Apple TV vs. Google TV: Who will win the battle of the box?
Last Wednesday, Apple announced it would be releasing its new and improved ‘Apple TV’ this autumn.
The product has been redesigned from its 2006 predecessor (generally considered a failure), and is now offered for a cut price $99, compared to the original $299 cost.
Apple TV will connect TV sets with films, television and internet content – including access to streaming media from the iTunes library.
Customers will be able to rent films ($.499 for first-run movies) and episodes of television series (99 cents each) through the Apple TV box.
Current partners so far include Netflix Inc, News Corp, and Walt Disney Co.
Google TV, originally announced in May, is supposed to bring “the web to your TV and your TV to the web”.
It is a software platform for set-top boxes, and will allow customers to access online video content on their television, along with any other website.
Google have not yet announced a launch date, but it is expected to be some time in autumn 2010.
Current partners so far include Sony Corp, Logitech International SA, Intel Corp and DISH Network Corp.
But, after the war of the smartphones, who will win the battle of the box?
Devindra Hardawar from MediaBeat summarised his views by saying “Apple TV is the one you date, Google TV is the one you marry”, feeling that “new Apple TV is just a smaller and cheaper iteration of what Apple has done before”.
He says that Google has the advantage by offering more than just “another device that connects to your TV to deliver media”. As Google TV search will incorporate content from live TV, DVR and the web, he thinks it has the upper hand over Apple, where customers will have to wait for “access to the hottest new web video site” included.
However, Apple currently have the price advantage – $99 for Apple TV, compared to somewhere between $200 to $300 for Google TV. Yet Hardawar reckons that these prices will not stay for long, and that there will be a Google TV box for around $99 by next year.
Laurie Sullivan at MediaPost also seems to think that Google TV will be a success, quoting Piper Jaffray predictions that it will “comprise about 15% of the connected TVs by 2013, rising to 18% by 2014”.
Writer and analyst Michael Gartenberg disagreed, favouring Apple TV over Google TV:
“Apple and Google taking two different approaches. Google wants input one. Will never get it. Apple wants input two and might.”
What he means by this is that Google TV is aiming to replace or become the cable box (input one), and Apple TV attempting to replace the DVD player (input two).
Michael Santo at Huliq agrees, saying that the Google TV is about “easing people into more computing via their TV”, and Apple TV is about “another type of set top box”, adding that Apple TV is “more in line, perhaps, with what consumers want”.
Business Insider’s Dan Frommer, says that Google is aiming for more than Apple TV, and indeed could achieve this, but it also has a bigger chance of losing: It “has a very small chance of totally taking over the TV business… and a huge change of completely failing”.
By comparison, Apple TV “has a good chance of continuing as an obscure niche device… [but] also has a solid chance of teaching people about the idea of using an internet device in their living room… This seems like a safer bet [than Google TV], if less disruptive”.
However, as Sascha Segan pointed out at PC Mag, just because Apple TV may have more of a chance of being successful compared to Google TV, this doesn’t necessarily mean that it will succeed – indeed, both products could fail.
The battle commences in autumn…