should yield some interesting results rather quickly.

Apple, meanwhile, is of course anything but open with regard to their devices. In fact, the Apple TV is entirely closed right now, as only Apple is able to modify its software (without hacking it, of course). I suspect that will change, following this revelation.

The idea of running iPhone-style applications on the Apple TV has long been a sexy one. Hell, people have even ported apps over to a TV screen to show how well it could work. The main problem with developing iPhone apps for the Apple TV seems to be resolution. With the iPhone (and iPod touch), Apple offers only one screen size/resolution, ensuring developers have an easy time making great-looking apps — while at the same time, making sure end users have a great experience.

But the iPad has already changed everything. With their new device, Apple has kept things as simple as possible by making iPhone apps scale up two times to work on the bigger display, but it’s still shows a willingness to move beyond the one screen size. Unfortunately, with the Apple TV, it can be attached to a screen that could be a huge variety of sizes, so it would be hard to control that.

Google doesn’t care about that because Android already runs on dozens of phones with different screen sizes. But Apple clearly cares about how apps look on its devices (so much so that the iPad itself was likely designed at a strange ratio simply to make scaling apps look as good as possible). So does that mean they start offering an actual Apple TV (as in a screen)? Rumors of that have been around for a long time. Or maybe they black-box apps to a certain resolution — similar to what they’re doing on the iPad when an app isn’t scaled up?

Who knows. But what I do know is that upon hearing this Google TV news, the Apple TV became a little less of a “hobby” yesterday.

Aside from calling it a hobby, Steve Jobs has referred to the Apple TV as being a potential “fourth leg” of a chair Apple is building. Leg one is the Mac, leg two is the iPod, leg three is the iPhone, and Jobs had hoped the Apple TV would complete the chair one day. But it seems clear now that he thinks the iPad could be the fourth leg instead.

Screw that. I think it’s time for Apple to build a whole dining room set of furniture. We, as consumers, need a living room arms race between Apple and Google (and Microsoft, TiVo, Roku, Boxee, and the rest) to kick the cable companies’ shitty television user experience to the curb.

Read the whole story…

CNN.com Gets a Radical Redesign

CNN.com, one of the top 25 websites in the US, just announced a radical redesign of its service at a press event in New York City. The new CNN.com homepage will be split up into three parts. On the left, CNN will now highlight breaking news stories, the middle section will feature older stories and a ‘highlights’ section, and the right sidebar will be customizable with personalized weather and sports scores. Right beneath the fold, the new CNN will feature a list of ‘editor’s choice’ stories – similar to the NYTimes’s ‘Inside NYTimes.com’ section. The new site will go live next Monday.

Sponsor

According to CNN’s General Manager of CNN.com Kenneth Estenson, CNN.com currently gets about 1.7 billion page views and 100 million video views every month. In total the CNN homepage has been called up over 120 billion times since its first iteration in 1996.

CNN clearly put a lot of thought into this redesign. As William Hsu, CNN’s VP for News Advertising Sales for Asia Pacific told Exchange4media.com earlier this week, the CNN team “did a lot of research, biometric research, in Europe” (update: a CNN spokesperson just told us that this study was done independent of the site redesign). According to Hsu, these studies showed that very few users ever went beyond the current homepage. Because of this, the new homepage will show far more content but will also make it easier for readers to navigate the site.

More Emphasis on Video – Including Videos from TED

At today’s press event, CNN also stressed that the new site will integrate more of its TV product. Instead of keeping video and text separate, the new CNN.com will bring the two together. 50% of CNN’s users already watch both the video and read the story, so bringing the two closer together is a smart move for CNN. CNN also announced a partnership with TED, which will bring TED videos to a completely new audience.

NewsPulse

The new homepage will also have a new feature called ‘NewsPulse.’ This will allow users to reorganize news stories by correspondent, subject, or keyword. Today’s press event was low on specifics, but this looks like a good way to personalize CNN’s homepage and to find interesting content on the site.

Similarity to CNN Go

CNN also recently launched CNN Go, which focuses on news for the Asian market and also has a more magazine-like layout.

What About the Competition?

We have also heard that MSNBC will soon launch a redesign of its own. While we aren’t aware of any specifics yet, the new MSNBC will focus on adding value to news wire stories by bringing together more material from NBC’s affiliates and a larger focus on interactive elements designed specifically for MSNBC.

Discuss

Read the whole story…