in 2011 walter isaacson published in his steve jobs biography that the late ceo
had finally cracked it jobs said and i quote
i'd like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy
to use it would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with icloud
no longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for dvd players and
cable channels it would have the simplest user interface you could imagine
yes let's imagine but not the user
interface we have one of those with the current apple tv and that issue of complex dvd player and
cable box remotes is slowly being negated with the transition to online
streaming rather let's imagine what an apple television set itself could look
like we're apple to make one today this is for you jean munster
tv design today is extremely derivative
they become commodities cheap large black mirrors people place in front of
their walls though they might perform differently when they're switched on when they're
off i don't know we're left with an ominous
black void in the middle of our living room especially as bezels keep getting
smaller and smaller and panels bigger and bigger
i've been thinking recently about the concept of the television as
furniture superb cabinetry master
crafted of the finest woods it used to be this way before the 70s
yes i know there were some garish wood cabinets that ended up in grandmother's
basement but at least those designs were something more interesting than the
generic black appliances we're living with today
with apple's storied history and passion around hardware design
i think many of us are interested in what their take on the television as
furniture would look like there's room to play with modality with presents with
different materials beyond brushed silver metal and black plastics
what about wood or fabric or matte paint finished
in bold colors okay hear me out clear
colored plastics all over again i just but also i want i want to attempt
to sketch out what a potential apple tv could look like and to draw some inspiration of where
they could take this let's take a look at the samsung frame tv
i'd argue that this is one of the best designed televisions on the market right
now this is such a refreshing take on what a tv can do
and look like the frame that surrounds the panel is interchangeable with four
different options two of which are wood and it comes with a special mount in the box that places
the tv flush on the wall like a picture
but perhaps the best thing about the samsung frame is that when it's not
being used as a tv it's not a tv instead of being a black
void dominating the wall it's a backlit painting or a photo set in a mat it recedes into
the background looking like any other picture on the wall
for a wall mounted apple tv all i'd want to see is intention in how the tv is
mounted in the wall it could be flush like the frame or
incorporate a curve back like the imac which allows light to spill behind
reducing the panel's shadow cast there's room to experiment here
more interesting to me though is how apple would build a tv that stands on
its own looking at all the tvs in the stores it
seems that making an interesting stand is quite difficult samsung's sarif tv
sits quite well on a base that's part of the design better still if you don't
have a unit for it to rest on it does come with attachable legs too
apple could sell these separately for a thousand dollars or 250 each i just
but what about technology after all apple isn't just a design company
firstly everything should be able to be controlled with one remote
whether you use an av receiver with a bunch of devices plugged in or simply a
lone sound bar the fewer the remotes the better for
this to work better than cec already does apple would probably have to buy
logitech's harmony division or make all these devices themselves if only speaking of remotes
i'm pleased to report that apple did what i was hoping they would do and updated the siri remote with a d-pad
better still they added a click-wheel-like jogging capability by
making the d-pad touch sensitive so it really is the best of both worlds
and speaking of siri adding a microphone array and siri their
voice assistant integration to the television set would be a no-brainer offering the same sort of
functionality as siri on the homepod but more interesting in
this age of the pandemic would be the addition of an eyesight camera
recent rumors speculated it being part of an updated apple tv
set-top box which we didn't see at the spring-loaded event but it's a neat idea
nonetheless because there's something charming about the idea of inviting
friends and family into your living room through a facetime call
i do however understand the discomfort of having a camera and microphone just
staring at you in your most comfortable of spaces so my thinking would be that it's better
sold as an optional accessory that clips on with magnets send signal through a smart connector
and has a physical cover now panels i bring this up because
apple's displays have always been of high quality so we would expect much the
same here while many would think OLED is the obvious choice i'm not entirely sure
apple would go that way because it wouldn't leave them much room to differentiate themselves since they'd
have to buy commodity panels from lg instead i'd expect them to use high
quality lcd displays like they use on the pro display xdr
or rumors of incoming mini led displays persist
and last year the company invested significantly in the design and
manufacture of micro led it's still a long long way off but
offers a tantalizing hope of what could be and though apple has
refrained from any sort of variable refresh rates on its devices
it's becoming important technology especially considering where gaming consoles are
going and support through HDMI 2.1 to me
though it's what's on the screen that's more interesting especially when the tv isn't
being used to watch content the dream of ambient computing is to
have a display that shows you exactly what you want to see when you want to
see it in the morning it could show you widgets to prepare you for your day
in the afternoon an aerial screensaver and at night
during a dinner party your favorite painting
dinner parties aren't a thing i just lastly
there's sound which i want to emphasize is equally important to the visuals
video production proverb there for you firstly on this apple tv set i want
spatial audio support for airpods the feature simulates surround sound on
airpods and has proved to work well with apple's mobile devices
but the idea of popping on a pair of airpods and getting a cinematic
experience without disturbing others at home is an obvious solution secondly built-in
tv speakers are by and large terrible they're so bad in fact that i wish
manufacturers wouldn't bother installing them apple could go two ways
here really lay into built-in tv speaker technology using what they've learned
with the homepod maybe adding homepod minis as rear
satellite speakers or more likely apple could just not
include speakers at all and get you to buy an accompanying stellar sound bar
there really are a lot of opportunities for new design in the television space
if you think about it and with apple having spent a reported
six billion dollars on television content by the summer of 2019
it seems kind of strange here we have a very rich company known for making great
hardware spending rich sums of money on content and then not making the hardware to show it on
they could master their apple originals for this tv giving you the exact
experience the creators intended it's
the perfect time i know this topic has been a source of
much excitement and disappointment in the apple community for a while now so
comment below if you think there's still a place for an apple tv set in this
world or whether we should just let bygones be bygones and don't forget to like and
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