I like the Apple TV, but not as Apple presents it ;)
When you tear it down, the machine is basically a Mac mini mini- They cut every conceivable feature from the machine, then halved the price, and targetted it toward video..
This opens a lot of possibilities as a Platform- The team who loaded Divx drivers onto it [1] already showed that it's just OSX ont he inside- This opens possibilities on what to do with it.
This makes it useful as a Platform, albeit one that you need to fight to develop for.
People could write games for the machine, or do TiVo style hacks.. Keep in mind, Dozens of mods and hacks have been written for Tivos, many which greatly enhance the built in functionality [2]..
The question now is what will Apple Do- They could go either the Tivo/Xbox route and try to lock it down, or go the Linksys route, and embrace the hackers and agree that they add value.
It's too early to tell for sure which route they'll take, but from early indications it looks like they're A) Making it easy to hack- This lets people develop on it, and make cool things, without getting in the way.. They are doing this while also b) Not guaranteeing that the system won't change..
Essentially, anything made for it can stop working with the next set fromt eh factory. This means that most companies would be insane to develop anything for it, since their investment could be stopped by a third party in a second..
It seems like what Apple is doing is letting Hackers play and extend, while stopping any larger players from getting involved.
I agree, but an issue to think about is how would a startup fit into this equation? Venues like AppleTV and XBOX 360 are generally closed, proprietary systems that have some extent of control over what content flows through their pipes.
Fareed, I'm so glad to see posts like this as I was starting to think that every person going to Startup School was interested in making some sort of social network/photo/"web 2.0" site.
This makes all the hoopla around video sharing sites more urgent. The more easily web video gets off the PC and onto your normal TV, the more people will watch during non-work hours, and the longer the format can become (at work, you watch youtube clips, not 30 minute shows, and only nerds watch TV in front of a computer).
If this becomes as mass market as the iPod, the market for higher quality web content will explode.
When you tear it down, the machine is basically a Mac mini mini- They cut every conceivable feature from the machine, then halved the price, and targetted it toward video..
This opens a lot of possibilities as a Platform- The team who loaded Divx drivers onto it [1] already showed that it's just OSX ont he inside- This opens possibilities on what to do with it.
This makes it useful as a Platform, albeit one that you need to fight to develop for.
People could write games for the machine, or do TiVo style hacks.. Keep in mind, Dozens of mods and hacks have been written for Tivos, many which greatly enhance the built in functionality [2]..
The question now is what will Apple Do- They could go either the Tivo/Xbox route and try to lock it down, or go the Linksys route, and embrace the hackers and agree that they add value.
It's too early to tell for sure which route they'll take, but from early indications it looks like they're A) Making it easy to hack- This lets people develop on it, and make cool things, without getting in the way.. They are doing this while also b) Not guaranteeing that the system won't change..
Essentially, anything made for it can stop working with the next set fromt eh factory. This means that most companies would be insane to develop anything for it, since their investment could be stopped by a third party in a second..
It seems like what Apple is doing is letting Hackers play and extend, while stopping any larger players from getting involved.
Interesting move.
[1]http://crunchgear.com/2007/03/23/hackers-hack-hacked-apple-tv-to-play-divx/ [2] Such as the ability to have a web interface, to schedule recordings from work