Kash's Profile

Despite using Macs all day at work, the lack of a 15" Macbook is why I went with a Windows notebook two years ago for our only (but light duty) home computer. The 13" Macbook screen was just too small and the Macbook Pro was 60% more expensive than a PC notebook that could do the job we needed. I couldn't believe Apple didn't have a consumer oriented option right in the "belly" of the market. And it's still not there. If ever there was a time to be offering more Mac options, were in the middle of it.

"But, let’s be honest, Cupertino is in California and as long as the domestic US is Apple’s bread ‘n butter market, we won’t see this FTA board integrated." You're not wrong there. The possibilities I mentioned were a wishlist, definitely not a prediction. "If Apple offers this DVR, it will have to start there and somehow also offer FTA for those customers in the Eurozone and Australasia. How must the TV support thee?" This dilemma and your answer is an expanded version of what I said in my original post. BTW, ideally each piece of hardware should have the ports needed to support daisy chaining multiple modules. PVR, extra harddrive, dvd, blu ray...

Greg, I definitely agree that downloads have the advantages over Free To Air TV that you mention, and that is why Downloads will catch on and shake up existing TV, but it's not enough to replace the functionality of a TV with PVR, as your comment "AppleTV can replace a PVR without requiring a PVR" suggests. The real opportunity I see for Apple is that consumers are getting more boxes under the TV than ever before, more remotes on the coffee table and more frustrated at the complexity of controlling it all. Apple won't own the living room just by offering digital downloads, it needs to offer easy to use hardware/software that controls both existing and future media sources, with the TV acting as a monitor and the AV system as a glorified powered speaker setup. The shame is that this is exactly what Apple is best at. Until then, or until downloads have taken over the world, I'll use dedicated boxes with my Logitech Harmony remote - damn it's good.

Ipods succeeded because you could get a lot of value out of them without buying a single song from iTunes. You don't get a lot of value from AppleTV unless you buy movies and shows from iTunes. Because you can't rip your own DVDs easily and it doesn't play many formats, it seems AppleTV exists only to sell more (overpriced) Itunes content, not to make money from selling Apple TVs. This hamstrings the device and reminds me of how Sony missed the boat on MP3 players - ie Sony hardware couldn't build on their Walkman success with MP3 players because Sony Music didn't want to encourage the music piracy going on. The holy grail of the digital home is one convergent device that handles TV, DVD and media files better and easier than separate, dedicated boxes. It probably isn't technically possible yet but ripe for the picking. I'm suprised Apple haven't overcome this by making AppleTV modular, so extra functionality like DVR,DVD or larger hard drives can be added if wanted, then controlled seamlessly. This would also deal with the issue of the many different digital TV formats used throughout the world. Apple is one of the few companies that can pull this off. The other is Sony, and they already have the PS3 out there which seems to amaze anyone who uses its media centre/player/online abilities. Maybe they learnt their lesson.

It's more than a little interesting to see that Ballmer is under enough pressure that he needs to score easy points by focusing on small competitors, rather than true competitors. He would know all too well that Macs don't really impact Windows' profits (due to Macs low total market share), but they seriously impact hardware maker profits (due to Macs high market share of the high profit, high end segment). And then when talking about smartphone competition last week, he insinuated iphone wasn't competition because iphone OS isn't licensed, when clearly, unlike Macs, iphone will end up with significant market share that will impact Windows Mobile. He's on the ropes.

Look, it's as simple as this: The problem many consumers have with "Apple pricing" isn't really Apple's product pricing, it's Apple's product ranging. 1. When comparing Apples with apples there is no price difference. We all agree on that so lets move on. 2. The issue is Apple doesn't offer up enough apples. While they shouldn't sell "elcheapo" crap computers, they should offer average priced computers. While companies like BMW and Mercedes have reduced the entry level price to their brands by adding hatchbacks to their ranges, when it comes to notebooks, Apple have increased their prices! 3. This is particularly annoying because in other product categories you just buy the product you need at the right price from the competition, but in computing there's only two mainstream OS's, not much choice. Apple, you've got the halo effect momentum, it's time to move the focus off profit margin (milking the early adopters) and focus on total profit ie balancing margin and sales for maximum profit. It's a win win. But I fear this will only happen if MS get their s__t together.