The next Apple TV: I'll buy one, but don't expect a revolution

> Even with the refresh, Jobs isn’t convinced the new version will be a mainstream hit, says the person familiar with Apple’s plans,” Burrows wrote. “Most consumers aren’t ready to cut the cord on their cable company, or put up with the tech-nastics required to stream content from the iTunes collection on their PC to their living room big-screen TV. This story in Bloomberg has all the trademarks of an Apple leak to the press to temper expectations.

The mistake people keep making when analyzing the merging of traditional home entertainment with computers is in thinking that this is a technology problem that somehow Apple, Google, Netflix, etc. haven’t been able to solve. That’s ridiculous. Apple could design a perfect TV/Movie experience in its sleep.

And it’s not, as the quote above suggests, that people aren’t ready to “cut the cord on the cable company”. Most people I know would jump at the chance to stop paying for crappy cable service. I already have.

The problem is the content. Cable operators have tremendous influence over the content owners, and they want no part of this revolution. They want to charge people $100 a month for cable indefinitely. They have absolutely no interest in releasing their stranglehold on your favorite TV shows. Not to Apple. Not to Google. Not to anyone.

It’s about money.

It’s very similar to the situation we have now with the Energy business. All the money is in Oil, and all the players have a vested interest in selling oil until the very last drop is gone. So solar, wind, nuclear, hydro stand little chance of getting anywhere fast.

My good friend at Webomatica mentioned in his blog this week that his television viewing experience since he dropped cable is fraught with confusion, technical issues, etc. But notice that his suggested solution is right on the money: It’s not that any one of his different devices doesn’t work well; it’s that he needs four different devices and services just to get all the content he wants. He doesn’t want cable back: he wants one box that does everything without being a slave to cable.

People are ready for this revolution. They just don’t have adequate resources to make it happen. And neither does any one tech company. This will take years of chipping away at the wall.

Change will happen; the TV revolution will happen. Just not in early September, no matter what Apple announces. It will be another step forward, as the original Apple TV was a step forward, the Roku Box was a step forward, the Tivo was a step forward, etc. But Jobs is right; Apple has no more power than any other tech company to crack this nut.