• Okay, you’ve been happily enjoying your 4K/UHD TV and Apple TV 4K for awhile now. Or you’re shopping for the duo for the holidays. So what should you make of the 8K TV fuss? The answer is: not much.
Customers tend to keep their TVs for a long time, and just about no one who’s into 4K nowadays is interested in 8K. It’s just a technology demo and publicity stunt. Fodder for alluring articles. The 8K technology may even fall into the graveyard of 3D and curved TV displays. But if you’d like to stay informed, all the while amusing yourself, here’s a great wrap-up. “Hello, 8K displays: TV’s next must-have feature isn’t really a must-have.”
How will you suspect when it’s time to spring? Optimistically? Maybe if Apple ::cough:: ships the Apple TV 8K and 50 percent of Netflix is in 8K/Dolby Vision. Then you’ll know 8K is for real. I estimate 2023. And quite possibly never. The whole 8K thing might just fail in the market. Like 3D. Nothing to see here.
When a technology appears to be on the verge of failing, it’s a sure sign something totally unexpected will come along to take its place. The TV industry is ever on the lookout.
Apple’s September 12 Event
• Apple’s fall iPhone event is September 12th. Odds are it’ll include an Apple Watch Series 4 roll out as well. It’s time to get briefed.
- Here’s what to look for in the AW series 4: “How Apple Watch Series 4 will raise the bar for wearables.“
- Here’s what to look for in the new iPhones: “Apple iPhone XS: News, rumors, specs, and more.“
- Here’s what NOT to look for in the event as a whole. “What not to look for at the Sept. 12 Apple event.“
More Debris
• Few companies can protect your credit card online. Apple, Amazon, and Google do a pretty good job. Others have failed miserably. Just like the discredited simple username/password combo, it’s probably time for the industry to figure out a way to no longer keep your credit card number on permanent file. There has to be a better way. The convenience of a stored card number is now too high a price to pay. Case in point: “British Airways app and website hack exposes full card details of 380,000 customers.”
• Google is a company that manages to, depressingly, convolute its very high technical skills with long term, hidden agenda. These two articles will fill you in on something important Google is doing with its Chrome browser. Dropping “www” from the address bar. And the very suspicious AMP project.
- “Chrome 69 kills off www in URLs: Here’s why Google’s move has made people angry.“
- “Kill Google AMP before it kills the web.“
This is abuse of power by Google. It’s tiresome. I’m sticking with Safari.
• Any sufficiently advanced technology is not only indistinguishable from magic, but can also be misused for unintended consequences. For example, have you ever thought about Facebook as a weapon? Others have.
• Finally, here’s something a bit more fun and upbeat. Soon, macOS Mojave will be released to the public. If you’ve thinking of doing a clean install, MacRumors explains how to do it. “How to Perform a Clean Installation of macOS 10.14 Mojave.”
[Note: Particle Debris is just one page this week.]
Particle Debris is a generally a mix of John Martellaro’s observations and opinions about a standout event or article of the week (preamble on page one) followed on page two by a discussion of articles that didn’t make the TMO headlines, the technical news debris. The column is published most every Friday except for holiday weeks.
Seems to me that it depends on whether 8K becomes a “thing” in the market.
If people start stampeding to get 8K TVs in the next 3-4 years for Xmas, then they will need 8K devices to go along with those big TV’s.
Apple TV 8k could become one of those devices if such were the case.
However, perhaps 8K will stay a niche device in which case there will be other players who fill the void and make little profit. Not certain how many need a 75″ or 90″ display in their home.
I don’t need one, but it would be nifty.
My neighbor has what can best be described as a drive-in movie theater screen in his living room.
Clearly, it will be a luxury item at start. Who really needs a Bugatti? But is Bugatti a “fail”? Of course not! But 8K is not a Bugatti either. Now, almost everyone has 4K/5K displays. 8K is the next step. Nobody will force you to buy it but it will not be a “fail” because you do not see the mass appeal necessity.
The success/failure will probably be linked to peoples’ egos. Most people don’t have an annual eye exam and have no reference to their visual accuity other than “I can see fine.” I wear glasses and have regular checkups. Took the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 hue test with a Print pressman and a QA manager and scored 100% with their scores of – 13 and -30. They asked me, “You can see the difference in those colors?” I have 4K, 1080 and 720 TVs and can see the difference in 720 vs. 1080. It’s very close on 1080 vs. 4K. I won’t bother with 8K because I don’t believe my eyes could see the difference. And, though the F-M test doesn’t test sharpness, how many “color correction experts” are there that can’t really see color well at all?
My point: Have an annual eye exam and find out what your eyes are capable of seeing before spending your hard earned money. You wouldn’t spend thousands on a sound system if you were tone deaf would you ?
You guys are very wrong. I have a 65″ 4k tv and you can totally tell the difference when playing video games. But here is where you may be right with regard to TV in general, but wrong with monitors. Having a retina retina 55″ display monitor for your computer will be life changing. Photographers will be able to see 20MP+ photos in full glory. You’ll have more desk real estate.
So there is zero doubt 8K is great for monitors. But if the display makers do this for monitors, the efficiency of scale means this WILL happen for TVs as well, as the core display technology comes off the same line.
So it’s not necessarily vanity, it’s just progress, and useful too.
John:
Just a quick comment about Google, its new browser feature potentially obscuring its subdomain, AMP, through which all of its content may increasingly be funnelled, and what AMP might potentially mean for security, and the further nonconsensual ceding of unmonitored control of our data to that part of the private sector that profits from its use.
For those concerned about privacy invasion, surveillance and monitoring primarily by state actors, unauthorised data access and data theft, not to mention state sponsored information campaigns that attempt to surreptiously shape public opinion and behaviour, it should provide cold comfort that a private concern may be attempting to shoehorn content providers into a protocol that disassociates content from its creator, may obscure the level of security of a given site, and potentially consolidate greater control over not only user data but its security such that, given sufficient resources and time, actors with the motive to exploit all the above, using such proven methods like phishing attacks, may be able to do so with even greater impunity and concealment.
What could possibly go wrong, you ask? In short, Google may be on the verge of scoring an own goal, or rescuing defeat from the jaws of victory for team security (or your metaphor of choice), all in the name of power, control and dare one add, profit.
This comes on the heals of Google’s notable absence from this past week’s US Congressional hearings on internet security, to which Google sent no representation, perhaps signalling, as some suggested, that Google feel they have already addressed said concerns, or perhaps indicative that they feel too big, too profitable and already too powerful to be troubled by the noisome little people, like national legislators. There are important questions that Google might have addressed. What are Google’s security protocols and countermeasures for this new environment that they propose? It would have been great to hear about them in that forum. Google’s non-attendance was likely strategic. Their attendance, after all, at such a hearing might lend legitimacy to the notion that legislators can, should and even might soon impose some constraints over Google’s as yet unregulated and unmonitored, and wholly self-policed authority over our data.
Is this not the normal tension that exists between the private sector and government, which in a democracy, is a healthy exercise, leading to an optimum balance between free market dynamics and modest regulation to protect consumers, all to the general benefit of the private consumer citizen?
Before answering that question, consider this. The fastest growing client bases and markets for the internet are not in countries governed by democracies, but by authoritarian actors (although some may quibble over which country has what type of rule). These are actors with a vested interest in not only the consolidation of control of internet traffic, but by whom. This is a factor that too much of the discussion in Western circles appears to largely ignore; despite this shifting power balance. Moreover, whether these governments too will enter that fray with front companies in the private sector whom they control, or seize control outright, these trends in consolidating greater control of the internet by a select few creates a climate in which such practices become the norm, and expands that opportunity throughout the greater global community. After all, how could one not object to Google doing this, but raise an alarm if done by, say, Alibaba Group Holding, Ltd? And what if, at the end of the day, the traffic and its rules are consolidated by a company or a consortium based in a non-democratic and authoritarian country because, that’s where the wealth, power and predominant user base resides? However undesirable to some, in what way would this be either unfair or even preventable?
These are among the questions with which we will grapple in near term, and whose outcome can only be improved by the participation today of both private and public sector in an open forum by all stakeholders with full transparency of motive, process, protocols, and regulation.
8K resolution and the wall space necessary for it forcibly reminds me of a song by the ever-prescient Weird Al Yankovic: “Frank’s 2000-inch TV”.
I disagree. 8K TV totally will happen. If only for the reason that 8K huge 55 inch monitors will be a “thing“. People will love having 33+ megapixel displays that are massive, and can show multi pages. If apple doesn’t produce an 8k Apple TV, it may be more of an artifact of the horrible management by Tim Cook and his “deep pipeline“ of product neglect.
The scale and size of the display that is required to support 8K is probably somewhere around 85 to 90 inches. Anything smaller would not benifit from 8K resolution. The issue will be how many people have enough free wall space for a 90 inch display plus the bandwidth needed from your ISP to deliver the 8K content. The Xfinity 2TB monthly data cap will need to be increased in order to support the delivery of 8K content.
Exactly this. 4K may be perfect 60 to 70″ and below. I think somewhere between 80 to 100″ it will fall behind a little bit. But we don’t need 8K to get that improvement, why cant we have 5K instead? Which should fit everything up to 120″. Then it is all colouring and other PQ improvement like Dolby Vision.
I think it make sense for 8K to do capturing, but 8K viewing doesn’t make any sense and it is waste of computing resources and bandwidth.
I am leaning toward the Sep 12 event being all iOS. iPhone, iPad, AppleWatch. Then I would think they will have another event in a couple of weeks for a new MacMini, MacBook Air, and possibly some other bumps to MacBooks. There’s just too much for one event.
8k may come eventually, but not this year. Like you said 2023 maybe. We got a new TV at the beginning of the year. We got a great price on a 55″ with Roku built in. Best Buy was closing out the 1080 models and replacing them with 4k. I just didn’t see any reason yet to spend a few hundred more for 4k. If they’re just upgrading their stocks to 4k now, then 8k is a long ways off yet.
Has 4k been a success? I don’t even have 2k
You measure “success” of a product and tech by whether you own one or not? I laugh at that bizarre comment!
When 5G mobile speed comes, please just stick to your LTE and shut the hell up!
8k TV will fail?? Can I put you on record for that? Boy are you wrong as it’s already here, period. And, you are dead wrong comparing 8k to 3D – that is just not an accurate comparison because 3D is a gimmick but higher resolution and more accurate color gamut will NEVER stop improving. All major Cam co.s make 8k cams.8k cams today are used mostly for downsampling to better 4k but by 2022 it will common with consumers. This same MacOb website poo-poo’d 4k not that long ago – if you do your research you will see. You DO realize that just because Apple doesn’t change, the rest of the world does – they have quantum bit displays, bendy phones, AR headsets, Smart Assistants, Driverless Cars – Apple should check out the future once in a while. 🍎
This article and his very bizarre fanboys are puzzling. Why would 8K fail? Because they have small homes and cannot afford 8K? Samsung has proven that 8K is simply amazing. And content will follow.