Apple TV: iFlop?

Friday, September 14, 2007 · 4:24 pm · 158 Comments

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158 Comments

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Anthony

Saturday, September 15, 2007 - 1:48 pm · Reply

In my house, none of us are big television/film watchers. I can count on one hand the amount of programs our family watches with any sort of regularity. Perhaps when our TV goes we’ll upgrade to an HD box, but for now it doesn’t make sense.

Now, that being said, there are one or two programs that we try not to miss, and I either have to set them up to record via DVD-R, DVR, or VHS-R (such a pain), or (and when the programs are offered, this is preferable) buy them off of the iTunes Media Store.

An AppleTV would be perfect for us, if it supported older televisions. For now, I’m just not sure the expense of buying an HD-TV as well as an Apple TV relates to the amount of viewing we do. Like I said, maybe when our current TV blows out then I’ll get the HD box, but replacing the TV just for the Apple TV seems like a disproportionate expense.

(I’d rather spend that money on other stuff for the time being)
Dale Sorel

Saturday, September 15, 2007 - 2:01 pm · Reply

which happens fairly often with the various crap DVRs offered by cable providers

Never happens with my TiVo
Freddy the Pig

Saturday, September 15, 2007 - 2:02 pm · Reply

I do not have an AppleTV for one reason. I have me a miniMac all hooked up to my TV and doing what AppleTV can do and a bit more. Want a true picture of how strong the AppleTV market is you need to count us mini owners who use it as an AppleTV.
Rob Poitras

Saturday, September 15, 2007 - 2:44 pm · Reply

I replied to his article on my blog.
http://3e-lab.com/blog/09/15/biz/not-really-an-iflop-but-close/

Apple just needs to market the thing more. Think about the marketing budget of the iPhone. Then compare it to the Apple TV. The marketing budget of the Apple TV is not even on the radar.
Swordmaker

Saturday, September 15, 2007 - 3:06 pm · Reply

Ballyhooed? I suggest that it was never “ballyhooed” …
Sean

Saturday, September 15, 2007 - 4:00 pm · Reply

I completely disagree with this: “• Offer a monthly subscription plan a la (gulp) cable…”
I am an AppleTV owner and I have used it to replace my Satellite Service. With Satellite I was paying $50+a month to watch. You end up with a whole lot of reruns most of the time so you end up paying to watch things you’ve already paid to watch. I got the AppleTV to get away from the “Subscribe to rewatch shows you’ve already watched” model. Now, though it is costing me a bit upfront I’m looking at long term savings with my AppleTV because I only have to pay to watch a season of a show once and once I’ve got the show I can rewatch it to my heart’s content without having to pay to see it again. That’s the real benefit to getting the AppleTV the freedom to control when what you are paying to watch.

Still, they need to get HD content in the iTunes store, otherwise the device will never really seem worthwhile to the consumer.
MacGuy

Saturday, September 15, 2007 - 4:03 pm · Reply

This writer has no clue…. He doesn’t see the big picture. The market is not ready for this type of technology, but Apple is positioned well and completes the circle of devices.

Again no clue….
MacGuy

Saturday, September 15, 2007 - 4:05 pm · Reply

I do have to say that Steve wanting to dictate pricing to studios is idiotic.

Remember free market system?
Less is More

Saturday, September 15, 2007 - 9:43 pm · Reply

The TV should be a storage leader and be able to play anything my Mac can. As it is, it looks like an extension of iTunes, i.e., made for  and not for me.
J. F. Lawton

Sunday, September 16, 2007 - 5:29 am · Reply

Look, Jobs has been downplaying the AppleTV because the major content providers are alreadying scared to death about Apple.

The AppleTV is a great device and I love it! But Apple hasn’t gone out of it’s way to promote it, or enable it to do everything it clearly can do. This is a Trojan horse. As other internet to TV devices come and go, and fail, Apple is building up a lot of experience and technology and will be ready to go full blast once the time comes.

Meanwhile they are a little more focused on controling all portable audio, portable video, and now mobile phones. When they are ready, they’ll takeover everyone’s television too.
IONLYUSEOSX

Sunday, September 16, 2007 - 8:33 am · Reply

Add an Apple branded USB .mp4 encoding PVR device and AppleTV sales will take off like a rocket. Same device can connect to your Mac as well. A new icon for Front Row (Recordings?)

An HD capable version is another winner.
P5ycH0

Sunday, September 16, 2007 - 1:06 pm · Reply

I use Apple TV to buy all the tv shows on which we normally need to wait a couple of years here in Europe. I achieved that by creating a paypal account with a US address and my own creditcard. Then create an iTunes account with the paypal account.

Besides that I like to watch video podcasts like diggnation & dl.tv on my 50″ Full HD Plasma set.
Abdullah

Sunday, September 16, 2007 - 1:24 pm · Reply

It’s a measure of Apple’s success these days that any product that does not blow the sales roof off is quick to be labelled “flop” by writers such as this.

Apple is not an idiot company. They’ve shown over and over that they know what to do with almost all their products (the only exception has been the Cube), so if they had wanted Apple TV to have iPod-sized sales, they would have configured it that way.

Let’s look at the facts. First, you need to have a hi-def TV to use the device. Well, sales of HD sets are growing, but I think still not at a mass market level. These things are relatively expensive and there is simply not enough, affordable HD content to justify the expense for many people.

You also need a fairly well-equipped, more recent computer, preferably a Mac, to use it effectively. This though is not as big an issue. Still, not too many people who own older computers are going to rush out to replace them just to use the Apple TV.

But look three, five years down the road, and HDTV is probably going to become the new normal – and when that happens, Apple TV will be ready and waiting to take its place as a mass-market device.

This one is meant to be a slow burner, a sort of guerrilla product put out there ahead of its time. If it wasn’t, Apple would have promoted the heck out of it. As it is, Apple seems perfectly satisfied with the way it’s going.

Most of the posts on this thread are from those who already have it, and are perfectly satisfied with it. This positive word-of-mouth seems for now largely sufficient for Apple.
AbdullahInDreamland

Sunday, September 16, 2007 - 2:07 pm · Reply

“simply not enough, affordable HD content to justify the expense for many people.”

What planet are you on, most markets have free over the air HDTV stations, say 20 of them in any major metropolitan area.

“still not at a mass market level”

HDTVs cost about $215 for an entry level model, How much further do you want them to drop to be “Mass Market”.

“Most of the posts on this thread are from those who already have it, and are perfectly satisfied with it”

Most of the satisfied posts are from dumb fanboys who have never seen a TIVO, Playstation, XBox or Media Center PC.
mike

Sunday, September 16, 2007 - 3:29 pm · Reply

I dunno, at the risk of being flamed, I do think that the apple tv suffers from Steve’s hatred of TV. It should have been a DVR, folks, they could have re-invented that whole way of getting content. And say what you will, when I looked at the picture on an HDTV set, it looked crappy. Maybe it’s just me, but I have an HDTV to watch HDTV.

Perhaps Apple will save the day when they support HDTV downloads and let users download content directly from the box, but the AppleTV as a middleman for content is just irritating. I used my Xbox 360 to get the Heroes premiere in HD, and it looked awesome. Of course, Apple and Universal are fighting, so we won’t be seeing THAT on AppleTV anytime soon.

AppleTV is due for an upgrade. I fear that Apple is going to hang it out to dry given the relative lack of attention it has been getting.

anyway, just my opinion.

-m
Mozfan

Sunday, September 16, 2007 - 4:19 pm · Reply

We’ve got an AppleTV in the den and it’s great, we use it almost every day. I’m actually thinking about getting a second one for the bedroom (after the iPhone purchase).

We don’t have to worry about conflicts in recording shows, just download it from Apple. Plus, all of my Blue October concert videos can go from the computer to the TV.

Sure some improvements could be made, but as it is, it does what Steve said it would do and it does it well.

~M
Whatever

Sunday, September 16, 2007 - 5:05 pm · Reply

Wow look at all these comments…. Do you really think that it is a flop? Seems a lot of people sure do like thiers.
tuned

Sunday, September 16, 2007 - 7:06 pm · Reply

Wow look at all these comments…. Do you really think that it is a flop? Seems a lot of people sure do like thiers.

It’s a “flop” simply because it hasn’t been the kind of million-unit blockbuster the world expects from Apple.

People who have them do love them, but the market appeal IS limited. It’s going to take some work to get AppleTV into the mainstream, where non-HD sets still have the majority and network bandwidth is limited (if available at all).
nothing to watch

Sunday, September 16, 2007 - 7:18 pm · Reply

HDTVs cost about $215 for an entry level model, How much further do you want them to drop to be “Mass Market”.

The problem is an HDTV is discretionary, you don’t NEED to get one to live. The mainstream will adopt HDTV as older units fail, and maybe as an indulgence.

HDTV is the future, no question. But it’s going to take a while to get the critical mass that can pull HD-only devices like AppleTV into the mainstream as well.

Too bad none of this changes the fact most of today’s programming sucks, HD or not. Maybe Jobs and Pixar could change that as well…
Brian Bock

Sunday, September 16, 2007 - 8:19 pm · Reply

Apple should do a deal with TiVo to make TiVo content playable on AppleTV (and the Mac and iPod). You can now do it with third party software on the Series 2 and soon on Series 3, but it’s not convenient. Apple and TiVo should make it an easy, smooth process. They should also make iTunes DRM content play on TiVo. Also, they should look into a deal with Amazon Unbox. License the DRM to Apple so they can provide content. Other things Apple should do are reform the unit to take normal desktop hard drives so the capacity can be 1TB+. They should provide a much better remote that can control the volume on your TV. They should also either add a composite (RCA) jack or if possible upgrade the software to allow one of the Component jacks to act as a composite connector. Everyone has a TV in their house that can use this jack and not HD. Since music doesn’t benefit from HD, and since most of the existing content on iTunes is SD, why the hell did they require an HDTV? Add composite and people can also buy second AppleTV units for bedrooms where they haven’t upgraded to HD. They obviously need to allow purchases to be purchased from and downloaded to the ATV directly. They should also provide a way to synch your iPod to your AppleTV. They should also let you connect your iPod and play the content from it on the AppleTV. Maybe they should consider a TV version of Safari, along with adding a wireless keyboard, even if it was only enabled on an HD TV. This would create an opportunity for TV Web apps, like looking up movies on IMDB.