I recently wrote for Stuff about the Apple TV. I think it’s a great device, and we use ours all the time, for renting movies, watching Netflix, and sending all manner of content from iOS devices to the TV and amp. It being an Apple product, the rumour mill’s now going nuts about how the device will evolve this year, not least because Apple finally ‘promoted’ it on the Apple Store, rather than burying it as an iPod accessory.

Macworld’s Karen Haslam has rounded up all of the rumours, which (as ever) vary from the sensible to outlandish craziness. And even things that might seem an obvious path for Apple to take are sometimes fraught with problems.

Games on the Apple TV. This is something people have been banging on about for a while, arguing Apple should be taking on Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, despite not really having a clue about gaming. If anything, the recent iOS controllers mess should showcase Apple still has a lot to learn about gaming in general, with the company absurdly fragmenting hardware from the get-go.

More importantly, though, as Haslam hints at, the Apple TV would effectively be an entirely different platform from ‘standard’ iOS, merely sharing code. Games would lack touch and need to be controlled remotely. On that basis, Apple’s controller idea makes more sense—games that are fully compatible with the controllers (menus and all) could potentially work with Apple TV games. After all, the Apple TV is essentially a headless iPod. But for that to happen widely, controllers need to be far better and far cheaper, the games need to work more fully with controllers, and the Apple TV would need way more storage than the 8 GB it currently has, which would ramp up the price and move it away from being an impulse purchase.

Integrated storage and live TV recording. Macworld’s article talks about DVR recording, boosting content available to users. I imagine any argument the Apple TV will suddenly get a ton of internal storage to facilitate this is way off base, and, as Haslam argues, content will be primarily streamed. As for storing TV shows in the cloud, I think it’ll be tough for Apple to persuade many companies to go down that route, and it would also obviously impact on Apple’s own iTunes Store sales. Still, as someone outside of the USA, this won’t make a great deal of odds to me anyway—if Apple does provide an Apple TV with any kind of live-TV recording feature, it won’t make it beyond the USA for years.

TV Tuner for live TV. This would just be an added cost, and also duplicate something the vast majority of people already have. It seems unlikely in the extreme. More integration with existing on-demand services over the web, however, would be sensible. In other words, I want BBC iPlayer and 4oD on my TV.

Integrated AirPort Express. One of the stranger Apple TV reports claims the new model would include an AirPort Express router. Purely from a cost and complexity standpoint, this seems staggeringly unlikely.

More content‚TV shows and entertainment. This one’s a no-brainer, but my hope here is Apple encourages (as much as it can) faster worldwide rollouts of channels, and also looks to popular local channels outside of the US more often. Again, it’s insane Brits don’t yet have access to the likes of iPlayer and 4oD on the Apple TV.

Apps and an App Store. Similar issues exist here as with gaming, but apps are already on the Apple TV, such as The Weather Channel. The real question is how many people want to use their TV as a giant app screen. Television use has historically primarily been passive, gaming being the main exception. Apple’s ideal is to foist as many devices on people as possible, which points to continuing to encourage integration between iPads/iPhones and the Apple TV (via AirPlay) rather than attempting to get loads of apps for its black box. The obvious exception: aforementioned media channels.

Motion control or voice activation. A short quote from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy should suffice here:

A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wave bands for news of himself. The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive–you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure, of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same program.

New Interface. This is a must regardless of what happens next. The basic interface is fine, but more editing control is desperately needed. Right now, you’re limited to deleting apps via the hacky method of using parental controls. Apple needs to provide a much more discoverable show/hide interface if it adds more apps and games.

Another question that Macworld doesn’t address directly is whether the Apple TV line will grow. The basic unit could continue, and new models could be released with more storage, to cater for things like games and apps. However, right now, the Apple TV isn’t a particularly big seller and it’s already competing with a slew of low-cost and quite high-quality rivals. Apple has to tread carefully to find that sweet spot of pricing, features and quality that would enable the Apple TV to thrive in the future, rather than become another tech also-ran. It also must ensure it doesn’t promote buyer’s doubt. It’s one thing to have a single cheap unit people will just buy, but it’s quite another to make people choose between several and worry about buying the wrong one.

Macworld has managed quite a scoop, interviewing Apple executives about the future of the Mac. Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, noted Apple’s longevity, remarking how the companies making computers when Apple released the Mac are all gone. This, he said, was down to Apple’s ability to reinvent itself over and over.

This willingness was most clearly illustrated with iOS, not least when the iPad arrived. On its introduction, Apple’s tablet was positioned as being some way between a notebook and smartphone, but it’s increasingly obvious the device is capable enough to replace computers for a great many people. Plenty of users look forward to a future where the iPad is so powerful that it becomes the device for everything, with Macs consigned to history.

Interestingly, Apple doesn’t seem to agree. Schiller said:

There is a super-important role [for the Mac] that will always be. We don’t see an end to that role. There’s a role for the Mac as far as our eye can see. A role in conjunction with smartphones and tablets, that allows you to make the choice of what you want to use. Our view is, the Mac keeps going forever, because the differences it brings are really valuable.

I have no doubt this passage will fuel speculation for a long time. It says so little—there are no specifics—but it also suggests so much, not least that Apple doesn’t see (or at least won’t admit to seeing) the iPad eventually replacing the Mac. The question is why that might be the case. It would seem nonsensical for Apple to arbitrarily ‘hold back’ what the iPad might be capable of, in order for its Mac line to survive. Instead, it seems more logical that the will Mac increasingly move into ever-smaller niches, for those needing to do tasks the iPad’s not suitable for, until such a time no longer exists.

It’s also telling Schiller appears to be approaching life from the standpoint of someone with an awful lot of money (which he has):

It’s not an either/or. It’s a world where you’re going to have a phone, a tablet, a computer, you don’t have to choose. And so what’s more important is how you seamlessly move between them all…. It’s not like this is a laptop person and that’s a tablet person. It doesn’t have to be that way.

That’s a worryingly Microsoft sentiment. The main difference between that statement and Steve Ballmer’s line of thinking is that Microsoft’s desperate to shove all the aspects of these devices into a single case; Schiller simply reasons you should buy them all.

As educator and iPad fanatic Fraser Speirs remarked on Twitter, this latest interview is in stark contrast to Steve Jobs’s radical simplification of Apple’s product line in 1997. Perhaps such thinking is now obsolete in itself, but as a long time Mac user, I’ve increasingly been caught in the buyer’s doubt loop because of the growing range of Apple products. MacBook Air or MacBook Pro? iPad Air or iPad Mini with Retina? Logic would seem to suggest the iPad would in the long run take the consumer/mobile slot in the original Jobs four-box product matrix (one each of consumer/pro for mobile/desktop), but perhaps now Apple sees the future as something more complex, with more devices.

That’s all very well if you can afford it, but Schiller’s being optimistic to think that will be the default for typical users in the future, splashing out on phones and tablets and computers. Something has to give; Apple would like it to be your resolve and your wallet. To my mind, within the next decade, it’s for most people going to be the Mac, whether Apple likes it or not.

Following on from my recent slightly (OK, very) sarcastic blog post about a developer charging for an update (THE HORROR!), Stuff asked me to write  about the subject. The result is Apps are brilliant, so stop moaning about paying for them. Within, I explore how developers ended up in a race to the bottom and how Apple and Google obliterated the value of software, setting many people’s entitlement dial to 11.

Really, it’s all about this:

… without apps providing income, the alternatives are grim, because developers would have to find other ways of making a living. This could be free apps with intrusive advertising or privacy implications, products packed with sneaky in-app purchases, or simply shifting apps to spare-time pursuits, thereby reducing the likelihood of focus, quality and regular updates.

The conclusion is in the title, but please read the article anyway!

By me, over at Stuff.TV:

Trained to expect Microsoft’s level of market dominance during the height of the Windows era, every company now seemingly has to lose for one to win. So it goes with the iPhone 5C, set to launch on 10 September. The budget iPhone apparently spells doom for Android (because if Apple has a cheap phone, everyone will of course buy it at the exclusion of everything else) or possibly for Apple (because it’ll be a massive failure).

I explore how Apple thinks, the red-herring of market-share, profits, what the iPad mini means for the iPhone line, and the inevitability of what will happen after Apple reveals its new device on the 10th.

What the fuck? That was my initial reaction on being told earlier today about an article featuring ‘hot female web designers’. Amazingly, it gets worse. The full article title (no link, because) is “20 Hot Female Web Designers That Will Take Your Breath Away” and is either knowingly trawling the web as link bait or has a disconnect the size of the moon.

It begins:

Sizzling hot designs from hot female web designers will prove that, though web design industry has always been viewed as a world fully packed with men, the best stuff doesn’t always come from them!

Or how about: “Great work from women in the web industry proves that although the industry has long been seen as male-dominated, men definitely don’t create all the best work”?

Female web designers constantly battle to acquire the top spot in web design industry.

And then stupid blog posts screw them over by mentioning them for their physical characteristics rather than their work. Great!

though females are considered extinct in web designing

Extinct? Certainly not. But if they were, it would probably be through being killed off my an avalanche of stupid set off by a volcano of idiocy.

But first let me ask you to hold your breath.

OK. Holding.

To escape from the wrath of the male hot web designers and being accused of being a sexist,

No longer holding. Instead thinking of just how many things can be so wrong in so few words.

let me remind you that this article is made to uplift the spirits of young female web designers.

Nothing is more uplifting than being told you’re hot rather than, say, a great designer!

This is to show the little girls out there that web designing is not just a man’s world. To prove that [site name redacted] is equal in promoting both sexes in web design, feel free to read this post: 15 Most Influential People in Web Design.

Because men are influential but women are merely hot. Got it. (And, no, before you ask, not a single woman is on the influential list—after all, they’re just too hot and, apparently, not influential enough.)

Again: what the fuck?