Home entertainment & gaming
Home entertainment includes gaming, viewing
TV shows, and watching movies – all things Apple is known for. However, Apple
still does not have a direct game console or a device aimed at gaming above all
other functions. The Apple iTV will clearly not be a TV set with just gaming in
mind. However, if Apple does take gaming seriously on it, expect the company to
offer new ways to do things others have done for years.
The
Apple iTV will clearly not be a TV set with just gaming in mind.
Apple is a company known for shaking things
up in a sector such as what happened with the original iPod when it was
released in a world full of various MP3 players no one cared about. A
Kinect-like device, or something like a wearable headset with potential to
offer virtual reality and augmented reality could be just the thing to get
people to spend thousands of dollars on a new TV experience.
The technology seems still far from
primetime, but looks to be a good indicator of where Apple can take this in the
future. Maybe a successor to Apple iTV will use it to the fullest. Despite
this, we’re still not sure how far back Apple started researching this kind of
technology for its upcoming (yet still now officially confirmed) iTV. The
company is also known to experiment with revolutionary technologies like the
recent Liquidmetal, with rumors spreading that Apple will use this technology
in the cases of upcoming iPhone generations.
Using
the mind rather than an iDevice to transfer content between iTunes and the
Apple TV could fit in well within Apple’s ecosystem.
According to The Telegraph, one of the
tech’s inventors, Atakan Perker, said that Apple would need to spend a few
hundred million dollars and at least a few years to get this tech to a state
where it could potentially be used in large designs. Despite this, rumors still
linger that Apple is ready to use it.
This bring me back to the point of wireless
technologies related to bringing home entertainment in line with Apple’s
vision. Apple offers products that interact wirelessly with one another and
transfer content back and forth – think Apple TV and Mirror Play with the iPad.
Using the mind rather than an iDevice to transfer content between iTunes and
the Apple TV could fit in well within Apple’s ecosystem.
According
to Cnet, “with an air of mystery and few details, a French designer says he’s
been working on a project with Apple that will produce a ‘revolutionary’
product in eight months.”
Apple has also recently been rumored to
soon launch revolutionary products. It is said that these products will be a
pretty big upgrade in offerings. The biggest changes may come in the form of
software and operating system advancements rather than hardware.
According to Cnet, “with an air of mystery
and few details, a French designer says he’s been working on a project with
Apple that will produce a ‘revolutionary’ product in eight months.”
The name of his designer is Philippe
Starck. Not much is known, but rumors suggest he is suggesting some form of
innovation nested within the Apply iTV, which is rumored to be released toward
the end of the year. Could he be talking about using technologies similar to
Kinect or NeuroSky’s brain wave-reading tech in the iTV?
Conclusion
Will
thoughts or mind start to be used in the future Apple products?
As our devices increase in capabilities, so
do the features we want to see. After a while, customers will need more excuses
to upgrade annually than beefed up hardware specs. This is why Apple has been
so successful though. The company realizes when something new or interesting
has to happen with the software side of things like the recent Siri
implementation. Will thoughts or mind start to be used in the future Apple
products? Most likely the answer is yes, but the question remains when. Do not
expect Apple to rely on an external company’s headsets or headware, but expect
Apple to learn and develop tech on its own to be used without the need of
peripherals. Alternatively, Apple could develop a partnership with a company
like NeuroSky as it did with Corning and Liquidmetal.
