I have 4 kids and they are all tech savvy (even my 8 yr old) and while yes, there are times when one of them will sit in front of the TV with the iPad or will be txting from the couch this is not the norm for them. Most of the time they will find something on Netflix they like and sit and watch it with pauses for one to go to the bathroom or for them all to get a snack but they all are usually unitasking with the entertainment and will go back to their multitasking (my 14 yr old daughter has a thing for browsing, txting, music and facetime/skype all at once) activities as they go back to doing their own “thing” in another part of the house.

Mind you, this could be a result of my own insistence they they show respect for one another’s ability to enjoy whatever they are watching by not being a distraction to the others but nonetheless they do exactly that and do so almost all the time.

sidenote: my kids are 8, 10, 14 and 16 so they cover the spectrum pretty well.

Small app gaming like Angry Birds on phone level hardware ect might work, but I have serious doubts Apple can compete in the tough console market.

Please tell me you are joking.

Eeeng! (buzzing sound) Wrong answer. Have you seen kids do anything today? They’re incapable of focusing on just one thing. When they’re watching t.v. they need to have the laptop, tablet, or smartphone in hand to surf, text, chat or blog while half their brain is watching television.

Eeeng! (buzzing sound) Wrong answer. Have you seen kids do anything today? They’re incapable of focusing on just one thing. When they’re watching t.v. they need to have the laptop, tablet, or smartphone in hand to surf, text, chat or blog while half their brain is watching television.

Eeeng! (buzzing sound) Wrong answer. Have you seen kids do anything today? They’re incapable of focusing on just one thing. When they’re watching t.v. they need to have the laptop, tablet, or smartphone in hand to surf, text, chat or blog while half their brain is watching television.

I think Apple understands the living room perfectly that’s why they haven’t made a bigger push into it. For the time being. Steve Jobs has already told anyone who cared to listen (that means you Don Reisinger) that the problem with any AppleTV type device is your go to market strategy which right now is being obstructed by that 10 ton elephant lying in the middle of the road called the cable companies.

So if Apple does launch a real D-Day type thousand-ship assault on the living room, it will have to contend with the cable companies. They could either buy one of them and contend with forever being locked out of the region covered by the other cable carriers, or do an end run around the cable companies by rendering them irrelevant. If it’s the latter, the approach will be something that, in typical Apple fashion, will completely reconfigure the whole living room entertainment (dare I say it?) paradigm. It will be something no one has ever imagined or envisioned before. Not even Don Reisinger.

I think Apple understands the living room perfectly that’s why they haven’t made a bigger push into it. For the time being. Steve Jobs has already told anyone who cared to listen (that means you Don Reisinger) that the problem with any AppleTV type device is your go to market strategy which right now is being obstructed by that 10 ton elephant lying in the middle of the road called the cable companies.

So if Apple does launch a real D-Day type thousand-ship assault on the living room, it will have to contend with the cable companies. They could either buy one of them and contend with forever being locked out of the region covered by the other cable carriers, or do an end run around the cable companies by rendering them irrelevant. If it’s the latter, the approach will be something that, in typical Apple fashion, will completely reconfigure the whole living room entertainment (dare I say it?) paradigm. It will be something no one has ever imagined or envisioned before. Not even Don Reisinger.

I think Apple understands the living room perfectly that’s why they haven’t made a bigger push into it. For the time being. Steve Jobs has already told anyone who cared to listen (that means you Don Reisinger) that the problem with any AppleTV type device is your go to market strategy which right now is being obstructed by that 10 ton elephant lying in the middle of the road called the cable companies.

So if Apple does launch a real D-Day type thousand-ship assault on the living room, it will have to contend with the cable companies. They could either buy one of them and contend with forever being locked out of the region covered by the other cable carriers, or do an end run around the cable companies by rendering them irrelevant. If it’s the latter, the approach will be something that, in typical Apple fashion, will completely reconfigure the whole living room entertainment (dare I say it?) paradigm. It will be something no one has ever imagined or envisioned before. Not even Don Reisinger.

But I think BECAUSE AppleTV is still a hobby, this shows Apple DOES understand the living room and its deceptively complex issue. As Jobs said, there is no real go-to-market strategy that works yet. That’s why none of the TV solutions (Boxee, GoogleTV, Roku, etc) are taking off and won’t and why cable is only dying slowly. And with so many of the content providers dependent on the current system, they aren’t eager to see changes all that much, anyway.

If Apple didn’t understand the living room, they would have touted AppleTV as the solution it isn’t and not a hobby. And I am not so certain how many people are all that interested in TV being different anyway. Maybe most of us tech heads, but we’ve changed already (Mac Mini’s, WMC, Google TV, etc.). We’re willing to take the time to figure new technical things out. The rest of the world? Not so much. Remember how frustrated most people were with trying to program VCRs? That issue is why most VCRS just became players and why current technical alternatives to the current TV system aren’t more popular.

Joe

I’ve been using my Apple TV for several months now and It works great. I was able to Airplay music from any iTunes installation, and stream movies from my iPod Touch or laptop to the big screen. It replaces the home stereo, and dvd player.

Now for games, It allows me to stream the game audio, but it’s a bit laggy. I think the technology is not there yet. Go ahead call me a Fanboy, but I think Apple will get there soon.

It is the corollary of Moore’s law…

“General Purpose Digital” replaces “Special Purpose Digital”.

The living room solution is…

TV mirroring by smartphone/tablet controlled by Kinect.

Why Kinect and not smartphone/tablet as input? Becuase Kinect allows your focus to remain on the TV rather than the smartphone/tablet and spares you from shifting attention to and fro.

Why smartphone/tablet and not desktop/laptop? Frankly, I see PCs going away and I want to follow the rising sun.

And what the f w ipad replaces bluray in the user post? Plus the fact that any modern tv could stream amazon, netflix so y i buy apple tv for? If u go on and say well i need a media box that i could stream photo, music, movie fr my collections. U have heard of rygel, ubuntu & vmware right? Even a $99 sony bluray could do all these tasks. Moving on.

Honestly Apple’s recent batting average is way higher than others but the living room/family ecosystem is strike out. If they didn’t make several glaring mistakes like this they would take over the world.

Honestly Apple’s recent batting average is way higher than others but the living room/family ecosystem is strike out. If they didn’t make several glaring mistakes like this they would take over the world.

http://www.tech-adventures.com/2011/02/xbmc-for-appletv2-ipad-iphone4available.html

I’d prefer to think forward. I’d like to see a living room that doesn’t resemble that of two years ago.

Bring on change Apple… there is a reason we no longer have black and white TVs, cassette tapes, and soon Blu-ray…