Game-changing Apple TV expected on Wednesday Event

Sources talked to The New York Times and have confirmed that a redesigned Apple TV is going to be unveiled on stage next Wednesday during a massive media event in San Francisco .

The new Apple TV will cost $149, the Times says, and will support third-party software including games. The device will come with a new remote control that could be used to make it “more of a competitor to the Xbox, the PlayStation and the Nintendo Wii U.”

That ambition will be underlined at an Apple event in San Francisco on Wednesday, when the company plans to unveil an upgraded Apple TV, a device similar to a set-top box that brings video and music from the Internet to a television, according to people briefed on the product.

The upgrade, the first in three years, will expand Apple TV’s uses in gaming, including a redesigned remote control with a touch pad that can double as a game controller, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Importantly, the new device will include support for apps and games made by independent software developers. The revamped device will share the event spotlight with Apple’s biggest moneymaker, the iPhone.

The company once called Apple TV a “hobby,” as it accounts for less than 5 percent of sales, so the prominent billing this time highlights the aim of transforming the device into a multipurpose entertainment product for homes. The move will thrust Apple deeper into a competitive market where few, including Apple, have made headway.

While the living room has been something of a holy grail for many tech companies, with Sony rolling out its PlayStation game console, Microsoft the Xbox console and Amazon introducing home devices like the Amazon Echo, few can claim to have become the go-to for online services in residences.Get ready for gaming. Speak a command to Apple TV, and it will listen. Search across both apps and channels, which are set to multiply with a television-centered App Store.

 

The catch is that Apple TV's biggest competitors already offer such options. The last three years have sparked an explosion in both top-notch streaming video and the number of devices that deliver that video to your TV. Companies like Roku, Amazon and Google have introduced new products or upgraded them regularly, all while Apple TV largely sat on the sidelines.

If new features for Apple TV, such as gaming, voice commands, universal search and a store with apps, feel like deja vu, that's because you can already find them in other products. Given the rumored price of $150 for the new Apple TV, rivals may also sell devices with similar bells and whistles at cheaper prices. Apple TV itself has long languished. Apple unveiled the product in 2007, but its offerings were not as thorough as what people could get with cable subscriptions.

A recent Forrester Research survey found that only 19 percent of online adults in the United States were interested in or already used an Apple TV.“The most important thing about the Apple TV announcement is it becomes a broader utility box,” said Peter Csathy, the chief executive of the media consulting firm Manatt Digital Media. “Then it can ultimately become the Trojan horse for all kinds of services in the home that, in turn, let Apple sell more hardware.” Apple declined to comment on the new Apple TV or other details of the coming event. Several online publications earlier reported on the Apple TV and other products expected on Wednesday.

Building up more of a presence in the home is important for Apple as it seeks growth from new avenues. The company relies on the iPhone for the majority of its revenue and profit, and Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, has broadened product lines into wearables with the Apple Watch and new services such as Apple Pay and Apple Music. More diversification gives Apple a large number of ways to hook customers into its ecosystem of products, software and services.

A commanding voice

Siri, Apple's software that responds to spoken commands and requests, is expected to get a lot of attention at Wednesday's event, based on the teaser in Apple's invitation. Apple TV, in particular, is expected to benefit from Siri's smarts. The streaming-media box is said to integrate voice commands, so viewers can simply say what they want to watch without having to toggle to the right app or peck out the name of a movie one letter at a time.

Analysts said that the voice commands, which are present in Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices, are one area of streaming-media devices that routinely gets high marks from consumers for improving the experience but that the number of people who actually use the feature remains low. Strategy Analytics found that 20 percent of device owners spoke instructions to their streaming boxes but that they preferred other methods of control largely because the voice commands weren't accurate enough, said analyst David Watkins.

Last year, Parks Associates reported an even smaller percentage of streaming-media device owners who use voice controls, putting the number at about 4 percent. Barbara Kraus, director of research at the firm, noted that gaming consoles, not streaming-media devices, are the natural place for spoken commands to break out because video games are more interactive compared with the passive act of watching TV.

Playing the game

Apple TV is also expected to refashion its remote control to make the box a contender in video games. It follows the tack of others, particularly Amazon Fire TV, which has a gaming controller linked to its box. The Apple TV remote is reported to have a track-pad, similar to the surface you touch to move your mouse on laptops, and motion sensors that would allow you to move the remote like, among other things, a steering wheel in driving games.

The strategy of having streaming boxes double as gaming consoles targets the idea that casual gamers might want to bring their smartphone game experiences to the television and don't want to invest in a pricey gaming console like Microsoft's Xbox One or Sony's PlayStation 4. But the linchpin of attracting people to your device for gaming is, appropriately, what you can play on it. "It's all about the games," Kraus said. "Gamers...like the right hardware.

They want performance. They want impassiveness. But that's still secondary to the game." Apple already has a universe of games that developers have created for mobile devices like the iPhone, but few are exclusive to Apple. And some blockbuster console-style games, such as Bioshock and Grand Theft Auto, are older titles that have already been adapted to the iOS software expected to run the next Apple TV. Meanwhile, those scattered titles are a speck compared with the catalogs of Xbox and PlayStation.

Searching the universe

Another popular feature on rival devices is universal search, which refers to the ability to find all the options for watching a particular actor or character across a multitude of channels and apps. Roku, which has several streaming-media boxes and sticks ranging from $40 to $100, has generated the most praise for its universal search, said Strategy Analytics' Watkins. That's because Roku doesn't play favorites with the results.

"The key to universal search is being agnostic," he said. This may not be the case with Apple TV. Apple may prefer that you buy through its own services, such as iTunes for music and video. When universal search results direct you only to certain storefronts, the feature becomes less useful for consumers. Apple TV has traditionally excluded media competitors like Amazon, now the home of popular original shows like "Transparent" on its Prime Instant Video service.

A new kind of App Store

Limitations on channel selection have helped undermine Apple TV's stature in the last couple of years, Watkins said. In addition to exiling competitors from the box, Apple has been stingy about how many channels get approved. Apple TV has only about 65 channels, compared with 2,500 on Roku in the US. The number one reason consumers report choosing one streaming-media device over another is ease of use, but the inclusion of programs that a particular consumer likes and offering more programs overall are reasons No. 2 and No. 4, according to Strategy Analytics.

Apple is expected to have a dedicated App Store as part of the new device, which opens up the possibility for a greater number and variety of apps. This is also a strategy the company has used for the iPhone and iPad too much success.

The long-awaited update to Apple TV is affirmation that the device is no longer a hobby, as Apple referred to the streaming-media box in its early days. To all of Apple's competitors, though, this has always been serious business.