Apple TV versus Google TV: Closed versus Open
(Deja Vu All Over Again!)
Apple TV and Google TV are in the early stages of war, battling for the real estate near your TV.
We probably should call them something besides set top boxes now, seeing as how only dust can fit on the top of a flat panel TV.
But there is becoming a lot of interest in set top boxes like Roku, Boxee Box and let’s add in TiVo and Netflix. Americans live to be entertained and that will probably stay that way at least until the Greater Depression II becomes reality (let’s hope it doesn’t).
While Apple is the defacto standard in “cool” technology, and everyone else is just trying to grab a share of the crumbs, Google is not a presence to take lightly in any market they enter.
Will you pick Apple TV or Google TV?
The difference between Apple TV and Google TV is really reminiscent of the operating system war that has waged for decades between Apple and Microsoft. Apple runs only on their own proprietary “closed” hardware system. No third parties can sell you components for your Mac.
Microsoft, on the other hand, sold MS-Dos and later Windows to run on the IBM PC platform; which is so open that no one even thinks of IBM as a PC hardware provider anymore. Firms like Dell, HP, Asus, Sony and Gateway come to mind.
This TV war is about the same thing, only Google is the new Microsoft with their Android operating system that powers both their smartphones and their Google TV unit.
Apple uses the same processor for their Apple TV that they do for the iPhone, which makes it energy efficient, but not very robust for addons or upgrades.
Google uses the same Intel Atom processor used in many netbooks, and with the Android OS, will run most any app that an Android phone will run.
The increased power allows Google TV to output 1080p video versus Apple TV’s 720p.
Plenty of power for upgrades and addons that Google welcomes third parties to create.
The Apple Storefront
Apple makes big bucks on their iTunes storefront, and that is what Apple TV really is, another way for you to pay Apple money. And since people look past all the drawbacks of iTunes music, I suspect they will readily shell out hard or hardly earned dollars through the Apple TV storefront as well.
Just don’t expect many other options besides maybe Netflix.
The Google TV Experience
Google TV will be open to whatever a developer can dream up. You can pull up a web browser to plan a trip via Google Maps or show off vacation photos.
Or just surf the net without having to grab your reading glasses.
Google TV also works with y0ur cable box and can act as a DVR.
Whatever you want to do that some developer created and sold or gave away as an app, you can do it. Have it your way, if that slogan wasn’t take already.
Apple, in my opinion, wants you to have it their way – and pay as much as possible.
Can you tell I’m biased?
You bet. I like open systems and competition.
Yet I do respect Apple for leading the way and forcing others to catch up, they set a high standard. And if it weren’t their head-scratching choice of AT&T for wireless carrier, I’d probably have an iPhone instead of an Android.
What do you think?
Shop for Apple TV
(Google TV not yet released)
Comment below..
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