There are reports today that Apple is in talks with cable companies to offer viewers an Apple set-top box. I’ll take one of those please. I’m continually horrified at how bad the cable TV user experience is. Using a grid to search hundreds of stations is ridiculous. Even if you use the favorites function to cut the list down, it’s still really inefficient unless you just want to sit on your couch pushing buttons. Using the search function is also a joke. At least on my cable service, it’s the least smart search function I ever use. You have to either laboriously type in the whole title or type in a little and scroll through pages of titles. And God forbid you spell anything wrong. Then there’s on-demand. In theory, this should be a great place for viewers to go and find content and pay for movies but again, it’s clunky to navigate. Movies are listed in alphabetical order and I don’t have a search function for movies. I find myself scrolling through lists of movies I have no interest in seeing until the words just start to blur on the screen (because it’s all words, no images). Then I go to my Apple TV. If I want to rent a movie I can search iTunes by looking at the posters for the movies. Scrolling is easy and a pleasure. I can watch trailers for movies I might not know if I want to spend money on and search by lots of different categories.

Or I can go to YouTube or Hulu Plus and get the best of Internet interfaces in my living room, on my TV. Of course I have some complaints about the Apple TV box. I can only use services that Apple wants me to use so there’s no Amazon streaming on there. And the service is subject to the same kind of glitches as watching video online. Sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes it takes an hour to download a movie. But most of the time, it’s pretty good and a joy to use. I’d love watching regular TV to be as easy as using my iPhone. And I trust that Apple would constantly come up with ways to make the user interface better and offer cool new features (and gt us to spend more money of course).

Richard Greenfield at BTIG Research put it this way in a report this morning (subscription required): Apple recognizes that the problem with your television today is the “experience” itself, not the value of the content offered. Working with the MVPDs would enable Apple to leverage the complete breadth of programming agreements the MVPDs have today (both live linear and video-on-demand), while at the same time using the cable operator’s ISP managed service exception to ensure a high quality IP-video experience. According to Greenfield, there are limitation to this plan actually working. Video services are regional so Apple would have to make deals with lots of providers. A managed service (which Apple’s would likely be to ensure quality) might not be legal under net neutrality and for now, the service would likely only work in the home. But I for one welcome our Apple overlords. Anything to make watching TV a better experience.