While many have criticized the Apple TV for not being all things to all people, or even excelling in some fundamentals, the Apple TV does get one thing right that cable and satellite doesn't: the concept of a highly targeted service. With Internet TV dealing body blows to Cable, the Apple TV is poised to see a further surge in popularity -- if only Apple would seize the opportunity.

Over the weekend, I was in an Apple store and a Super Target. One of the things I noticed in the Apple stores was that customers were highly engaged with Apple sales people. Buying a computer or peripheral, as we know, brings lots of questions, and the Apple sales staff has answers. The same is true for HDTV purchases.

On the other hand, when buying paper towels and bottled water, a warehouse mentality like CostCo is perfect. Big quantities -- high ceilings -- low unit prices -- get me outta the store fast.

Target, however, is in the middle. I noticed at my local Target, there was a woman with a name badge just walking around, looking for puzzled customers, asking them if they needed help. I did, so I asked her about something, and she actually went off on a mission to find something special for me. And she found me when she returned.

That night, I saw on the news that Circuit City, the warehouse of electronics, had closed its last store while Target had announced 27 new store openings. So how does this apply to the Apple TV? I am beginning to feel that cable and satellite offer products, not real services.

The Apple TV is Internet based and provides customers with a very specialized service: products for sale with no commercials. The customers pick what they want to watch and when they want to watch it. No surprise. However, listen to the CEO of Time Warner Cable, Glenn Britt, in a Home Media Magazine article entitled: "Cable Could be Caught by the Web"

"As cable operators put more and more content online for free, that will start eroding the subscription revenue source. There isn't a whole lot that we can do about that.

"The reality is we are starting to see the beginnings of core cutting where people, typically young people, are saying, 'All I need is broadband.'"

Mr. Britt said that -- as he noted in his report of a fourth quarter loss -- adding that his company has lost 119,000 cable subscribers.

As with so many other things that happen in a recession, customer patterns of behavior get altered, then locked in for good. The return of good times doesn't always undo favorable patterns that customers have acquired.

Apple TV Opportunities

What could Apple do to further the cause of the Apple TV that allows customers to dispense with $75/month cable bills that include channels they'll never watch? Congress tried to get the cable companies to offer a la carte service, but they have an entrenched interest in keeping cable bills high. It seems only the Internet has the non-entrenched business model that would allow customers to do what they really want to do: schedule desired shows, pay a monthly fee, and watch without commercials.

If Joss Whedon knew that he would have an season long subscription commitment to Dollhouse, he wouldn't have to suffer the network canceling the show for poor Neilsen ratings. That's what happened to his Firefly.

The only problem here is that advertisers are spending most of their money on broadcast TV and are, in fact, irritated by the Internet offerings which bring in only a fraction of the broadcast ad revenue.

The genie is out of the bottle, however, and in time there will be a shift. How could Apple accelerate the process?

Even though the Apple TV is a limited capability Mac (1 GHz, 256 MB RAM, watered down Mac OS X), one has access to a lot of capability through software updates that could further exploit the Apple TV strengths as the kind of service that customers want. For example, and this is just an idea thrown out, the Apple TV could add a feature called "My Weekly TV Choices."

Someone who works Tuesday and Thursday evenings could tell the Apple TV: "I want to watch the newest episode of NCIS on Wednesday night and 11th Hour on Friday nights. Queue those up for me in a list for each evening and bill me if I watch it."

There are probably other things that Apple could do to keep its current business model and yet still exploit a fairly nifty Mac for new customer experiences. Another, idea, something I first mentioned back in 2008, would be to promote an Apple TV App store that worked within Apple's business model to bring creativity and options to Mac users -- and still steer clear of things that undermine Apple's revenue stream.

Apple likes to talk about how the recession is a time of opportunity for them, yet the Apple TV lingers. It would be nice to see those so-called recession opportunities start to pay off on a subject dear to us all: high quality television shows that can endure and Apple products.