While Hollywood still seems intent on turning every movie made into a 3D extravamaganza whether it needs to be or not, apparently TV makers are now running away from 3D like residents of Tokyo in a Godzilla movie. Two years ago, they couldn’t get on board with the upcoming All-3D-All-The-Time Revolution fast enough, but the 3D backlash is so in full-swing that even Time Magazine has reported on it. CrunchGear says that with four months to go before CES 2011, electronics makers have already stopped promoting 3DTV and have moved on to another fad: apps. And by “apps”, they mean the combination of built-in wireless networking (a feature that has been coming along without too much fanfare for a while) and software widgets that let viewers access Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and so on. Verizon added that functionality into its FiOS service last year, but this would be independent of your service provider because it would be controlled by the television itself.
The reason they’re all talking about this now instead of waiting for CES? The Apple fanboi propaganda machine started spinning in overdrive this week for what might be the Next Big Announcement at Apple’s September press event: the much-anticipated overhaul of Apple TV into a cloud-based set top box redubbed (what else?) iTV. All the gadget websites are talking about the leaked details this morning, but here’s Fast Company’s run-down. The box will drop Mac OS for iOS, and the video output will only be 720p, but in addition to streaming video and music, the iTV will be able to download and run iTunes App Store apps natively because it will essentially be that ginormous iPad we all joked about. Unlike some of the more fanciful pre-launch rumors about the iPad, the stories in the tech press are all pretty consistent and reasonable, and Apple needs to do something to make up for the gaffes with the iPhone 4, so I think the confidence level about this should be a lock.
