“Solution providers say they expect Apple TV, which is set to ship next week, to be a hot seller in the burgeoning digital home market,” Steven Burke reports for CRN. “‘It’s like Tivo on steroids,’ said Steve Feldman, president of Graphtech, a Deerfield, Ill., Apple partner who is looking forward to selling the new product to business clients who want to put an Apple TV in their home. ‘It’s really cool.’
“The $299 sleek VCR-sized box with built in 802.11 wireless functionality allows consumers to watch movies or listen to music they have downloaded from Apple iTunes on a TV. It includes a 40-Gbyte hard drive that can store up to 50 hours of what Apple calls ‘near DVD quality’ video. Apple is recommending a 42-inch or larger TV screen,” Burke reports.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple TV specs:
• Video formats supported: H.264 and protected H.264 (from iTunes Store): 640 by 480, 30 fps, LC version of Baseline Profile; 320 by 240, 30 fps, Baseline profile up to Level 1.3; 1280 by 720, 24 fps, Progressive Main Profile. MPEG-4: 640 by 480, 30 fps, Simple Profile
• Audio formats supported: AAC (16 to 320 Kbps); protected AAC (from iTunes Store); MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps); MP3 VBR; Apple Lossless; AIFF; WAV
• Photo formats supported: JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, PNG
• Enhanced-definition or high-definition widescreen TVs capable of 1080i 60/50Hz, 720p 60/50Hz, 576p 50Hz (PAL format), or 480p 60Hz
Burke continues, “Charlie Thomas, director of corporate sales for TekServe, a New York City Apple partner… said both his Apple consumer and business sales are growing. ‘Apple is going through a renaissance and we are benefiting from it,’ he said. ‘We’re having a good year.'”
“Peter Gambino, a senior sales director for Ingram Micro, one of a number of distributors that will carry the Apple TV product, said Apple TV is the next logical step in Apple’s iTunes music and movie product lineup. ‘Keep in mind this is not Tivo per say [sic],’ cautioned Gambino. ‘You are not recording programs. You are taking content that you have purchased and pushing it to your family or entertainment center to view.’ Ingram is adding several new VARs a month who are adding Apple to their product lineup,” Burke reports.
Full article here.
Related articles:
Apple TV could help kill traditional TV ads – March 14, 2007
Apple TV manufacturing ramp up to begin as early as today – March 12, 2007
Why Apple TV is more important than iPhone – March 12, 2007
Apple TV concept may eventually catch on with consumers – March 12, 2007
Apple CFO talks Apple TV, iPhone, Leopard and retail (link to full transcript) – March 07, 2007
PC Magazine: Why Apple TV matters – February 23, 2007
Bear Stearns: Apple TV and iPhone have changed the Apple story for the better – February 21, 2007
Deutsche Bank: Apple TV could take 30% of set-top box market within a few years – February 21, 2007
How do Apple TV and Elgato’s EyeTV work together? – February 16, 2007
Apple embraces casual gaming; iPhone, Apple TV to join iPod as gaming devices – February 09, 2007
Former GM of Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade: Apple TV to become video game console – February 08, 2007
ZDNet’s Graham: Apple TV hits a number of sweet spots, poised to make a big impact – January 25, 2007
Is Apple out to kill cable television? – January 25, 2007
RUMOR: Apple TV sales blowing away Apple’s internal expectations – January 25, 2007
Steve Jobs: Apple TV is the ‘DVD player for the 21st century’ – January 22, 2007
Apple TV beats out iPod, hits top spot on Apple Store sales chart – January 19, 2007
Report: first batch of 100,000 Apple TVs to ship this month – January 11, 2007
Steve Jobs moves to control the living room with Apple TV – January 10, 2007
Analyst Bajarin: Apple’s iPhone and Apple TV are industry game changers – January 09, 2007
Apple premieres Apple TV: movies, TV shows, music & photos on your big screen TV – January 09, 2007
RUMOR: Apple may enter video game market – December 05, 2006
Could Apple become king of game consoles? – September 26, 2006
I’m getting one as soon as they come out. I have lots of photos of my kids, travels, etc. and lots of home movies I want to see and bore friends and relatives with. Purchased movie watching is quite far down on the list of reasons to get one.
AppleTV + iTunes downloads + DVD rips + iPhoto pics = interesting for some people
AppleTV + IPTV = the future!
Any combination would’ve changed the outcome of the Apple TV:
1) DVR.
2) iPod dock.
3) DVD or HD-DVD/BD drive. Especially if Apple arranged a deal where movies could be imported (even with Fairplay).
4) Compatibility with all TVs (not just widescreen).
5) QuickTime plug-in compatibility (so you could play Divx and other formats).
Point #5 is a biggie. Is like as if the iPod had come out and didn’t support MP3s. On the other hand, it may help promote H.264.
I agree with most who say AppleTV is missing basic features, but it is their first offering and surely updated models will be offered in the future that address the wants of the consumer. This consumer however, is waiting for DVD playback to be included in Front Row, as currently there is no third party component that does this easily. It doesn’t need to be HD or 1080i/p, as long as it’s as good as I would expect to see on a standard TV, which means streaming is very possible.
In a year Apple will have sold over 1,000,000 of these at the very least. H.264 will become the defacto internet video standard due to this user base.
“It’s like Tivo on steroids…”
Why isn’t MDN jumping all over this obvious falsehood?
This AppleTV thing is more like a Zune. It only plays media from iTunes running on a remote computer or from files uploaded to its relatively small harddrive.
Oh boy. It provides a $300 solution to a non-existent problem. How is this better than simply attaching a video iPod directly to your TV? (And don’t give me the Hi-Def connections crap. The “squirted” videos are low-def so the physical connection is irrelevant).
@Abdullah: You forgot that it doesn’t provide picture-in-picture to watch two porn videos at once.
If Apple TV is TiVo on steroids, then what the hell would be an Apple TV on steroids.
If Apple would release TV with digital DVR (dual tuner) + DVD recorder and it had a price tag of 599€-699€. My parents would buy one, no questions asked.
Philips’ low-end digi-boxes (There’s 2 in our house) have an EPG-bug, EPG is half finnish, half swedish – interface language is set to finnish though. It wouldn’t be like that on an Apple-product. ‘Cause if there’s something that Apple can do, it’s polishing the product.
TV + Blu-ray wouldn’t be bad either.
OR
TV + DVR (dual tuner) + DVD±RW DL /w external (optional) Blu-ray. That would be overkill, or exactly what some/most people want: ALL in 1. Two boxes that just fucking work.
Can you ask for more? yes – Is there more? not that I know of
Recording TV shows straight to iTunes wouldn’t be bad either – You could automaticly sync the shows to your iPod. That TV+everything would propably do it.
I think people are overlooking ability to broadcast our IPhoto library.
These are by nature mostly High Def digital pictures. As Job’s said, they look fantastic on a big HD screen.
It’ll be like the old fashioned home picture slide projector show on steroids.
it may not be for everyone, but I’m betting lots of people will wind up using it for that purpose.
I would venture that
1) anybody that has an HD TV already has a DVD player connected to it. Why would DVD playback support be needed in the Apple TV?
2) The hard disk is small because it only holds the stuff that you HAVEN’T watched yet, then it trashes it from it’s local disk
3) Apple is serving a market that does not exist yet. They don’t intend to take over the markets that are currently served (TiVo and such)
4) The eyeTV thing will record to your computer into iTunes. iTunes then streams that down to the AppleTV so that you can watch the recording later
The AppleTV, at least in this version, the do-all/end-all gadget. It does do something that nothing else does, put all you content from your computer on your TV without having to buy a Media Center PC that costs way too much to do what it does.
Here’s the thing:
I take offense to people thinking any music on an iPod is stolen. That’s just silly. I’ve been collecting CD’s for 21 years now and I have a huge collection. Let’s see, go hunting for that CD I want in the stack, or pull it up on my machine and hit play…hmm…a no brainer for me.
I think Apple has done a great thing. In a world where digital content is becoming the source of our lives, it’s a way to combine two fronts, the Computer content, and the Home Media content. For those who still want to hunt for CD’s and put them in a CD Player and hit play…great, store them next to your 45’s. DVD Player? Nah, rip the DVD’s to MPEG-4 and play them through the AppleTV, another no brainer.
You have two choices, stay set in your ways, or stay caught up with technology, if you opt for the former instead of the latter, I thank you for keeping tech support people employed. Before you bash a product, look at what the design spec and use-case is. I wish I had a penny for every Doomsayer Cry of the 1Gen iPods… Rip your DVD’s and watch them through an AppleTV. Stop taking up valuable wall space with DVD racks and CD Racks.