Apple and it's rumored TV set

     As a die hard Apple fan I'm always interested in the next thing from Uncle Steve.  Even though he's gone from us now his legacy will live on for at least a few more years.  Most products have a 2+ year development cycle and Apple's tends to be a bit longer.  Rest assured that we will continue to see Steve Jobs designed Apple products for the next few years.  The rumor I'm interested in is a LCD TV set by Apple.  I found that rumor on the huffington post and theapple.tv.

It makes sense.  The product Apple sells now that's called Apple TV is somewhat unimpressive from what it could be.  It's great for Netflix and youtube but not being able to use Hulu is a deal breaker for me.  When you look at the cost and features the roku is a much better product.  That being said it's still not perfect.  Both missing the ability to be a DVR and record what you watch, tune into broadcast TV, and be fully integrated to the display screen.  That's where I figure Apple could swoop in and do their magic.  Fully integrating the screen into the interface is something Apple can do better than any other company.  I for one, would buy it.
     The lack of Hulu won't be a major sticking point for long.  The rumored Apple buyout of Hulu seems to have been nothing more than rumors but what it did was expose Apple's desire to duplicate the same type of service on iTunes and iCloud.  If the predicted time frame is correct (late 2012-early 2013) the iCloud will be out there with an established customer base and ready to accept a product that was custom designed for it.  The Apple TV and iCloud will be what the iPod was for iTunes.

The innovative side of Apple; What we can thank Uncle Steve for.

    Some technical innovations have been out for so long and have been so widely adopted that people forget a time when they weren't standard.  I'm old enough o remember so let me highlight a few things that we can directly credit Steve Jobs and Apple for.  He and Apple may not have been the original inventor and they may not have been the first to bring it to market.  But you will see that he and Apple were the ones to make them a standard in the industry.

#1 Steve Jobs was instrumental into turning computers from this;

into this;

    This was Steve Jobs innovation #1.  Despite the meager start Steve was the leader in taking the computer into the home.  Before the Apple 1 the vast majority of computers were in cooperate and university environments or scratch built from kits by geeky techy types.  Even if you have never used an Apple computer you have Steve Jobs to thank if you're using your PC and do not have an engineering degree in computer science.

#2 Keyboards on all computers

     Apple 1 was the first to come with a keyboard but the Apple 2 was the first to mass market and force the rest of the industry to adopt keyboards as standard on all personal computers.

#3 Computers in Schools

     It's also safe to say that the Apple 2 was probably the first computer you ever used.  Steve invented the entire concept of marketing the computer to schools below the university level.  This idea created an entire generation of computer savy kids.

#4 The Computer Mouse
     IBM invented the mouse but it remained as a curious lab experiment for years before Steve and the Apple Lisa.  The Macintosh made it an industry standard.

#5 The Graphical User Interface
     How many of us know what that phrase even means?  It's so ubiquitous on every computer has it we forget what an innovation it was to click on an icon and not type in lines of computer code to get the computer to do something.

#6 Color monitors
     Before the Steve advanced the Apple 2 this was what almost all personal computer screens looked like;

then they became this;

#7 Web Browsers
     The first web browser was wrote on one of these;

     The web existed before then but to use it you practically had to be a computer expert.  

#8 The complete computer

     The first to market the "all in one" computer was Apple with the Macintosh.  It was the first computer designed to eliminate the birds nest of cables that dominated the vast majority of computers.  

#9 the USB and Firewire ports

   The first USB and firewire ports I ever saw was on a Macintosh.  Before the USB port the back of most computers was a vast array of various ports.  The USB made life simpler with standardization.  

Firewire mad it faster;

#10  Portable Music

     Portable music existed before the iPod but the iPod is what turned this;

Into this;

#11 Paying for Digital Music

     Despite all the populist and libertarian rage the fact remains that downloading music from a file sharing site is still theft.  Someone created that music with the expectation of being paid and just because you can doesn't mean you should download it without payment.  All credit must be given to Steve Jobs for making that a possibility.  Without him and iTunes the music would still be stuck in an 80's industry mindset and fighting (suing) the public. 

#12 Tablet computers

     Forget the iPad, that's the machine that made it successful.  The first real tablet computer was the Apple Newton.  That one didn't take off but it set the early stage for what did.

#13 Smart Phones

     The iPhone is the basic design that all smart phones are based upon today.   Before it phones were for calling people.  Now they do almost everything.  

#14  Apps

     Micro-programs (apps) didn't first appear in the iPhone.  They've been a feature of computers for years.  The iPhone is what brought them to the phone.

#15 Podcasting

     It's a simple fact that Podcasts are named after the iPod.  The 2 are forever linked.  Without iTunes or the iPod the podcast would have remained a wonky internet thing for geeks and nerds.

    The simple fact remains that without the influence of Steve Jobs and Apple the computer industry would probably still be stuck in the 80's.  Almost everyone of these innovations I listed existed before Steve brought them to the public but it was Steve who forced the industry to advance.  It doesn't matter if you like Apple, Steve Jobs or the products he brought into the world or not but if you're reading this Steve has changed your life.

Noooooooo! Not Uncle Steve.

And so an era in computing comes to an end.  Steve Jobs has passed away.
If you want to know how the company feels about it then download the pic they used to announce his death.

The people who worked with him everyday and knew him best named the file; t_hero.png  
That alone should say enough.  
I'm a bit crushed.  I've been a loyal Mac user since 1986 and have never owned a PC.  

Uncle Steve understood computers and their users better than anyone.  The machines he created are more than just a beige box with a keyboard.  They are an extension of a person's personality and creativity.  
He was a true innovator who could take a half understood idea and reform it into pure brilliance.  His passing leaves this world a lot more bland.  
Let's not remember him for the wonderful computers he created.  Let's remember him for what we did with the wonderful computers he created.  

What would you do with $50 billion?

And now for reason #610 for me to hate all things rumor and speculation.  A Macworld editor has decided that he was going to start a rumor about Apple buying Facebook.  The reason for his wild speculation; Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerburg had lunch and Apple is sitting on 50 billion dollars with no place to spend it.

http://www.macworld.com/article/154995/2010/10/appleearnigns.html

While a wild rumor and speculation like this is nothing new for the internet what bothers me is it's lack of imagination.  Seriously people, Apple is buying Facebook?????  It's an obvious attempt to smash 2 big names into one editorial to bump up a google search.  This editor apparently forgot that Apple is a hardware company.  They leave the internet entrepreneurship to others.  Whenever Apple has gone into "non-hardware" business it's always been to support a hardware product of theirs (itunes was started to support the ipods).

But the concept of Apple sitting on $50 billion and no idea where to spend it did fascinate me.  I'm sure Apple has plenty of good ideas what they can do with that money but in case they don't let me offer up a couple of serious suggestions that relate to your hardware product line.

1. Can you guys buy Hulu.com and work it into Apple TV.  Connecting the Internet to the TV is a great idea and Apple TV is a good piece of hardware to do it but it's lacking good content to draw upon.  Much of the content it can draw from is utter crap (admit it, 95% of all youtube is crap) or subscription based (Netflix and iTunes).  What it needs is real TV content that hulu.com can offer.
2. Buy Skype and integrate it fully to the iPhone.  People are already doing it by unlocking their iPhones so you might as well make it official and make it work.  At the minimum you'd be able to get the iPhone out from under AT&T.
3. Spend it on more R&D.  Apple is always on the leading edge of the tech industry and needs to stay there.  I've always said that if PC uses want to know what they will be using in 2 years they should look at what Mac users are doing now.  I'd love to see all Macs (desktop and laptop) come with touch-screens, get rid of the spinning hard drives and go all solid state flash drives, and a wireless connection between the car stereo and the iPod would be friggin awesome.