With CES upon us, USA Today chatted with Sony executive Kaz Harai on wide array of home entertainment topics — including Sony’s foray into cloud services across various platforms and the, perhaps inversely related, decline of Blu-ray sales.
But what I found most interesting are their “smart” TV intentions. First, Kaz is on target when stating both Sony and their competitors simplify messaging to convey the benefits of an Internet-connected platform. As, while I believe widgetized televisions are selling, I’m not convinced web feature, as currently implemented, see much use. Next, kudos to Ed Baig for this killer question, “Will there be an Apple TV?” To which Kaz reponds,
I’m on my product development guys to do the very best they can to deliver a compelling experience and have competitive product in the market, whether Apple is there or not.
There’s been significant speculation that Apple might enter the television space with something more significant than their small hobby. With chatter picking up significantly last fall given this juicy nugget from the 2011 Steve Jobs biography:
I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.
More recently, various rumors suggest large screen Apple HDTVs are indeed being developed. But, whether or not Apple chooses to expand their presence within the living room, Smart TV challenges remain the same. Current lean back solutions, beyond traditional “television” viewing, feature fragmented content silos with all sorts of usability issues. Can Sony or Apple do better? And will the content industry play ball?
