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New Apple TV may closely resemble iPod touch inside; downloadable apps may be possible

Saturday, September 4, 2010 · 1:54 pm · 31 Comments

“The inside of the new Apple TV likely resembles the interior of the iPod Touch, a move that allowed Apple to dramatically cut costs, a Canadian research company said today,” Gregg Keizer reports for Computerworld.

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“What’s unknown, said Jeffrey Brown, who heads the business intelligence group at Ottawa-based UBM TechInsights, is whether the new model has the memory necessary to store downloaded applications, and Bluetooth connectivity that could be used by game controllers,” Keizer reports. “Brown’s team hasn’t torn apart an actual Apple TV — the device doesn’t go on sale until the end of this month — but based its estimate on current information and a knowledge of component costs.”

“The new Apple TV is powered by an A4 application processor, the Apple-designed system on a chip (SOC) made by Samsung and built around an ARM CPU. The A4 also powers the iPod Touch, iPhone 4 and iPad… Redesigned Apple TV includes built-i

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31 Comments

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DogGone

Saturday, September 4, 2010 - 7:54 pm · Reply

At $99 it is worth the experiment. I already have a Mac Mini that acts as a media server and is hooked up to my TV. However it would be cool to have an AppleTV hooked up to the TV in the bedroom to grab feeds from the server.

Jobs mentioned that the pricing was an issue for many. This is true for me. It is good that they are listening to their customers.
silverhawk

Saturday, September 4, 2010 - 8:24 pm · Reply

Okay, so the server farm in NC is your new AppleTV hard drive or SSD. Your TV stuff is stored/saved/DVR’d on Apple’s servers for whenever you need it. Think different! Who knows.
ken1w

Saturday, September 4, 2010 - 8:32 pm · Reply

An iPod touch without Retina Display, cameras, speaker, microphone, battery, accelerometer, gyroscope, and flash storage (just a small amount to hold its software and cache), in a relatively roomy plastic case. I guess Apple probably can sell it for $99 and still have its usual healthy profit margin. I wasn’t planning on getting an Apple TV, but I think this one is worth having, even if all I did with it was stream my iMac’s iTunes media to the HDTV.
El Guapo

Saturday, September 4, 2010 - 9:08 pm · Reply

@CandTsmac
“And on the Same note, it’s very lame that Apple will not update the existing AppleTV’s for the Airplay feature.”

Did you not get what you paid for? If you didn’t like it, you should’ve returned it. I’m so tired of people expecting crap like this from Apple.
me

Saturday, September 4, 2010 - 11:19 pm · Reply

@ CandTsmac

Are you stupid or what?

Do you really think the precessor would be able dto do that?

NOPE!
Switched

Sunday, September 5, 2010 - 7:35 am · Reply

@Al

I have to agree. I love my original Apple TV as I have all my most listened to music and stored favourite films on it.

I’ve wanted to rent HD films but the selection in the UK sucks balls and I don’t see it getting any better soon. The new Apple TV is a backward step as I don’t want to turn my Mac Pro on every time I want to play music and watch films in the living room. Jeez aren’t we supposed to be saving energy.

I really hope my Apple TV keeps working as I will not be buying the new version no matter how cheap it it.

If it can support apps then why not straight off the bat? Why should that becoming down the line? Crazy.

New Apple TV, it’s cheap and mostly useless.
ken1w

Sunday, September 5, 2010 - 8:17 am · Reply

@ Switched

> If it can support apps then why not straight off the bat? Why should that becoming down the line? Crazy.

Yes, it’s “crazy” that iPhone didn’t support apps until Year Two, when the second iPhone was released. It’s called doing something simpler first and building up a potential customer base of millions (just like with iPhone) before opening up a market for developers to create and sell apps or adding “subscription-based” services or whatever else Apple has planned for Apple TV. Or (going back a few years) selling millions of iPods first, before opening up the iTunes Music Store, which later expanded to include videos. Apple keeps succeeding with the same strategy, and people call them “crazy.” LOL. And you know there will be millions of new Apple TV’s sold before the end of the year…

Apple strategy – Get the product out there with attractive design, excellent usability, and sufficient features to make it profitable and desirable. Once there are enough devices in customer hands, use that popularity to influence third parties into supporting the device, allowing new features to be added. This in turn makes the device even more profitable, desirable, and influential. And the cycle continues…

Competition strategy – React to what Apple does and copy its successful products as quickly as possible. Since Apple sets the standard, the competing product must immediately try to match what Apple has already accomplished, from Day One. So (for example) Windows Phone 7 must have a “fully stocked” app store at product launch, because that is now the expectation (it was NOT when iPhone launched). And that’s why they, Apple’s competition, typically fail or (at best) fall short.
breeze

Sunday, September 5, 2010 - 9:02 am · Reply

“even if all I did with it was stream my iMac’s iTunes media to the HDTV.”
Time Space Light

Sunday, September 5, 2010 - 10:26 am · Reply

The new Apple TV strikes me as being more similar to the Airport Express than the iPod Touch.
Xan

Monday, September 6, 2010 - 3:37 am · Reply

There is no evidence at all that the new ATV runs iOS. Only mindless speculation from idiotic anal-ysts.

The fact that the new ATV has the same CPU as the iPhone/iPod/iPad is irrelevant.

My Mac has the same CPU as Windows and Linux computers. It will not run Windows or Linux applications. The A4 CPU, as an ARM Cortex-A8 device, is effectively the same chip as in most Android and Symbian phones, yet iPhones do not run Android or Symbian apps, or vice-versa.

iOS is all about CocoaTouch, a UI layer that handles direct interaction with a touch-screen. ATV is all about a passive screen and a 6-button remote control. iOS is completely unsuitable for the ATV.

And don’t give me some rubbish about using a magic trackpad in place of a touch-screen. A trackpad is all about moving around a pointer – it’s about indirect interaction with your user interface – completely different from the direct interaction a touch-screen offers.

Given that the new ATV seems to have an almost identical UI as the old ATV the only logical conclusion would be that it’s running the same software (and OS) as the old ATV, just re-compiled for ARM instead of Intel.
Producerjames

Monday, September 6, 2010 - 6:45 pm · Reply

However, if Apple TV can run apps…..most of them will have to be resized to fit on a bigger screen. Going from a 9.7″ to say a 30-45″ tv will take developers time to retrofit like they did with iPhone to iPad. I think it will run them, but it will take some time before they come to Apple TV.