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Maybe they plan to push display resolutions, the same way they've done with the iPad. Apple is one of the few players with enough clout (and bandwidth) to push

Maybe they plan to push display resolutions, the same way they've done with the iPad. Apple is one of the few players with enough clout (and bandwidth) to push 4K resolution TV into living rooms. This could allow them to establish a manufacturing barrier-to-entry and de-commoditize the TV market.

kmfrk 15y ago
I have no idea how they compete on "quality", but Apple is the Roman army of logistics, so they might very well win over people on pricing alone and create component and transportation bottlenecks for their competitors in doing so.
ConstantineXVI 15y ago
I highly doubt they'd go 4K at launch: 1) 4K panels are still ridiculously expensive. Apple's mastered the supply chain, but not the laws of physics. Also keep in mind that anyone Apple could source 4K displays from at any useful volume will be putting them in their own TVs first. 2) Apple might have the bandwidth to handle 4K streaming. Your average home connection most certainly doesn't. Even if we're very generous and assume everyone has guaranteed 100Mb/s lines, that's still a few hairs under 3x Blu-Ray's bandwidth. You'd almost be able to pull it off if you went into overdrive on the compression. (and no other activity on your line). And perhaps you meant iPhone 4? The iPad's resolution in terms of DPI isn't significantly higher than a decent notebook.
- dmbaggett 15y ago
  No, I agree -- they definitely won't launch with 4K. But they could launch with something better than 1080p (yes, I meant iPhone 4 resolution). My point is just that they probably view the TV market just the way they viewed the PC, phone and tablet markets: people think they are commoditized, but Apple can qualitatively improve the experience through both UI and manufacturing improvements. Then the margin in what was previously a race-to-the-bottom industry comes back -- and to Apple first. Another obvious course for them to follow is to allow iOS apps to run directly on the TV. They just need a new input device so users can "touch" the screen while sitting in their sofa. But I disagree with the end of your point #1. I can absolutely believe that there's a panel manufacturer out there who would collaborate with Apple exclusively for some finite period to deliver some new tech.
- jerf 15y ago
  "You'd almost be able to pull it off if you went into overdrive on the compression." To a first approximation, a Mbps is a Mbps is a Mbps when it comes to image quality. Just because you push the 4K button on your compressor doesn't make it a high quality image if you don't spot it enough bitrate to actually paint distinct pixels. You'd be far better off measuring image quality in Mbps than resolution. (Except in pathological cases where the video is overshrunk, but I'll let you know when I encounter the video stream that is just too jam packed with quality. Hasn't happened yet.) My camera claims to take 1080P video, but it's a dirty rotten liar, in as much as I'm able to take the video coming out, cut the resolution in both directions by 2x and cut the bit rate per pixel when I reencode it, and produce a video that is indistinguishable from the original when zoomed full screen. (If you are thinking to yourself "why, that means the original video must not so much have pixels as blotches of color when looked at at the pixel level"... correct. It's what gave me this idea in the first place, and it turns 1.5GB videos that are even today somewhat annoying to store into 200MB videos that are much easier.) And I only stopped at 15% of the original size because I don't care about the last few percent and it's better to still be a bit fluffy than start cutting into real quality, but I suspect I could get it to fully 10% of the original size with only minimal quality loss.
- mlinsey 15y ago
  I agree 4K is too far out to be realistic for an Apple TV released next year, but in general it's a common Apple strategy to essentially finance the production of a new component and buy up the entire production capacity for that component, so that sometimes even the vendor selling it to Apple can't use it for their own product. We've seen them do this sort of thing with Samsung a few times, just to pick one example.
wtvanhest 15y ago
I would guess they do the exact opposite. Produce a normal quality (120 hz maybe 240 hz) HDTV with 3D capability, (Nothing special technology hardware wise) Focus all their effort on using software to optimize the experience. Sell for a premium which captures their target market and delivers value through experience rather than hardware.

kmfrk 15y ago

I have no idea how they compete on "quality", but Apple is the Roman army of logistics, so they might very well win over people on pricing alone and create component and transportation bottlenecks for their competitors in doing so.

ConstantineXVI 15y ago

I highly doubt they'd go 4K at launch: 1) 4K panels are still ridiculously expensive. Apple's mastered the supply chain, but not the laws of physics. Also keep in mind that anyone Apple could source 4K displays from at any useful volume will be putting them in their own TVs first. 2) Apple might have the bandwidth to handle 4K streaming. Your average home connection most certainly doesn't. Even if we're very generous and assume everyone has guaranteed 100Mb/s lines, that's still a few hairs under 3x Blu-Ray's bandwidth. You'd almost be able to pull it off if you went into overdrive on the compression. (and no other activity on your line). And perhaps you meant iPhone 4? The iPad's resolution in terms of DPI isn't significantly higher than a decent notebook.

dmbaggett 15y ago
No, I agree -- they definitely won't launch with 4K. But they could launch with something better than 1080p (yes, I meant iPhone 4 resolution). My point is just that they probably view the TV market just the way they viewed the PC, phone and tablet markets: people think they are commoditized, but Apple can qualitatively improve the experience through both UI and manufacturing improvements. Then the margin in what was previously a race-to-the-bottom industry comes back -- and to Apple first. Another obvious course for them to follow is to allow iOS apps to run directly on the TV. They just need a new input device so users can "touch" the screen while sitting in their sofa. But I disagree with the end of your point #1. I can absolutely believe that there's a panel manufacturer out there who would collaborate with Apple exclusively for some finite period to deliver some new tech.
jerf 15y ago
"You'd almost be able to pull it off if you went into overdrive on the compression." To a first approximation, a Mbps is a Mbps is a Mbps when it comes to image quality. Just because you push the 4K button on your compressor doesn't make it a high quality image if you don't spot it enough bitrate to actually paint distinct pixels. You'd be far better off measuring image quality in Mbps than resolution. (Except in pathological cases where the video is overshrunk, but I'll let you know when I encounter the video stream that is just too jam packed with quality. Hasn't happened yet.) My camera claims to take 1080P video, but it's a dirty rotten liar, in as much as I'm able to take the video coming out, cut the resolution in both directions by 2x and cut the bit rate per pixel when I reencode it, and produce a video that is indistinguishable from the original when zoomed full screen. (If you are thinking to yourself "why, that means the original video must not so much have pixels as blotches of color when looked at at the pixel level"... correct. It's what gave me this idea in the first place, and it turns 1.5GB videos that are even today somewhat annoying to store into 200MB videos that are much easier.) And I only stopped at 15% of the original size because I don't care about the last few percent and it's better to still be a bit fluffy than start cutting into real quality, but I suspect I could get it to fully 10% of the original size with only minimal quality loss.
mlinsey 15y ago
I agree 4K is too far out to be realistic for an Apple TV released next year, but in general it's a common Apple strategy to essentially finance the production of a new component and buy up the entire production capacity for that component, so that sometimes even the vendor selling it to Apple can't use it for their own product. We've seen them do this sort of thing with Samsung a few times, just to pick one example.

wtvanhest 15y ago

I would guess they do the exact opposite. Produce a normal quality (120 hz maybe 240 hz) HDTV with 3D capability, (Nothing special technology hardware wise) Focus all their effort on using software to optimize the experience. Sell for a premium which captures their target market and delivers value through experience rather than hardware.