Gadgetory

(soft dramatic music) - Here's the way that CES usually goes. A ton of companies make a ton of announcements and Apple's not here, but they find a way to remind everybody that they exist. And that sign back here, that's another way example of that. It shows that Apple cares about privacy the way that nobody else here really does. Nobody talks about it, and that sucks. But then, something weird started happening, iTunes on Samsung TVs, AirPlay 2 on every other TVs, a HomeKit on every damn thing. Usually, Apple is way too cool for school at CES, but this year, seems like class is in session. (electronic dance music) So, this is Google's booth, and it's gigantic. They have this wall over here with just a ton of gadgets on it. All the usual CES stuff, because what happens at CES is like a platform war, so, this year it's Google Assist versus Alexa. And, we are telling that story, but I think there's a more interesting story happening here at CES, and it has to do with TVs. So, I want to go look at some TVs and see what is really going on here. (electronic music) Welcome to Samsung City. It is probably the biggest booth at CES. It's all what we expected but, what we didn't expect was a big surprise, is not something you can see at this booth, it is iTunes coming to Samsung TVs. And, okay, yeah, it's not like 2004 manage your music database iTunes, it's iTunes TV and movies, but it's still, a huge shock. I mean, somewhere, somebody is making an iTunes app for Tizen Samsung TV's operating system. Just, think about that for a minute while you stare at the wall. (electronic music) Okay, that was nice. Look, Samsung was crazy enough, but then things started getting weirder. LG announced support for AirPlay 2 and HomeKit. Visio announced support for AirPlay 2 and HomeKit. And then, Sony. Sony announced support for AirPlay 2 and HomeKit. That means that you are going to be able to ask Siri to stream an iTunes movie to and Android TV. My friends, this is not how CES usually goes. CES is the land of platform battles. It's HDR-10 versus Dolby Vision, it's VHS versus Betamax. It's Blueray versus HD-DVD. All these companies start these big fights and they try to make the other company sad by being the winner and they just fight it out. Instead, this year it's all hugs, and working together and Kumbaya, I don't know how to feel about any of it. I'm honestly a little bit scared. I need to go find something comforting right now. (relaxing electronic music) So, look, this is what all this making nice is actually all about. Sometime this year, Apple needs to launch a TV service. You know how I know that? Cause of all this make nice stuff. And also because also, Tim Cook, he kinda said so, basically, in the C-NBC interview. - On services, you will see us announce new services this year. - Okay, let's say your Apple, you wanna launch a TV service. You want as many people as possible to pay for this TV service. So, what do you do? Well, you start making nice with the rest of the TV industry so that your app will get on more TVs. But, here's the thing about that. That list of TVs that are gonna support AirPlay, it's actually pretty short, and it's only new TVs or very recent TVs, and so, something else has to happened. And, I kinda have a guess on what it's gonna be, and it kinda has to do with TCL. So yeah, TCL, Apple didn't cut a deal with TCL. They're one of the biggest TV makers in America. They didn't cut a deal with Roku, which is what runs on a bunch of TDL TVs. They haven't cut a deal with Amazon Fire TV yet. So, yeah, I think you should expect Apple to make apps for all those platforms in the future. And ya know what? That could actually be good for your data. One of the things about all of the TVs we've talked about today is they aggressively track everything that you watch, and some cases, they sell that data. But Apple's not letting them when you use AirPlay. When you use AirPlay 2 to stream a video to any of these TVs, Apple's making the manufacturers block the tracking. (soft electronic music) All of which brings me back to this banner right here. Apple may be willing to, you know, AirPlay ball with the rest of the industry, but that doesn't mean that they're giving up they're privacy stance. And that's great, I was sort of expecting to see Siri versus Google versus Alexa here, but it turns it out it's more like HomeKit versus the other assistants. And maybe that's because Siri's not ready yet and we'll get that next year, but whatever. This year, I'm just happy to see more stuff that works with other stuff, altogether. You can have a Samsung TV running Tizen OS that you can control with Bixby, or Google, or Alexa. Or you can run the iTunes app on it. That's wild. And, if that isn't the most heartwarming CES story ever, I don't know what is. You know what else makes me feel better, these LG rolling TVs behind me here.