Musings from an armchair designer (aka: what if...)

The Apple Watch doesn’t seem be making a big of a splash as Apple originally thought. Makes sense though as the Apple Watch is a piece of hardware that is catching up to devices that already exist.

I have the opinion that creating a watch is something that Steve Jobs would have rejected because it’s a device that had already been brought to market by someone else and is just a little more than a glorified notification announcer that you've received a text or a call while your phone is in your pocket. Steve didn’t seem like the type of person to follow trends but to rather create them. In addition, he wouldn’t introduce a product to market that does not offer much value to someone’s everyday life.

If you look at Apple’s devices within the last fifteen years, they take something that already exists but then turn it in to something you have to buy because of its intuitive interface and sleek design. MP3 players already existed when Apple released the iPod, but Apple made it in to something worthwhile, having consumers turn their heads towards and wanting to buy it. Smart phones were always around, but Apple turned the industry on its head when they released the iPhone. Same thing too for the record industry when it came to purchasing music online with an a la carte style of selecting individual tracks as opposed to full albums.

When it comes to the iPad, this is a device that Microsoft had tried so hard to make popular for nearly a decade, desperately trying to sell it to the average home consumer before they stared backing away from it. It was around that time when Apple picked up the baton and ran all the way to the bank with it. How did they make it popular? By ditching the stylus and not using their desktop operating system, OS X, as the interface to work with. This was something Microsoft didn’t get. They tried to force users to interact with their desktop OS, Windows XP, but with a stylus. This led to a clunky session that never really felt right. Their Desktop operating systems are designed for mouse and keyboard and not a stylus that you poke at the screen with.

The only device that wasn’t bonkers popular would be Apple TV. It’s a great device that just wasn’t fully fleshed out. So what I’m saying is if Steve Jobs were still alive, I’m guessing he wouldn’t have went with the Apple Watch but instead would have improved on his weak product by creating the Apple TV, meaning a television designed by Apple.

Think about it. Apple takes great technology (like the digital music player, a smart phone, and a tablet) but then makes it simpler to use, sleek and fancy, and a must have device. What better device in the home to improve on than the television and all of its related services and devices. It’s great technology that everyone uses but doesn’t have that “perfect” user experience.

When it came to designing the iPhone, that was Apple taking a big risk as they never made a phone before. Not only did they have to make it work as a cell phone, but they were also allowing the real web to be accessed on it (not that fake Internet called Wireless Application Protocol that cell phones used to connect to). For the Apple television, they would only be taking a smaller risk because it would encapsulate a number of their existing products, but making it all work in just one device.

For the conference where this product would be introduced at, Apple would more than likely tease it first by showing a bullet list of items that this new device would give its users:

• A simpler channel viewing experience.
• A cleaner entertainment center.
• A greener way of life.

Ok, those examples could have been written better, but I’m not a writer. Deal with it.

The Apple television would first be…well, a TV. It would be a design based on their work with their Cinema Display and Thunderbolt Display line of monitors. Yes, I understand there are differences between televisions and computer monitors, but with a company as large as Apple, I don’t see it being too difficult to bridge the gap between designing one versus the other. Second it would include the Apple TV device, but built into the television. This would allow you to stream all of your iTunes content on your shiny new Apple television without the need of connecting a device to the TV. Adding the Apple TV directly to the set would go in direct competition with Samsung’s Smart TV. And if you just plan to stream movies and TV shows, this could a reason to remove the DVD or Blu-ray player from your entertainment center.

The next one, and the big one, would be Apple introducing their own TV menu guide for viewing cable channels. It would be a super slick looking interface that only Apple could bring to the table. Leaping over what traditional cable and satellite companies failed to achieve and what Microsoft couldn’t do when they tried to combine a television viewing experience for the Xbox One. In relation, Apple would taunt the idea of having a big, ugly looking cable box orbiting near your TV. The solution? To introduce the mainstream to cable cards. Just insert your credit card sized cable card into the slot on the back or side of your Apple television and voilà! No more ugly box to look at!

But what about my DVR capabilities, you ask? Well, Apple would answer this by including internal flash memory to the TV, allowing users to record hours of their favorite shows. And depending if you have a 3rd party DVR player, this is another device removed from your entertainment center.

The remote control would be something very simplistic. In Apple fashion, it would include the bare minimum buttons needed to navigate the menus, but they would tout using your iPhone as an alternative to navigating with your TV set.

So, the Apple television would be one device that combines: a TV, Apple TV, a cable box, a DVR, and a Blu-ray player. This would be a way to get rid of all the clutter in your living room and having a minimalistic way of looking at the TV area. The side benefit to this would be having no longer the need to have all those wires behind your TV. At the minimum, you will just need one power cable and one coax cable. The extra side benefit would be a green incentive as you have removed four devices from the living room, saving that much money from your power bill every month.

If people are really fed up with traditional television service from the big companies like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, or DIRECTV, then Apple can go in the same direction like Sony did with PlayStation Vue and create their own service that includes tiers of channel packages, or the kicker, a true a la carte channel selection, allowing you to pick only the cannels you want and nothing more.

I’m sure something like this would be pretty expensive, but I’m sure if you were to ask someone in 2004 that a cell phone from Apple would cost nearly 700 dollars (without a contract), they would do a spit take. Today, we’re used to the price. Also, everyone is now familiar with paying the “Apple tax” when buying an Apple product so they would expect it if this were a television that came from Apple.

To me, the television market is one that Steve Jobs would have tried to take over instead of jumping into the wearable technology market with the Apple Watch. But don’t get me wrong as I think the watch is a beautiful looking device that only Apple could have designed, but there’s just somethings about it that are goofy and dumb, like ability to send drawings between watches or sending your heart beat. Tying it to health and fitness is a great idea, but it would need at least two other great ideas like that to make it a worthwhile product. But in the end, with the unfortunate short life Steve Jobs had, it makes you wonder how many more devices would we have gotten from him? What other industries would he have tuned on their heads? Could it have gone as high as the automotive industry with an electric car from Apple? Unfortunately we’ll never know.

Image credit for the concept menu system

«The meat and potatoes - From the other side »