In an interview with AllThingsDigital, Steve Jobs answered a question about the future of television by saying the problem with the lack of innovation in television makes there no viable way to bring new products to the market. He said the reason why additional set top boxes like Apple TV have not been as successful is because the existing market for set top boxes is heavily subsidized by cable operators. Steve further said, set top boxes are free or $10 a month and that pretty much squashes any opportunity for innovation, because nobody's willing to buy a set top box. That's not making sense to me as I paid hundreds of dollars for a PVR with a terrible UI. So what are you thoughts on Apple TV as well as the upcoming
Google TV. See the rest of Steve's thoughts on set top boxes below.
Steve went on to say, "Ask Tivo, ask Replay TV, ask Roku, ask Vudu, ask us, ask Google in a few months" taking a pessimistic shot at Google's recently announced plans to put Android in a series of TVs and set top boxes. He noted Sony and Panasonic have already tried as well. He mentioned the problem with adding an additional box to a users experience is that they end up with a variety of different boxes, each with its own remote and a unique user interface. "The only way that's ever going to change, is if you can really go back to square one, tear up the set top box, redesign it from scratch with a consistent UI across all these different functions, and get it to consumers in a way that they're willing to pay for it. And right now there's no way to do that", Steve said.
