Over at The Perfection Paradox, product consultant Jonathan Bingham offers a smart take on the problems the forthcoming Apple TV could eventually fix if Apple gets it right.
He also offers an explanation of why Google's ongoing TV efforts are probably doomed to failure, or at least doomed to addressing only a small, specific niche of the TV market — households managed by tech geeks.
Basically, the explanation for Google's ongoing incompetence in the TV market boils down to this:
When Jonathan described his vision for the "perfect TV" to a Googler friend, the Googler friend scoffed at the idea because it didn't include an easy way for viewers to stream content from BitTorrent.
As if the vast majority of TV users have even heard of "BitTorrent," let alone care what it is or want to stream content from it. The vast majority of TV users don't even know what "streaming" is.
What Googlers and other technorati seem to forever fail to understand is that TV is the dominant broadcast medium because it is drop-dead simple.
For decades, TV users haven't had to do much more than press "on."
TV, in other words, has just worked.
Of course, in recent years, with the addition of cable boxes and VCRs and DVRs and IP TV and Netflix and iTunes and YouTube and remotes, et al, TV has started getting complicated.
And Google's response to that complexity, along with the response of most other tech companies that have tried to "fix" TV over the years, is to make it even more complicated — by turning the TV into a computer (witness the comically complex remote Google thought people wanted when they shipped their first Google TV).
Apple, meanwhile, Bingham reasons, will approach the market with the aim of making TV simple again, by making the "perfect" TV.
What do TV "users" really want? What would make TV simple again? What would make a TV perfect?
TV users just want to press "on" and watch what they want to watch.
That's it.
They don't want to have to figure out where the content is. They don't want to have to "search" for it. They don't want to have to know when it's "on." They don't want to scan "channel" selectors and guides. They don't want to write emails or shop for products or search the web. They don't want to chat with their friends over the TV. They don't want to make phone calls. They just want to press "on" and watch what they want to watch when they want to watch it.
When Steve Jobs said, "I've finally cracked it," Bingham reasons, what he meant was he finally figured out how to give TV users what they want.
Specifically, Steve probably figured out how to allow TV users to press "on" and then say, "The Jets game," or "Addams Family" or "The next Sopranos episode" or "our Hawaii vacation videos" and have the TV just play them.
No wires. No boxes. No remotes. No "cable." No "broadcast." No "channels." No "networks." No "content selection screens." No "navigation." No "Netflix." No "YouTube." No "Hulu."
Just what you want to watch.
If Apple can eventually make the Apple TV do that, the Apple TV will indeed be a massive home run.
Especially if Google and all the other TV makers are still figuring out how to allow people to "record content" with one box and "play content" with another box and "find channels" with another box and "stream content from the web or BitTorrent" with another box — or, worst of all, invent a hyper-complex box and remotes that do all of that and that you need a PhD to figure out how to operate.
Because the last thing TV users want is for TV to get more complicated.
Read Jonathan Bingham's post here >
SEE ALSO: Here's Everything We Know About The Forthcoming Apple TV
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