GigaOm has a great story about Apple’s possible foray into the living room:

If Apple wants to be the digital hearth, it will have to do better than AppleTV, and the impending announcement may launch just such a product. So what would the perfect Apple consumer device look like?

  * TV tuner and set-top PVR to take on TiVo, with streaming and synchronization to Apple’s mobile devices, the way Slingbox does, handled through a more reliable MobileMe
  * Controllers with accelerometers and a set-top App Store to rival what’s on the iPhone and iPod Touch
  * Videoconferencing-capable features to connect a distributed family via iChat
  * Computing features (mail, documents and so on) that make it a decent set-top computer terminal
  * Broad support for emerging wireless standards, so it looks like a file server to other devices
  * Better integration with stereo systems, tied into the whole family’s iTunes accounts, on par with Roku or the audiophile-friendly Squeezebox
  * Good cosmetics so it can mount cleanly to a wall or behind a flatscreen]

We know that Savant is an up and coming player in the HA space, built on Apple software. But the company hasn’t had an “official” launch in the home theater space.

Can Apple make a difference in the living room? Is it even worth it for them to enter?

Jason Unger - 29 September 2008 05:43 AM

GigaOm has a great story about Apple’s possible foray into the living room:

If Apple wants to be the digital hearth, it will have to do better than AppleTV, and the impending announcement may launch just such a product. So what would the perfect Apple consumer device look like?

  * TV tuner and set-top PVR to take on TiVo, with streaming and synchronization to Apple’s mobile devices, the way Slingbox does, handled through a more reliable MobileMe
  * Controllers with accelerometers and a set-top App Store to rival what’s on the iPhone and iPod Touch
  * Videoconferencing-capable features to connect a distributed family via iChat
  * Computing features (mail, documents and so on) that make it a decent set-top computer terminal
  * Broad support for emerging wireless standards, so it looks like a file server to other devices
  * Better integration with stereo systems, tied into the whole family’s iTunes accounts, on par with Roku or the audiophile-friendly Squeezebox
  * Good cosmetics so it can mount cleanly to a wall or behind a flatscreen]

We know that Savant is an up and coming player in the HA space, built on Apple software. But the company hasn’t had an “official” launch in the home theater space.

Can Apple make a difference in the living room? Is it even worth it for them to enter?

i think they can , i hope that if they do it with savant it is done well and at a good price for the CE company to make decent margin on.

losboskie - 30 September 2008 04:45 PM

i think they can , i hope that if they do it with savant it is done well and at a good price for the CE company to make decent margin on.

I think this represents some very wishful thinking. As someone who’s worked in both the Apple and CI markets, I know that if they do have a serious crack at this area the only folks to profit from it will be Apple.

Historically they were very much the underdog and would have been much more channel friendly in any new ventures like this. But now with the content delivery (near) monopoly that is iTunes and the broad direct retail channel to consumers they would be foolish to pander to the CI channel. The margins the channel need would drive up retail pricing on any product, making it less appealing to the masses and that’s scale of market they need and would go after with such a product.

Without wanting to be a doomsayer, if Apple really do go after the ‘media center’ market it will make the CI channel’s job much harder as you will really have to be able to clearly message why your preferred solutions are worth $1000s as opposed to their ‘solution’ in the $100s. Don’t get me wrong, the chances are you will have much stronger and more flexible solutions to offer but you’ll have to get your story straight before meeting a customer.

On a more positive note, a big player like Apple will grow the overall market demand dramatically and there will be lots of new business for those who can add value to and fill in the gaps of their product. Another positive note would be that if Apple doe enter this market, you can bet they feel it’s set to mushroom sooner rather than later and that’s got to be good news given our current dire straits.

Jez—that’s a great point. While Apple delivering a product into the living room might be good for mass-understanding of what many CIs do, there will have to be a level of education done to differentiate what a custom product could offer.

Dealers, are you ever spec’ing an Apple TV into a system you install?

I know that SE2 Labs includes one in their ITC unit, but am not sure of anyone else who has focused on it at all.

Almost every install we do the customer has some technology they want us to include in the setup that THEY selected.  It has included a variety of things like kareoke, juke box and yes, Apple TV.  As for specifying them in a design, nope.

-Morgan

TheTechSource - 02 October 2008 10:29 PM

Almost every install we do the customer has some technology they want us to include in the setup that THEY selected.  It has included a variety of things like kareoke, juke box and yes, Apple TV.  As for specifying them in a design, nope.

-Morgan

I think this highlights a key problem for the channel. Consumers want many of these new toys but are often unwilling to pay real money to have them installed, unsurprising given the low cost of the actual hardware. That’s because in isolation each of these items are relatively easy to set up (at least in theory). The problem is in getting them to ‘play nice’ with everything else the customer wants. And of course manufacturers like Apple have no interest supporting the channel or companies wanting to integrate their products.

As an evangelist of a very IP-centric future I think standards will evolve that allow ‘device to speak unto device’ but until that really starts to happen there’s a lot of customer education that needs to happen.