Bilton — citing his insiders at Apple and its suppliers — says large prototype parts have already been spotted, but speculates Apple is waiting for panel costs to come down before it can manufacture a super-thin set that matches its MacBook Air and iPad design family. Right now, it’d be way too expensive to make, because it’s going to be a lot more than just a nice LCD:
Enter Siri.
It’s the stuff of science fiction. You sit on your couch and rather than fumble with several remotes or use hand gestures, you simply talk: “Put on the last episode of Gossip Girl.” “Play the local news headlines.” “Play some Coldplay music videos.” Siri does the rest.
Essentially, Siri murders the remote control. Siri is the remote control. Apple’s already shown disdain for the physical remote with the Apple TV, having slimmed it down to its absolute bare bones. It’s a beautiful little peripheral, and completely functional, but it shows what we already know: Apple hates buttons. And nothing promises a button-free life like a TV that’s always listening to you. Obviously, this will take a more sophisticated version of Siri than the one we’re chatting with now, but for a television that’s still a year or two off, that’s fine. What once sounded dumb and impossible now seems brilliant and inevitable. [NYT]
Ryan
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 10:23 AMI don’t understand this, why not just make an apple TV with an A5 chip and the ability to have apps? That would be way more popular, and would be cheap enough that people would impulse buy.
vin
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 11:57 AMprobably because they already have that (the apple TV series already exists, and will evolve).
i think the point is that they’ll use the ATV to leverage their TV as the ‘all in one’ for tv’s… it’s pretty much what they’re good at!
moloko
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 10:47 AMI hope Microsoft have patented the crap out of their Kinects voice controls, beat the Apple patent trolls at their own game.
iceleron
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 12:56 PMI don’t know if they can. Voice control is cited in way too much pop culture before Microsoft.
Star Trek anyone?
FrancisM
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 10:57 PMWhat you mean as opposed to all those tablet pads everyone in Star Trek Walk around with ?
markd
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 2:18 PMFunny how patents suddenly dont ‘stifle innovation’ when it suits being hip ;)
keith
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 10:59 AMI totally don’t understand the appeal of an actual Apple TV. It makes no sense to me. I was excited about the iPhone, iPad, ATV2 and I love my macbook pro but I don’t have any desire to buy an apple HDTV.
Deshan
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 12:23 PMwell let me ask you this, was anyone ready for the ipad? no, noone expected one and it was a whole new era of tachnology. apple creates it, they dont go around making something another company already does… and yes i know tv’s exist, im also aware of smart tv’s. but apple will push the tv to a whole new level, and make others follow and causes them steal its glory.
Chaps
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 2:18 PM“..they dont go around making something another company already does…”
what.. so Apple invented the computer, tablet, mobile phone and mp3 player?
Daniel
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 12:28 PMIt’s will be shiny and well designed (no ugly edges, vents, menus etc), and will increasingly match and work with everything else in my house that my apple fanboy partner continues to buy :S
I do agree Apple’s aesthetic design and construction (think unibody macbook air) are unrivaled.
ekbul78
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 11:04 AMIts all well and good to have siri integration and I’m sure it’ll work for things apple want you to do on it but i cant imagine it would play too nice when you want to add on your pvr, bluray, xbox or whetever else.
vin
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 11:59 AMhahaha… can you imagine having to run all your devices through a patented, thunderbolt driven, amp?
TSH
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 12:10 PMI’m unclear as to how this would be better than beefing up the AppleTV box. Why alienate potential customers who already have a nice big TV in the living room? An AppleTV box can plug into any screen, is small enough to be unobtrusively placed within voice range, and with iPad2-level hardware it’s powerful enough to run the whole shebang.
*confused*
Daniel
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 12:36 PMFor the same reason that apple sells the all-in-one iMac with (optional extras) wireless mouse/trackpad and keyboard – removes the need for cables (which many consumers don’t like) and allows Apple to have tighter (complete and utter) control over the software-firmware-hardware experience.
The problem is that a 55″ LCD TV isn’t a disposable item quite like an iPhone (as in easily on sell). It’s also likely to become an extremely large paper weight when Apple chooses not to support it in their latest updates.
Deshan
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 12:19 PMgo apple!
f**k android, they will probably come in after apple releases this and mindwash consumers into thinking it was first and is the best.
apple is far superior to android. dont get me wrong, android is great. compared to apple however, not even close.
d
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 5:02 PMPerhaps an attic shal I seek.
Andrew
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 6:09 PMI dont understand how this is the stuff of “science fiction”. Laptops (HP i think but cant be sure) have been able to do this for ages. You can rig your lappy up to the tv and tell it to put on whatever you want. It sometimes got confused by the tv speaking but its not like apple invented saying things to make things happen…
Adam
Monday, October 31, 2011 at 9:09 PMAll of this sounds very familiar. Wasn’t it exactly the kind of speculation and rumour we were hearing before Apple didn’t release the iPhone 5?