TVs and PCs

Michael Gartenberg | December 27, 2007, 05:12 PM

lots of buzz today about TVs and PCs. Some of it driven by some new stuff Dave Winer is working on (Dave's app sounds interesting, not for displaying photos on TV, Apple TV does that rather well but more importantly letting me subscribe to other Flickr feeds). Scoble chimes in here. Some of it related to news about Apple getting into the movie rental space.

I've spoken about this issue in the past and just finished a big report on the subject of the role of the PC for passively consuming content such as photos. One of the key takeaways is consumer interest in hooking up a PC to a TV. In fact, we know exactly what consumer interest is in connecting PCs to TVs.

The real interesting thing is Apple's approach. If you want a PC to connect to a TV, they have that (along with a remote control interface). If you're not interested in that model, there's Apple TV (which is really just a PC with an optimized interface and experience). Some consumers will prefer one, others another. At the moment, PCs aren't made to work with TVs. The interface is all wrong, the remote control experience isn't optimized and most consumers don't want to run PC type apps on their TV (the details are in this report.) That said, it's about a matter of choice. I have a mini hooked up to a TV here that I rarely use, it's just not worth the effort. Yet, my Apple TV is in constant use (mostly for music and pictures) and works quite well. The key is offering the choice to consumers.