iPhone-Obsessed Apple Leaves Living Room Wide Open For Sony and Microsoft

iPhones. More iPhones. And then some iPhone cases. Today’s launches of the iPhone 5c and 5s were good news for mobile purists, but they contained no surprises, they took no risks, and they completely ignored other emerging product categories.

Crucially, Apple had nothing whatsoever to say about the living room, thus marking a year of almost total silence on this subject (aside from some relatively minor Apple TV updates) and suggesting that Cupertino is choosing to remain aloof from the major strategic moves being pulled off by rivals like Sony and Microsoft .

Of course, Apple probably always intended for September 10th to be a mobile-only event. It detailed new Macs and Macbooks back at WWDC in June, and it possibly has some tablet-related news (such as a Retina iPad Mini) in store for us early next year. But no tech company -- not even Apple -- can afford to be complacent, sticking to its habitual and iterative product cycles while ignoring what’s happening in the wider world.

Momentous changes are currently underway in millions of households. People are abandoning traditional cable and terrestrial TV and instead looking for the smartest, most cost effective means of gaining immersive experiences at home. Funnily enough, Netflix ’s share price soared to an all-time high during the run-up to Apple’s launch, perhaps partly due to speculation about some kind of new relationship between the two companies, but in the end… nothing happened.

Aside from streaming services, people are choosing between Xbox One and PlayStation 4 hardware to take prime position in their TV cabinets. They’re considering much cheaper devices like Google 's Chromecast ($35) to bring a degree of connectivity to displays in other rooms. They’re also looking to their smartphones to provide remote control functions, second-screen experiences and all-round seamless media and app sharing -- something Microsoft is no doubt intending to capitalize on with its purchase of Nokia.

And again, where is Apple amid all this fresh activity? It has Apple TV, which sports plenty of channels and services (not least iTunes), and which has a great UI, but at $100 this box is starting to look expensive relative to Chromecast.

Equally, with no support for gaming, Apple TV suddenly looks hobbled when stacked up against Sony’s new PlayStation Vita TV -- a little set-top box that will be able to play Vita games and hook up to a PlayStation 4 in order to play PS4 games remotely, while also offering access to Sony’s streaming video and music services.

Apple has swathes of developers on its side and an App Store swarming with iOS games. Now that the iPhone 5s sports improved graphical performance, thanks to a new A7 chip and support for Open GL ES 3.0 API, those iOS games stand to become much more visual and better suited to big 1080p displays. But Apple has done nothing to leverage these assets in the living room. Sony merely needs to offer the Vita TV globally, rather than just in Japan, and Apple TV sales stand to be severely dented.

And then there’s 4K. You’d have thought Apple would be all over this, what with its passion for “Retina” displays and its traditional seat at the aspirational top end of technology. But Apple never talks about 4K. In fact, we’ve barely heard any leaks or rumors on the subject of an Ultra HD iTV since the spring. Meanwhile, Sony is making moves on 4K production and distribution (which will ultimately be delivered through the PS4), while budget TV manufacturers like TCL are already managing to bring the price of a 50-inch 4K set down to around $1,000.

Finally, the scariest thing about Apple’s lack of presence in the living room is probably this: it’s getting harder and harder to envisage what such a presence ought to look like. The oft-suggested acquisition of Netflix? A gaming-capable Apple TV box with its own controller? A 4K smart TV with Siri and Facetime running on some form of iOS? None of these options sound especially compelling at this point, which suggests Apple may have to do something truly imaginative and unexpected if it’s to succeed. In any case, our living rooms are about to become very full of new technology. By the time Apple decides it’s ready to step inside, it may well find that we’ve run out of mains sockets.

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