I wonder if an iTV would sell. All mondern smart tvs are covered in ads and spying. monitors of similar sizes cost 3x to 4x. so to me there might be a market for a non spying iTV with bultin Apple TV for say 1.5x. Or not, not sure enough people care about those issues.
What I could see Apple doing is some kind of "Made for Apple TV" feature that combines eArc, HDMI, etc, and makes the TV turn into a "dumb TV" for the Apple TV when it is connected and detected.
> And even something similar embedded in some TVs.
I don't believe there is an "tvOS Embedded". "Apple TV+" is just an app within the OS; there isn't really any similarity between the embedded app and tvOS.
That's not the point. That is what I have now and my tv starts up in a big ugly display with an ad for Google TV and an admonition to enable it.
I've read online some smart tvs will complain, often, to please connect them.
I'd like a tv that works for me, not for the tv manufacturer.
It's also got a remote with way too many buttons like "Netflix" "Disney+" etc. Touch them by accident and it immediately goes to "setup your tv account"
to be honest, even AppleTV has per app ads I wish I could turn off. Whatever app is highlighted gets to show ads on the top half of the screen. I'd prefer no ads unless I launch the app
If that’s the case for you, I’d recommend putting other apps in your top row.
I have Plex, Podcasts, Soma FM, VLC, and Settings in my top row. None of them show me ads; I get to see what I’m in the middle of watching or listening to and jump directly to that content if I want.
Settings is the outlier, as I like to check the battery status of my remote somewhat often, but again, no ads for any of the apps I listed.
What I do is buy a smart TV, never connect it to the network (thus making it a dumb TV), and plug an Apple TV (or other devices) into it. So far, this has worked - I haven't seen any ads from the TV itself (the apps running on the Apple TV are another story), and it can't phone home about what I'm watching or otherwise doing with the TV.
> and it can't phone home about what I'm watching or otherwise doing with the TV
Are you sure?
The old idea of giving TVs built-in cellular backup connection is probably still too risky/expensive - dealing with people extracting and repurposing the SIM card with a free (for them) data plan is a hassle. But what about eSIM?
Why bother with an esim, when you can use something like Amazon Sidewalk, just use whatever nearby Echo or other device to send whatever small data packets
Intriguing and possible I suppose; Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
However, I imagine the numbers would show it's unnecessary these days. My humble estimation is that most people, at least in the developed world, connect the TV to wifi for the convenience if available.
Mark my words: one of these days, there will be a huge national security scandal involving data stolen from a SCIF, possibly with loss of life as a consequence, and it'll turn out there wasn't any intelligence op or treason involved - just adtech fuckery getting out of hand. Think disposable microphone and eSIM in a popcorn bag, sending telemetry to a publicly-readable S3 bucket, or something, because it's superbowl and they HAVE TO know if you're watching.
10 years ago I thought Apple would fail if they tried it because they'd have a chauvinistic attitude about having HDMI or any other ports that aren't Ethernet. (You can't plug your phonograph into an iPod) For that matter I'd expect them to have a chauvinistic attitude about connecting to my home theater.
Back then you were just going to have to deal with the rubbish cable box but I think Apple wasn't going to stand for it.
Today Blu Ray seems to be on the way out and so is the cable box (now we have the spectacle of seemingly competitive vMVPDs that are all priced the same within a few dollars), it now is going to be a fight over game consoles.
TVs though have a serious race to the bottom and the TV with an Amazon Fire TV built in is going to be attractive to a lot of people.
(Also already Apple makes a "TV" removes the tuner and replaces the HDMI ports w/ something else and calls it a "monitor" and charges 5x. No way are they going to cannibalize that market to sell something that only costs 1.5x)
I think a problem with TVs for Apple is that they’d be under pressure to build them in a zillion different sizes. That’s not in their DNA.
A good beamer might be more fitting for them; they would only have to build them in ‘small’, ‘medium’ and ‘large’.
In either case, like you I’m not sure the market is large enough for a company of Apple’s size and DNA (it’s unlikely that they’ll try to find not one huge next big hit, but lots and lots of smaller ones. They’re not Ikea)
> I wonder if an iTV would sell. All mondern smart tvs are covered in ads and spying.
Probably best to just connect TVs to some box (Apple TV, Roku, etc) via plain HDMI and leave it that. There's no technical reason to connect TVs to an IP directly anymore IMHO: what would that actually provide over and above what you get with some box/stick?
I like wall-mounting TVs but it sure is a mess to have a power cable and two or three HDMI cables and a composite cable (got a VCR, rubbish Denon receiver won't convert composite to HDMI) and an Ethernet cable and who knows what else hanging below it.
Now that I think about it it wouldn't be hard to cut a few holes and route the cables through the wall and have them come out in a spot that's not too conspicuous but who's going to do that?
People who believe in aesthetics uber alles (Apple fans?) might appreciate a TV that has just a power cable and connects through WiFi but you could mostly accomplish that with the right kind of stick. You might say in 2024 who needs a cable box or Blu Ray but game consoles are still a reason to have HDMI. (Though somehow I think Apple would think plugging a Playstation into an Apple TV is as unthinkable as plugging a phonograph into an iPod.)
