Speculation About Apple TV’s SDK
Even more than Disney or The Weather Channel, Vevo is probably the most meaningful app released to the set top box on Tuesday. Music videos might not sell as well reality TV, but people clearly still want them with Vevo reaching pass 52 million monthly uniques. If you haven’t browsed Vevo recently, there’s even a whole section of videos which all have more than 100 million views. Somebody, somewhere is still watching music videos. And now with a good, lean back, version of Vevo on my TV, I’m more likely than ever to use it.
More meaningful than Vevo, or any specific app, is having more data points to look at the bigger picture and see that Apple is continuing to release them sparingly, but more frequently. The momentum has been building with apps from select partners seeping out slowing. First it was only Netflix and people questioned why you’d buy this small box just for Netflix. But then it was Hulu and MLB and NBA and NHL, and now all the different apps that come standard don’t even fit on the first visible page of the home screen. Is there actually a method to this madness of keeping most developers at bay? There’s two logical conclusions, both of which don’t help the impatient.
The first reason why Apple hasn’t announced an SDK and opened the floodgates for new innovative apps on the television is the obvious answer, they aren’t ready. The platform is still being worked on (or was never meant to be ready yet). The idea that there was always a date out in the future that we haven’t arrived at yet and it’s just a matter of timing as to when it gets introduced.
The second reason is that it’s all about quality control. Apple already knew television was a different beast for apps, but watching Google TV and Samsung’s piss-poor execution only further demonstrated the need for hand selected partners to figure things out. Non-traditional content from a variety of categories on a host of TVs is something that just takes time to work out and so Apple is willing to take as much time as it takes to get apps on their set top box right. In the meantime, users get new apps from time to time and partners get first dibs. To lead by example, showing partners what their apps should be, seems like an Apple thing to do.
Whatever the reason, Apple is definitely handling app development for their television platform differently than they did with mobile, that’s clear. And whenever the Apple TV SDK does come, developers will be ready.