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Television

'Maximum PC' Magazine Accurately Predicted Apple TV-Like Devices In 2001 (google.com) 44

Posted by EditorDavid from the doin'-the-time-warp dept.
Slashdot reader alaskana98 writes: In the February 2001 issue of Maximum PC, technical editor Will Smith described in his column what he would like to see in the "perfect set-top box". At a time when arguably the best 'PVR' experience was being provided by the first iterations of the Tivo (with no HDTV or LAN connectivity), Will's description of what a set-top box could and should be comes eerily close to what we now know as the Apple TV and other 'set-top' boxes such as Roku and Amazon Firestick...

To be fair, not every feature on his list would come to pass. For example, he envisioned this device as essentially serving as the main "broadband router of a household, sharing your Internet connection with any networkable device in your house". Also, he envisions the media box as providing a "robust web experience" for the whole family, something that today's set-top boxes aren't especially good at (anyone remember WebTV?).

Still, in wanting an "elusive magical box" that "will set on top of our HDTV's and do everything our computers, game consoles, and VCRs do, only better", he was prescient in his descriptions of what would eventually materialize as the Apple TV and other like-minded set-top boxes, impressive for a denizen of the year 2001.
Are you impressed with Smith's predictive ability? Here's what he wrote...
  • On networking: "My set-top box will have to have a high-speed broadband connection...sharing your Internet connection with any networkable device in your house via standard Ethernet, Wi-Fi compatible wireless Ethernet, Bluetooth".
  • On gaming: "[W]ill include state-of-the-art 3D acceleration and gaming support" and "will include Bluetooth-style wireless connections for all your controllers".
  • On media playback: "[W]ill also serve as a media store, handing the duties of both my high-def personal video recorder (HD-PVR) and digital audio jukebox".
  • On device collaboration: "integrating the ability to automatically synchronize with Bluetooth-enabled" devices. [Though the original article says "PDAs"]

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'Maximum PC' Magazine Accurately Predicted Apple TV-Like Devices In 2001 More

'Maximum PC' Magazine Accurately Predicted Apple TV-Like Devices In 2001

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  • If I recall AT&T has recently come out with a media device that does in fact receive internet and serve out wifi to the house.

    • It has been very common for at least the past decade in Europe. They call it a âboxâ(TM) and different ISPs provide their own âboxâ(TM): FreeBox, NeufBox, etc...
      They typically provide modem, Ethernet, WiFi, phone and TV over HDMI.

  • Wow. Somebody in 2001 predicted devices of the future would be "high-speed", "state of the art", and "integrate automatically". That's some serious Nostradamus shit there.

    • Indeed. I got cable internet in 2001, and my street was far from the first to get it. It was only 256kbps, so enough to stream a postage stamp sized RealPlayer video, but it was clear where the direction of travel was.

      • Indeed. I got cable internet in 2001, and my street was far from the first to get it. It was only 256kbps,

        We had @Home before that and I think it was 10Mbps.

    • It's even worse.

      Work as Router: AppleTV? Nope.
      Play 'State of the Art' AAA games: AppleTV? Nope. Just mobile games.
      TV Recording and music playback: AppleTV? Nope and yes.
      Household tasks: AppleTV: Sync Calendar? Nope

      Windows Media Center:
      Routing\Gateway? Yes.
      AAA Games: Yes.
      TV Recording and Music: Yes and Yes
      Household tasks: Yes.

      Windows Media Center Edition was released in 2002. 1 year after this article.

       

  • There are people who predicted this crap in the late 1950's...this guy's prediction was literally during the development of some of these boxes and well after WebTV already existed.
    • I'm pretty sure that TiVo already existed by 2001 and was pretty well known, so even if you'd missed WebTV it wasn't hard to foresee how something like that could be improved upon. If you look at what he wrote, he really just described a combination and integration of various pieces of technology (gaming consoles, etc.) that already existed.

      It's no different than predicting that in 20 years we'll have something like Google Glass with integrated voice assistants that we use to communicate with each other

      • And then gave credit to Apple, one of the LAST to market. Not Roku, FireTv, smart blueray players, pS3/4, but fucking apple tv. What a cock gobbler. Apples first iteration was an overheating HDD box that synced itunes downloads and thats about it. Even gen2 locks you into a specific lineup of apps much like a smart blueray player.

        This article should be titled - Author gobble apple cock by giving credit for dreaming up the roku streaming box.

        Thats about as bad as trying to claim the Zune was somehow relevant

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )

      Did Smith correctly predict Apple charging you gobs of money for nearly anything you do with their little iSet iTop iBox?

      Curious, besides the cost of the device itself, what does Apple charge you "gobs of money" for with the device?

      • You're locked into their platform. They then siphon of 30% of whatever you pay to add to it.

        There are no third party OSes you can replace into it.

        • Re: Just curious (Score:5, Informative)

          by EvilSS ( 557649 ) on Sunday December 15, 2019 @02:14PM (#59521574)

          You're locked into their platform. They then siphon of 30% of whatever you pay to add to it.

          There are no third party OSes you can replace into it.

          Not the question I asked but I'll bite. How are you locked in? Almost all the major apps are also available on other platforms (including Apple's own Apple TV+ and Apple Music). App availability is up to the devs, not Apple. You also don't need any other Apple devices to use their Apple TV. Many movie purchases from Apple's store even cross to other stores via Movies Anywhere. As for installing another OS, so what? If you want to do that, get a Pi or another device to tinker with. It's an extreme edge case for a TV box anyway. I'm also not aware of any of the major TV streaming boxes that allow you to do this out of the box without a jailbreak.

          As for the 30%, that's pretty standard across most digital stores. And when it comes to content pricing, that's up to the content providers. All the major content stores operate on a agency model.

  • Will's predictions were based in their time. I enjoyed MaxPC back in those days, not so much for the articles, but the build ideas and of course the demo disks they gave out with each issue. (I think I still have a few stashed away in a dusty old cd folder somewhere.) At that time, the PC was still seen (in the win98 view of the world) as the center of the entertainment for many, despite the pending release of the iPod just a few months later. That was the real shakeup, which led to the gadgetry we use

  • I saw a demonstration in 1995 from CableTel, now part of Virgin Media (UK's largest cable TV company) which predicted much the same thing, and that the new internet thing they were working on would make this possible. Where their prediction was wrong was the idea that they would provide the video content, whereas most people watch the likes of Netflix using their internet connection.

  • State of the art gaming support - that perfectly describes Apple-TV.

    Is there anything on the list that he actually got correct?

  • I predicted it in the 1990s while talking with my roommates. Anyone involved in computers then could see where things were headed, we just didn't know how long it would be. When I could stream an mp3 from my desktop to my workstation in 1998 that the future would be a place where everything would be streamed. We applied the same thought to video, the same would happen but would take longer.

    Maybe it's because I was surrounded with geeks that it was a little more normal for us, but we all the media jukebox

  • Comparing the state of the art from that era to what we have now: in ~2005, I bought ElGato's EyeTV: a DVR application (plus tuner) for Mac OS. That combination of hardware and software was so much better than the settopbox I have now...

    - first and foremost: no interface lag. Every button press on the STB remote takes 4 seconds to have any result. This means fast-forwarding is an exercise in frustration.
    - much better programming options
    - the ability to export recordings to standard video files
    - the ability

    • This makes the impending demise of Windows Media Center even more sad. I still use it as my STB, to this day, with similar functionality. I've got regular cable TV with a CableCARD, plus Netflix, Plex, and Pandora plugins, and a PowerDVD plugin that allows me to play Blu-Ray discs. The MCE remote is solid, and the third party MCEBuddy allows DVR exporting.

      I agree that it's a lot better than anything the STB OEMs have put out there. I'd be trying MythTV if my cable company didn't require the CopyOnce flag fo

  • Be Predictable

  • I'm not sure what so 'eery' about a guy making a list of ways a set-top box could be improved and then 20 years later we have set-top boxes with many of those features.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Yup. Plus XBMP and then XBMC existed at roughly the same time this article was written. Not to mention that in-home networking was already somewhat common.

      Nothing wrong with the article, but it wasn’t anything predictive - it’s more akin to 2010 articles where people opined “what the perfect iPhone” might be like.

      Now if this had been written in, say, 1985, before the internet existed - that would’ve been an impressive feat.

  • "Are you impressed with Smith's predictive ability?"
    Not really...

    "Here's what he wrote...
    On networking: "My set-top box will have to have a high-speed broadband connection...sharing your Internet connection with any networkable device in your house via standard Ethernet, Wi-Fi compatible wireless Ethernet, Bluetooth""

    Ok, that's true I guess but not particularly prescient. We knew broadband would be ubiquitous in 2000 (it was already installed in a lot of places), and any kind of computerized workplace had p

  • My company shipped pre-standard short reach VDSL settop boxes with wired Ethernet for PC Internet access, and three SD MPEG-2 decoders, one composite and RF out, and the other two RF to send on in-home existing coaxial cable to additional TVs, by 2001.

  • I had TCI@Home in 1998; the fact that high speed internet devices could replace traditional cable TV service was obvious and inevitable to anyone at that time.

  • Probably after looking at dozens of failed set-top boxes, beginning with the Phillips CDI or the TiVo, that were common through the nineties.
  • Anyone in IT in 2001 saw this obviously coming. Even the 1999 Dreamcast gaming console included a modem and was suppose to eventually offer all in one media device features.
  • Again this bullshit for making people buying devices. Luckily this is only fruitful in US. My "set-top box" is an old HP DV5 Laptop with 8GB of memory running Windows 7. I run pretty much everything on that HTPC and am very satisfied. All services I have subscribed go through it (Amazon, Hulu, Netflix). And torrenting. ;)
  • While I generally believe it's poor form for a contributor to comment on their own submission, I'm going to comment anyways. I'd like to thank all of you for giving your opinions on my post. I was genuinely interested in whether or not the Slashdot community shared my opinion that Chris's dream 'settop' box (at that time) was impressive if taken as a prediction. It's clear from the comments that most of you don't, but I'm still greatful to have at least gotten the answer.

    If I may, I'd like to clarify a f
  • On networking: "My set-top box will have to have a high-speed broadband connection...sharing your Internet connection with any networkable device in your house via standard Ethernet, Wi-Fi compatible wireless Ethernet, Bluetooth".

    DOCSIS 1.0 was in 1997 and cable modems were available long before that

    On gaming: "[W]ill include state-of-the-art 3D acceleration and gaming support" and "will include Bluetooth-style wireless connections for all your controllers".

    Orinoco Prism2 was available (with Linux support)
    • Thanks for sharing, that was some really interesting info - always fascinating to hear what some on the 'ground level' were seeing and doing at that time with the technologies being discussed in Will's article. Sounds like you had a pretty good feel on the pulse of what was state of the art at that time.

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