One of the last real public mysteries surrounding Steve Jobs comes from a comment he made to his biographer, Walter Isaacson, telling him about his vision for TV. Here is the passage that caused quite a stir in the tech world when the book was released and is still a topic today:
“He very much wanted to do for television sets what he had done for computers, music players, and phones: make them simple and elegant,” Isaacson wrote.
Isaacson continued: ‘I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,’ he told me. ‘It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.’ No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. ‘It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.’”
The tech media took Jobs’ comment at face value and started saying Apple was going to make a TV. To be fair, Jobs set this speculation up by using “TV” in the physical sense instead of what I believe was meant to be a metaphorical idea. While there have been some reports that, at some point, Apple looked at doing a TV, my sources say that idea never really got any serious support within the company. A physical TV, to Apple, is just another screen and doing one with their logo on it made no sense at all.
Six years after, I think we can look back at the comment and get a better picture of what I believe Steve Jobs was saying and how Apple is delivering on Jobs’ full vision now.
As one who has followed Apple since 1981, I have become adept at understanding what some call “Apple Speak”. This loosely means I try and look past what Apple actually says and to what is either behind the comment or what Apple really means from what is always a measured public statement.
To understand what Jobs was likely saying and how it has shaped Apple’s overall TV strategy, one has to realize that ultimately, Apple is a software and UI company first and a hardware company second. Don’t get me wrong, hardware is critical to Apple but, inside the company, it is seen as just a vehicle for delivering their software, UI and services. When the iPhone was introduced, Apple SVP of Marketing Phil Schiller showed me the original iPhone before the launch. He put it on the table in off mode and asked me what I saw. I said I saw a block of metal with a glass screen. He then told me “It is a blank piece of glass for them to deliver their exciting new software”.
I remember that conversation as if it was yesterday since it has helped me understand Apple much better over the years and has shaped my thinking and comments about Apple since 2007. Schiller’s emphasis on the idea the iPhone was a blank screen or canvas for Apple to paint on is at the heart of Apple’s real reason to exist. Jobs understood that from the time he introduced the Mac and carried it over to every product Apple has introduced since then.
The second thing to understand is all of Apple’s software innovations are built around a platform of an OS, a UI, and a set of services then delivered on “blank screens” such as a PC, tablet, phone, or even a TV. This concept of platform is what drives Apple and all of their innovation stems from this core value proposition.
A little side note about how Jobs came to develop this way of thinking.
A few years before Sony’s founder Akio Morita passed away, I had a chance to interview him about his decision to buy a movie studio. He told me, “Movies, TV, and music are just content”. Sony wanted to own content to use on their devices. Morita made it clear to me and others these properties were just “content” for him to exploit on their devices. Jobs had met Mr. Morita and was a great admirer of his. I believe this helped Jobs formulate his view of the world and, ultimately, influenced his decision to create the iPod and eventually the iPhone.
We all know how Apple disrupted the PC market with the Mac through its GUI and mouse. We also know how Jobs disrupted the music industry with the iPod and the communications world with the iPhone. And the iPad was the first fresh new design of a mobile computer we have had since the early days of laptops and it disrupted the PC market in many ways. They all had one thing in common — they all had a powerful platform that used an OS, UI and services delivered on some type of hardware with a screen.
Let’s look at Apple TV. When it was introduced, it was called a hobby. But since then, it has sold in the tens of millions and, for many Apple users, this is an important vehicle for streaming movies, TV, and even music to their TV. But it was an important piece of technology for Apple for another reason. It allowed them to develop a TV OS platform in real time that would allow them to create their approach to disrupting TV. While Jobs probably had an actual TV in mind when he made the statement to his biographer, his real emphasis was not on a physical box but instead, as he said, “It would seamlessly sync with all of your devices and with iCloud.” No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels — “It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine.” This was a software OS, UI and platform vision — the TV was just another “blank screen” to Jobs.
This vision of Apple disrupting TV was made clear at the recent Recode Media conference when Apple SVP Eddy Cue said, “The Apple TV platform is what was disruptive.” The disruptive nature was in creating a TV platform that delivered video on every screen Apple has in their hardware arsenal, one that has an easy UI (Siri), and uses iCloud to keep all of that content in synch and deliverable on demand. It is also a platform where Apple and their developers can create innovative apps and services to bolster this vision.
As my friend Benedict Evans of Andreesen Horwitz recently tweeted:
“Apple failed at TV makes me laugh. They’ve sold 1.5 billion TV’s” just with the iPhone and iPad. Add the TV experience to cumulated Mac’s and through Apple TV’s and that number is closer to 2 billion “TV’s.”
Apple’s TV platform allows them to innovate well beyond the OS, UI, and devices. Apple has two original content shows that will debut soon. One is focused on “Carpool Karaoke” and the other is about app developers, patterned somewhat on the concept of “Shark Tank”. Apple creating original content is just following Akio Morita’s playbook that Jobs borrowed to create a disruptive vision for their TV experience.
Although other video distributors like Comcast, Amazon, etc. have adopted the idea of allowing a user to play back their video on TVs, tablets, and smartphones, Apple’s approach is based more on a platform play that they and their developers can innovate on to go beyond just video. Eventually, they will integrate many more features and add-on content and interactions through the Apple TV OS, something that cannot be done by pure video content distributors.
This phase of making Apple TV even more disruptive is still in its early stages but it is clear, at least to me, Jobs’ vision of creating a richer TV environment will change the overall TV experience in time and is on track to deliver Steve Jobs’ last big vision he created for his customers.
Some great insights here but Tim overlooks one of Jobs’ truly distinctive talents when it came to television content — for a tech leader he had remarkable insights into the creative process and a genuine love and talent for storytelling. Ed Catmull and others have shared numerous examples of how Jobs’ participation improved the early Pixar movies and that company’s stunning success.