In the summer of 2013, less than two years after his death, a biographical film about Steve Jobs premiered in American movie theaters. Starring in the lead role was Ashton Kutcher, best known for replacing Charlie Sheen in the now-discontinued TV sitcom, “Two and a Half Men.”

While similar in height to Jobs according to one report I’ve read, Kutcher hardly seemed to otherwise fit the part, which would have required a gifted character actor. The public wasn’t that impressed either. According to the IMDb, it got a 5.9 rating. But it appears to have been profitable, since it reportedly cost $12 million to make and earned nearly three times that amount at the box office worldwide. The usual rule of thumb to breaking even is a take at the movieplex of at least twice the production cost.

But perhaps it was too early for a biography.

It wasn’t the first time Jobs was depicted in a film. The TV movie, “Pirates of Silicon Valley” appears to have fared better from the standpoint of public reaction. It focused on the early days of Silicon Valley and the complicated personal relationship between Jobs and Bill Gates. Noah Wyle, then known for his portrayal of Dr. John Carter in the TV series ER, was so successful at playing Jobs that he actually took on the role during a Macworld Expo keynote in New York City. Moments later the real Jobs came out, thanked him and went on with the business of evangelizing the Mac platform.

There’s yet another high-profile Jobs film in the hopper. It’s based on the best-selling authorized biography, “Jobs,” by Walter Isaacson. The screenplay was written by Aaron Sorkin, whose works include “A Few Good Men,” where Jack Nicholson famously proclaimed, “You can’t handle the truth!” On TV, Sorkin is known for such programs as “The West Wing,” and “The Newsroom.”

So we know he can write great scripts with memorable lines.

Well, for this upcoming movie, they’ve selected a German actor, Michael Fassbender, in the lead role. In passing, Fassbender stands six feet, just short of Jobs’ height. He’s probably best known to film audiences as the young Magneto in recent “X-Men” movies. So from a consummate comic book villain to Steve Jobs. A curious move, although the gifted character actor can probably play just about any role with impressive skill, so I wouldn’t sell him short.

Supporting players include other well-known movie performers that include Kate Winslet, Seth Rogan (as Steve Wozniak), and Jeff Daniels, the star in Sorkin’s “The Newsroom,” and also “Dumb and Dumber,” as John Sculley. An early synopsis states, “Set backstage at three iconic product launches and ending in 1998 with the unveiling of the iMac, the film takes us behind the scenes of the digital revolution to paint an intimate portrait of the brilliant man at its epicenter.”

If true, are they creating the climate for a Steve Jobs 2 to tell the rest of the story? Or does Sorkin and his colleagues believe that, by depicting the earlier elements of his life, perhaps with flashbacks, we’ll get a fuller picture of the man he became? Or was it done because the more recent events are still too deeply etched into the public’s consciousness?

To be sure, I suspect Fassbender, at age 38, might be more believable as a younger Jobs. I wouldn’t presume to guess until I see more than the first trailer. No doubt subsequent trailers will present more evidence of his portrayal. The film is set for release in the U.S. on October 9, 2015.

Of course, biographical films are difficult if the producers hope to deliver a product that creates an accurate picture of a character’s life. After all, it’s still show business, and events may be telegraphed or altered to fit within the roughly two-hour timeframe of a typical motion picture. In choosing actors to portray real people, it may be a juggling match of providing the look and the “spirit” of an individual without it becoming an exaggeration or caricature.

As with films about JFK and other memorable people who can still be seen in TV shows and movies of their public statements and interactions with others, you do sometimes have to close your eyes to see if the biography conveys the image of the real person. It’s quite difficult, and I have often had problems dealing with such fare. I could never, for example, accept Sir Anthony Hopkins as Richard Nixon, or the likes of William Devane, Martin Sheen, Bruce Greenwood and even Greg Kennear as JFK. Daniel Day-Lewis made for a better Abraham Lincoln since he allegedly researched the man, his look, mannerisms and voice, to provide as accurate a recreatopm as possible, even though Raymond Massey for years owned the role.

Now I have to tell you that I never finished Isaacson’s biography, and I haven’t decided whether to read “Becoming Steve Jobs,” the book that’s received the blessing of Apple’s executives. The problem is that I have watched Jobs in action far too often. I even met him briefly a couple of times at Apple events, and I have read loads of articles about his public and private behavior. We can all honor the man for his great achievements, and for laying the groundwork for Apple’s so-far highly prosperous future.

However when I read gossip, I prefer to focus on show business personalities. But maybe that’s just me.

Although the news had been predicted by mainstream news organizations, the announcement that Apple would be moving Macs to Intel processors at the 2005 WWDC came as a shock. For years, Apple had been touting the superior performance of the PowerPC chips, so why the turnaround? Was Apple betraying Mac users?

The truth was straightforward and logical. For years, Apple had been claiming that the PowerPC could easily trounce a Pentium PC with a far higher clock speed. That was certainly true, and Apple regularly conducted bake-offs showing how a Mac would leave Intel gear in the dust.

To be sure, some doubted Apple’s claims. They must have cooked the books, or targeted very limited benchmarks where the PowerPC’s performance shined. In fact, I remember requesting Apple’s test methodology at the time, and they employed some canned Photoshop routines as part of the process. In every case where I tested a Mac against a PC, Apple’s results were pretty much confirmed.

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After high definition TV took over, and most everyone who cared bought new sets, what could the TV makers due for an encore? If you think iPad sales suffer because people keep the ones they bought for several years, imagine the family TV. It’s not uncommon for sets to last 10 years or more before there’s serious deterioration in picture quality, or the set develops hardware issues. I recall giving a neighbor a 27-inch Sony TV, with a CRT, a year or two back because I had no need for it. The set was acquired in the early 1990s and had always worked perfectly.

Since there were fewer customers, TV makers had more difficulty selling product. Prices and profits continued to slip, as the industry searched for something to boost sales. Even smart TVs, with built-in apps, weren’t enough.  The 2009 movie blockbuster, Avatar, delivered on the promise of 3D movies, so it was natural that TV makers tried to get into the act. There were actually two systems, one active, one passive. The former featured glasses with decoding circuitry embedded. A foolish idea, since you had to sometimes pay over $100 for a pair, and you needed one for every family member or friend who wanted to share the experience.

More realistically, active used the same glasses they handed out to you free in the movieplex, and thus TV makers might include several with your new set, depending on where it stood in the product lineup. There was even a 3D version of Blu-ray so you could spend another $10 or so on a disc to get a picture that literally popped out at you.

You’ll notice that more and more sets no longer have 3D. At first they were costly, but even as prices came down to more affordable levels, sales didn’t soar. People didn’t care, although some movies, such as the latest Marvel blockbuster, “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” are still presented in 3D form in a movie theater.

So what’s next and does anyone care?

Well, if most people already have HD, and 3D didn’t cut it for the masses, the TV makers decided that maybe a picture with four times as many pixels would help. Thus came Ultra HD, usually known as 4K. As with 3D, the first sets to come to market were costly, but the technology soon filtered down to lower-cost models. The 2015 VIZIO M-series Ultra HD sets are available for less than $1000 with small-to-medium sized screens. You can expect that the number of 4K sets in customer’s hands will soar this year; it’s in the single digits now.

But what about 4K content, and can you even see the difference?

Well, that depends. The rule of thumb is that you probably need a 55-inch or larger set to see much of a difference compared to 1080p HD at a normal viewing distance. One of my colleagues, John Martellaro of The Mac Observer, reports a big difference when watching his 65-inch 4K set at a distance of eight feet. When checking out 4K sets at the neighborhood Best Buy recently, I noticed that they often display still pictures rather than movies, since the difference in resolution is more visible. The better 4K sets also tout superior color quality.

Regardless, unlike HD, the move to Ultra HD results in a subtle improvement for most of you, but not for everyone, and thus it’s a harder sell. Worse, there’s not a lot of content yet. Some TV makers compensate by offering a digital media player or drive preloaded with 4K movies. Such streaming services as Amazon Instant Video and Netflix are rolling out 4K content, but it’s so heavily compressed to work at normal broadband speeds that the visible difference isn’t all that great. Because of the higher bandwidth, it’s going to be a while before the cable and satellite companies take the plunge.

But what about Blu-ray?

Well there is now an Ultra HD Blu-ray standard, and players ought to be available in the coming months. Assuming the entertainment companies come onboard with a decent selection of movies, that may help to jump start the industry for the holiday season. Of course, it all depends on how much these players will cost and how well they scale up regular DVD and Blu-ray discs. That’s also a key issue with 4K sets, since it’ll be some years before there’s enough 4K fare to make a difference.

You also expect that compression algorithms will continue to improve, so content companies can pack higher quality at a given bit rate, and that might help with streaming 4K fare. There’s also the open question, and the skepticism, about whether Apple will add 4K support to the next Apple TV.

I expect they will. One reason is that some existing Macs already output to 4K displays, and don’t forget the amazing iMac with 5K Retina display. There are also published reports that the existing A8 chip in the iPhone 6 series supports 4K video, only the feature hasn’t been exploited. But that doesn’t mean it won’t in the next iPhone refresh. But it won’t do much good in a tiny screen, whereas it’s tailor made for the next Apple TV.

As for me, I hope to test a 4K TV set from one of the major manufacturers soon.

So when Tim Cook complains about the shortcomings of the TV/living room experience, just what is he talking about? Unfortunately, when he’s interviewed, there are seldom follow-up questions. They just move on to other subjects, grateful they got to talk to him in the first place.

But rather than guess what he meant, I’d rather focus on my personal experience as a too-frequent TV watcher of broadcast, cable and streaming content. I am quite happy to cut costs, but there are shows I watch regularly, and I’m sure many of you agree with me on this approach.

Now our one-and-only family TV set is in the master bedroom. It is connected to a standard Blu-ray player, an Apple TV, a Cox set-top box, and a sound box. The latter is the equivalent of a sound bar that is essentially a long thin stand for the TV. Supposedly it offers better quality sound than traditional sound bars. Aside from an overpriced Bose TV, audio quality on most sets is barely passable.

In any case, just turning on the TV and activating the appropriate input can be an involved process. Rather than confront multiple remotes, I use a universal type, a Logitech Harmony. Configuring the unit can be a tad of a chore, even though the setup routine includes profiles for different devices. Once set up, it usually works, but since the IR remote sensors are at different locations for each device, I have to aim it just right to make all the components work and not to have to go through a Help process. I can’t tell you how many times Barbara has complained that the TV or the cable box never turned on.

Now some universal remote schemes include separate IR receivers that you attach to various devices so you don’t have to aim and shoot so accurately. Without the separate receivers, the Apple TV’s sensor has a serious shortcoming, a very narrow range of sensitivity, which makes it more difficult to control.

What you see here merely involves turning on the TV, or switching inputs. That’s all. In any case, just finding a workable solution that doesn’t require you to tilt or stretch your arm in an uncomfortable way, or getting out of bed in an awkward fashion to make a change, means that what should be a simple process can be complicated.

So if you just have the TV and the cable/satellite box, and are willing to put up with subpar audio, you might actually be lucky.

If Tim Cook confronts a similar mess in his living room, I can see where he’s unhappy, and I haven’t even considered the interfaces for the TV and other products.

Of course, once your TV is set up, you may see some onscreen messages when switching inputs, but it’s otherwise uninvolved when it comes to the interface. You are, however, confronting the interface of whatever device you’re using to hook up to that TV. The cable/satellite box, and even the mostly superior TiVO, are usually offering you a list of channels, with the option to browse, switch, search, and if a DVR, record, schedule a recording or use a season pass. The latter setting allows you to record entire seasons of a show, and sometimes the box is smart enough to recognize day and time changes. You may also have to configure the device to start a show a minute early and have it end a minute later because networks, particularly broadcast, pull stunts to have them start at slightly odd times to keep you from switching to another channel if your cable/satellite box can’t handle more than one or two signals at a time. These days, some of those boxes can manage up to six.

In any case, the fundamentals of those TV interfaces haven’t changed much in 20 years. They are a little prettier, more colorful and flexible, but there aren’t any significant differences in usability.

Now when you switch to your streaming box, such as the Apple TV or Roku, you confront yet another interface. Apple’s is simple, mostly, but the Apple Remote requires multiple clicks to navigate through menus. Worse, each content channel may have a somewhat different interface and setup process, so suddenly managing various sources may be somewhat confusing. If you have lots of channels from which to choose, the clutter can become unwieldy.

Cutting the cord, having to switch from several different sources of TV content to fill your needs, is therefore a chore. Saving money isn’t simple unless you just set up an antenna and live with whatever broadcast stations you can receive.

Notice I haven’t gotten to the Blu-ray player or the gaming console.

In short this is a mess, and I wonder what Apple can bring to the table to simplify your life. Obviously, they’d like to keep you using one box, theirs, and give up the others. At least that would eliminate the input switching glitches. But it would require offering enough variety to allow you to dump cable/satellite, Blu-ray and the gaming console.

Understand that I am accustomed to the situation and have managed to cope with this setup for several years, since the Logitech remote and the Apple TV were added to the mix. But I am not satisfied, and I look forward to something that just works without the complications. Can Apple deliver that solution? I would hope so, but I’m not about to make any guesses.