Apple TV: The case for waiting

by John P. Falcone

 
(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET)

 

The first reviews of Apple TV are hitting the Web today, and there are, for the most part, no big surprises. (Apple declined to provide CNET with an early review sample, but we'll have a full hands-on review as soon as we can purchase one.) As expected, the new Apple TV delivers largely the same experience as the previous model, with the addition of an all-streaming rental service and Netflix compatibility, all crammed into a much smaller form factor. But it's the $99 price tag that's the real attraction here: at that price, the device is likely to become an impulse buy in a way its $229 predecessor never was.

That's the idea, anyway. Unlike the weak competition the first Apple TV faced in 2007, the new one will be entering a far more mature market for Internet TV, with everything from game consoles to Blu-ray players to TiVo DVRs offering the same sort of video-on-demand functionality. Add to that the forthcoming Logitech and Sony products offering Google TV, and the long-awaited Boxee Box product. Already going head-to-head with the Apple TV, meanwhile, is a refreshed line of Roku boxes, with models available at an even cheaper $59 and $79.

Roku got a big boost earlier today with the news that the Hulu Plus subscription service will soon be available on all of the company's existing and forthcoming models. On the surface, that strengthens Roku's pitch as an Apple TV alternative with far more choice. Roku lacks iTunes, of course, but it matches Apple TV's Netflix and Flickr support, plus adds Hulu, Amazon, Pandora, and MLB.TV--in addition to dozens of other, more niche-y "channels" available on its ever-growing roster.

Roku: Up to $40 cheaper than Apple TV, and with Hulu Plus.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

 

Hulu Plus promises to deliver all current-season episodes of most ABC, Fox, and NBC shows (and quite a bit of legacy content) for a flat $9.99 monthly fee. That means--assuming you're interested in shows from those networks--that the Roku could save you a bundle versus Apple TV, where your best-case scenario (aside from Netflix) is to buy shows a la carte. Assuming a price of 99 cents, that's just 10 episodes on iTunes (say, two to three a week) versus an unlimited number on Hulu during the same month.

Meanwhile, for shows not available on Hulu Plus, Roku users could rent or buy them on Amazon's service, which has matched Apple's 99-cent pricing on ABC and Fox shows. (We're leaving out a discussion of the Roku versus Apple hardware costs, and Netflix subscription is identical--if not less, if you opt for one of the cheaper Roku boxes. That's at least a wash between these two options.)

So, game, set, match Roku, right? Maybe, maybe not.

Apple starts with a huge brand advantage that the far more obscure Roku just doesn't have. But that's only the beginning of the story. The big wild card in the Apple TV equation is the forthcoming iOS 4.2 update--currently slated for November--that's scheduled to add AirPlay compatibility to iOS devices (iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touch models). As demonstrated during Steve Jobs' September 1 press conference--and highlighted on Apple's Web site--AirPlay is an evolution of the existing Apple Remote app that lets iOS devices control the Apple TV. But instead of just duplicating the features of a dedicated remote, AirPlay lets users stream media from their iPad or iPhone to the Apple TV.

In other words, AirPlay could well be the killer app for the Apple TV. But the problem is that we still don't know the details, and they could make or break a feature like AirPlay. Is it a content-agnostic "screen scraper" that works with all iOS-based media, or is it only compatible with iTunes content? Does it stream the content directly from the iPad/iPhone, or does it merely "hand off" the viewing of a cloud-based source from the handheld product to the Apple TV? Will third-party app providers need to update their apps to be AirPlay compatible--and will the primo content providers like Hulu Plus, ABC, and Pandora be onboard with adding that functionality?

That's a lot of question marks, to be sure. But if Apple sticks to its November time frame for the 4.2 update, we should have the answers in just a few weeks.

And those weeks will be eventful indeed. During the same time, we'll be seeing the Google TV products from Logitech and Sony (neither of which currently have final pricing or availability details) as well as the $200 Boxee Box.

In other words, the Internet TV space is more fluid than ever, with new services, options, and products sometimes only a firmware update away. Even at these tempting prices, we suggest sitting back and waiting a month or two, until we get a more informed picture of how this Internet TV battle royale is shaping up.
That said: Have you already made up your mind? Are you buying an Apple TV or a Roku? Or are you holding out to see what Google TV and Boxee have to offer? Share your thoughts below.

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Google is the 'inverse' of Apple

Schmidt: Google is the 'inverse' of Apple

'We are the opposite of Jobsian closedness'

By Cade Metz in San Francisco • Get more from this author

Eric Schmidt likes to say that Google is a fundamentally "open" company, and according to the man himself, this means that Google is the anti-Apple.

"With the Apple model — which works extremely well, as I know as a former Apple board member — you have to use their development tools, their platform, their software, their hardware," Schmidt said today during an appearance in San Francisco. "If you submit an application, they have to approve it. You have to use their monetization and their distribution. That would not be open. The inverse would be open."

At one point, he said that Apple's core strategy was "closedness."

During last week's interview with The Wall Street Journal, Schmidt made repeated claims of Google openness, and these claims continued this morning at the annual TechCrunch Disrupt conference, as Schmidt explained how Google is working with the rest of the industry to build — and this is an exact quote — "an augmented version of humanity."

"Google's core strategy is openness," he said. "Ours is a fundamentally open [strategy]. Open internet. Open web. It's how we fundamentally drive everything."

After the speech, when one reporter pressed him on what these open claims actually mean, Schmidt served up that comparison with Apple. "The easiest comparison is the Apple model versus the web model," he said. "Flash was allegedly a problem [for Apple]. But we love Flash, and Flash has done extremely well on Android. That 's an example of openness. Let the user decide. The user can decide [between] HTML5 or Flash."

Of course, Steve Jobs likes to say that Apple is open because it prefers HTML5 to Flash — HTML5 being an open standard. And though Schmidt likes to paint Google as open, the company is quite closed when it comes to the inner workings of its search and search-ad platforms — not to mention its back-end infrastructure. It bills a project like Android as open — and to a certain extent, it is — but there's a portions of the project that remain completely closed. That includes development of the latest version of the OS, and certain Google services on the OS.

As we've said before, we've reached the point where the word open is completely meaningless — at least among the digerati. But as he builds his augmented version of humanity, Schmidt will continue to use the term. Repeatedly. ®
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US's Structural Unemployment of Excuses

By PAUL KRUGMAN

What can be done about mass unemployment? All the wise heads agree: there are no quick or easy answers. There is work to be done, but workers aren’t ready to do it — they’re in the wrong places, or they have the wrong skills. Our problems are “structural,” and will take many years to solve.

But don’t bother asking for evidence that justifies this bleak view. There isn’t any. On the contrary, all the facts suggest that high unemployment in America is the result of inadequate demand — full stop. Saying that there are no easy answers sounds wise, but it’s actually foolish: our unemployment crisis could be cured very quickly if we had the intellectual clarity and political will to act.

In other words, structural unemployment is a fake problem, which mainly serves as an excuse for not pursuing real solutions.
 
Who are these wise heads I’m talking about? The most widely quoted figure is Narayana Kocherlakota, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, who has attracted a lot of attention by insisting that dealing with high unemployment isn’t a Fed responsibility: “Firms have jobs, but can’t find appropriate workers. The workers want to work, but can’t find appropriate jobs,” he asserts, concluding that “It is hard to see how the Fed can do much to cure this problem.”

Now, the Minneapolis Fed is known for its conservative outlook, and claims that unemployment is mainly structural do tend to come from the right of the political spectrum. But some people on the other side of the aisle say similar things. For example, former President Bill Clinton recently told an interviewer that unemployment remained high because “people don’t have the job skills for the jobs that are open.”

Well, I’d respectfully suggest that Mr. Clinton talk to researchers at the Roosevelt Institute and the Economic Policy Institute, both of which have recently released important reports completely debunking claims of a surge in structural unemployment.

After all, what should we be seeing if statements like those of Mr. Kocherlakota or Mr. Clinton were true? The answer is, there should be significant labor shortages somewhere in America — major industries that are trying to expand but are having trouble hiring, major classes of workers who find their skills in great demand, major parts of the country with low unemployment even as the rest of the nation suffers.

None of these things exist. Job openings have plunged in every major sector, while the number of workers forced into part-time employment in almost all industries has soared. Unemployment has surged in every major occupational category. Only three states, with a combined population not much larger than that of Brooklyn, have unemployment rates below 5 percent.

Oh, and where are these firms that “can’t find appropriate workers”? The National Federation of Independent Business has been surveying small businesses for many years, asking them to name their most important problem; the percentage citing problems with labor quality is now at an all-time low, reflecting the reality that these days even highly skilled workers are desperate for employment.

So all the evidence contradicts the claim that we’re mainly suffering from structural unemployment. Why, then, has this claim become so popular?

Part of the answer is that this is what always happens during periods of high unemployment — in part because pundits and analysts believe that declaring the problem deeply rooted, with no easy answers, makes them sound serious.

I’ve been looking at what self-proclaimed experts were saying about unemployment during the Great Depression; it was almost identical to what Very Serious People are saying now.

Unemployment cannot be brought down rapidly, declared one 1935 analysis, because the work force is “unadaptable and untrained. It cannot respond to the opportunities which industry may offer.” A few years later, a large defense buildup finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy’s needs — and suddenly industry was eager to employ those “unadaptable and untrained” workers.

But now, as then, powerful forces are ideologically opposed to the whole idea of government action on a sufficient scale to jump-start the economy. And that, fundamentally, is why claims that we face huge structural problems have been proliferating: they offer a reason to do nothing about the mass unemployment that is crippling our economy and our society.

So what you need to know is that there is no evidence whatsoever to back these claims. We aren’t suffering from a shortage of needed skills; we’re suffering from a lack of policy resolve. As I said, structural unemployment isn’t a real problem, it’s an excuse — a reason not to act on America’s problems at a time when action is desperately needed.