Amazon Finally Cracked It
By: M.G. Siegler
Tags: Tech, 4til40, TV, Amazon, Apple

Amazon Finally Cracked It

“I finally cracked it.” Those were the words — sadly, some of his last — that Steve Jobs famously (sadly, becoming infamously) spoke to his biographer, Walter Isaacson. He was speaking, of course, about Apple’s foray into television. Ever since Jobs had famously (infamously) unveiled the Apple TV (then “iTV”), the company had been working to try to own the living room. And largely failing, because the Apple TV ended up being just another set top box. A good one, in many ways, sure. But also an insanely expensive one.

But Jobs was clearly alluding to something else. At the very least, an entirely different take on Apple TV, if not an entirely different product, when he was speaking to Issacson. Here’s the entire blurb:

“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. 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.”

This took long-standing speculation about Apple getting into the actual television set business and supercharged it. And yet here we are, over a decade later, and all we have to show for it is one god awful and thankfully since aborted remote control. And a slightly better Apple TV set top box with a slightly better UI.

I think about this a lot because like any good American, I watch a lot of TV. Actually, that’s not true. I honestly watch very little of what one would consider to be “TV” these days. But I watch a lot of other types of content on my TV. Obviously streaming services, but also movies, and even right now I’m listening to Apple Music on my TV via Apple TV.

Still, there is no actual Apple Television Set. And with each passing day, it’s looking more and more likely that there will never be. There are just more pressing projects, such as the AR/VR one. Oh, and the Apple Car fiasco. A low margin Apple television set seems as far away as it has ever been. And the only time it has truly seemed close was that Jobs quote.¹

Meanwhile, Amazon just launched six television sets last week. Their first — or, the first fully branded, if not exactly manufactured — sets. They seem fine. They honestly seem cheap! Which will undoubtedly be a huge part of the appeal. I suspect they’ll sell well on that fact alone.

But there are other facts. Including a very deep Alexa integration right out of the box. Let’s just go there: Siri still largely sucks, while Alexa is quite good. Here’s where Apple apologists will throw some sort of contrived stats at me. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is how the services work in day-to-day functionality. Alexa excels, Siri struggles.

And while Apple is happy to get Siri in more places, they’re not going to do so in a world of razor-thin margins. That’s television sets. Amazon, because they have almost the exact opposite strategy, is more than happy to pick up any slack. An Amazon television set with little to no margin? Sure! But why not six of them?

This is where I think Google and others often struggle. You can’t out-Apple, Apple. You just can’t. They’ve been too good at what they do for too long. But as a result of that, they have blindspots and areas they cannot be good at. Amazon has figured out how to go after those.²

I currently have an LG television. I like it, but had I not bought it, I would have no idea who made it. Nothing about it screams “LG”. Nothing about it screams anything. Which I appreciate. In fact, I can’t think of a time where I cared who my television manufacturer was since perhaps Sony’s heyday of “Trinitron” televisions. This world is ripe for Amazon to come in.

And for Apple too, by the way. The difference is that they won’t.