“I love my Apple TV. But apparently, Apple doesn’t. Apple’s living-room entertainment device (which is secretly a Mac in its own right) didn’t merit a word if mention in this week’s earnings conference call. It doesn’t appear in Apple’s ubiquitous ads. At the flagship Apple Store in New York City, one disabled, headless Apple TV sits quietly off in a corner; the iPod docks get much more respect,” Sascha Segan writes for PC Magazine. “It’s sad and frustrating to watch Apple back away from what could have been a terrific living-room experience.”

“The Apple TV popped into existence when Apple started selling movies in the iTunes store. I suspect its launch was tied in with a quixotic dream that people would want to buy all of their movies and TV shows from iTunes. When that turned out not to be the case, Apple swiftly lost interest. The device hasn’t gotten a major update since February 2008,” Segan writes. “That’s a real pity, because with some marketing muscle behind it, some creativity and maybe a less-confusing name, Apple TV could have revolutionized living-room entertainment.”

I came up with a few ideas that could raise this product line from the dead:

• Make it a DVR
• Make it app-compatible
• Just make a commercial

Segan writes, “Most of all, Apple TV suffers from the ‘TiVo problem’—nobody understands what it does, because Apple doesn’t bother to market it. So let’s rename it. Call it the ‘iPod Home.’ Show a video of people crowded around a tiny iPod screen, and then explode that video onto a huge TV thanks to the Apple TV. Show someone hunched over and tapping controls for a party playlist on an iPod, and then just grabbing their remote to control the playlist on an Apple TV instead.”

Read more in the full article – highly recommended – here.

MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote back on March 20, 2009, the problem lies somewhere between content providers (Hollywood) not offering enough reasonably-priced content to Apple TV and Apple treating the device like a red-headed stepchild. When your cable company-issued DVR inevitably screws up, Apple TV is invaluable. When you want to catch a movie without any hassle, Apple TV is great (rentals more so than purchases, which are priced too high). For sharing music, home movies, YouTube content, podcasts, and photos, it’s excellent, too. Why Apple ignores the device and fails to promote it as is right now, today, is beyond us.

We have Apple TVs. We use Apple TVs. Apple TVs are great devices that do many things well. It sells itself to people who see us run it through its paces. Why Apple hates their own product remains a maddening mystery to us.

Here’s a plan, Apple (and this goes for everyone from Steve Jobs on down):
1. Stop referring to your product as a “hobby.” It denigrates the product for no reason. Why don’t you just come out and say “don’t buy it?” Idiocy happens at Apple, too; thankfully, it’s rare.
2. Start – gasp – actually promoting Apple TV and maybe you’ll even surprise yourselves by actually selling units beyond the relative trickle to those who are extremely-in-the-know and who sell your product for you via word-of-mouth alone.

If you make an ad, Apple, you’re supposed to run it:

Direct link via YouTube here.