“It may not quite have the cachet of the iPhone, but Apple TV has the potential to alter the media landscape and substantially improve Apple’s value as a company, or so says one financial analyst,” Thomas Claburn reports for InformationWeek.
“Apple’s forthcoming wireless set-top box, expected any day now, is designed to bring video acquired from the iTunes Store into the living room and put it on TV,” Claburn reports.
Claburn reports, “ThinkEquity Partners financial analyst Jonathan Hoopes foresees some 25% to 70% of the 22 million Mac users, and many more PC users, buying the device in the next five years, enough to eclipse both set-top box maker TiVo (4.4 million subscribers) and DVD mail service Netflix (8.8 million subscribers).”
Full article here.
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Apple TV ships – March 20, 2007
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Analysts: Apple to ride Apple TV + iTunes ‘Trojan horse’ into living room – March 19, 2007
Will Apple TV be even bigger than iPhone? – March 19, 2007
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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
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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
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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
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Report: first batch of 100,000 Apple TVs to ship this month – January 11, 2007
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Apple does not want to have a DVR attached to Apple TV. A DVR buys no content. It simlly records content that is streaming from cable and satelite companies.
I think Apple wants to control the pipeline from your computer to your TV. They want all of your digital media to be ported through Itunes. They want to wean you from your cable providers and move you to the what you want, when you want, where you want world of Itunes.
It’s a radical concept and it still makes my head spin to consider the implications.
I have a feeling that Apple marketing is at least 2 steps ahead of the rest of us.
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If this is where they are headed then they might just have something. However, they still need to get into my living room some how on some very high bandwidth. Any company that can supply that bandwidth is going to discourage the use of Apple TV providing content because they want to make the money off of the content.
DSL can’t handle the requirements of HD content in most areas.
Cable charges more for internet access if you don’t get their TV services.
Power line internet access might work some day but don’t the power companies also want to sell TV content over the same system?
Bottom line is that without a delivery means Apple will have to rely on someone else and those delivery companies aren’t going to play nice with Apple. This will mean that Apple will have a hard time pricing their product competitively.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to dump Sat and Cable so that I can purchase only what I’m interested in watching provided that it is in HD and doesn’t end up costing me more.
“Apple does not want to have a DVR attached to Apple TV.”
Which is a pity because without shipping media, it’s the only practical way to get true HD quality video into your home today.
Right now Apple TV is just another crappy online video download service like Netflix or Tivo have. Until the pipes get faster, it won’t replace a DVR recording HD shows and movies from cable, or having 1080p content show up in your mailbox.
“I have just imported “The Departed…Buh Buh DVD’s”
Agree, I just watched it on Blu-ray. How can you go back to “itunes quality” or even DVD after that?
Hope you guys know that I know tht I could be 100% wrong. Many articles seem to be projecting that Apple is working on a DVR add on as we speak. Still, the scenario I’ve painted is thought provoking.
My Apple TV is only a week away. Finally I can give my kids and visiting kids a remote control and tell them that all the content they keep nagging me about is right at their fingertips. No more can`t find, broke, help me put in a different DVD etc. Quality? who cares; my kids are more than happy with VHS, YouTube quality or copies of old copies. They care about what they see and hear and not the amount of pixels on the screen. Same way with 90% of all users. They don`t know the difference and they don`t care. You guys all sound like you are members of the “House of Lords” in the english parliament.
And you know what? Apple will do rentals before summer if the studios will allow them to. The only reason this will not happen is because the studios are scared sh*tless of the impact AppleTV will have on the channel.
If Apple doesn’t start renting movies online there is no way it will ever surpass TiVo or DVD rental services. I have Tivo and belong to Blockbuster.com, and right now I have no reason to buy an Apple TV box. If Apple starts renting movies (and music), it could be their ace in the hole.
@Norwegian said: “You guys all sound like you are members of the “House of Lords” in the english parliament.”
We ARE all from the House of Lords. This is an exclusive web site! How did a commoner like YOU get past the security procedures!
(just kidding)
Apple doesn’t “control” any pipeline from your computer to your TV and even if they did offer that solution, who’s to say it’s “control”? What, are they going to force you to buy stuff and watch it until your eyes melt? Geez, people. And where you live, you always have at least two providers — the cable company and Bittorrent. Oh yeah, there’s also NetFlix and Blockbuster for movies. So what’s this about “control”? And I thought that I was paranoid!
Can anyone tell me will it play any movie file that will play through quicktime or only h.264 encoded media?
@BustingTheSkullOfIdiots said: “Apple doesn’t “control” any pipeline from your computer to your TV and even if they did offer that solution, who’s to say it’s “control”? What, are they going to force you to buy stuff and watch it until your eyes melt?”
Falkirk: Well, I’m not talking about coercive control like the State or a State regulated utility. I’m talking about market control. I think a good example right now is the domination of the MP3 player market that Apple has through it’s combination of Itunes & Ipod.
Unlike other posts I’ve read, I don’t think that is a bad thing. It’s not a monopoly in my mind unless there is some coercive force compelling people to use it or not use the products of a competitor. But the domination of the MP3 Market by Apple does give it a large degree of “control”.
For example, everytime Apple puts a song or movie on the tap of the Itunes page, it’s sales skyrocket. Now that’s power.
Are we talking Apples to Apples here or did I miss your point?
Apple TV turns any HD capable TV into a giant wireless video iPod. Likely customers are every Mac or PC user with an iPod and HD TV. I’m not sure if that is “25% to 70% of the 22 million Mac users, and many more PC users” because I’m not sure about the rate of HD TV adoption (I don’t have one yet). But it is still a huge number. As more people buy HD TV’s, the number will get larger.
Quit thinking synchronously. Apple TV is clearly an asynchronous solution, so no provider needs the bandwidth to stream HD content in realtime.
I think Apple negotiates ala carte delivery here. The big push from a regulatory perspective is to unbundle cable and satellite packages and allow individual channel choices. But Apple TV goes one further an uncouples individual programs from their parent channels. If you could buy season passes for, say, 10 of your favorite programs for one price–would you? With the exception of sports (granted, this is a *large* exception), what’s the use of realtime television delivery? Expect a 10-channel choose-your-own-adventure bundle by the end of the year.
I’m with the nay-sayers on this one. It’s a neat capability (easily streams content to your TV), but it’s not going to appeal to a large audience. True eat, drink, breathe, Apple fans maybe.
Sorry–I’m not ditching cable so I can pay Apple $1.99 every time I want to watch a TV show. That’s absurd. It won’t be a TV replacement for anyone.
Denny just took hours out of his life to rip “The Departed”, then convert it, then import it, all so he could watch a highly compressed version of the movie through iTunes (and in the future through AppleTV). How about putting the DVD into the player and pressing play? That takes 5 seconds. Where’s the hidef? Where’s the surround sound (or at least stereo)? I’m going to buy a movie off iTunes so I can watch “near DVD” quality on my cool, new 50″ HDTV? (I don’t really have one, but you get the point).
I’m just saying this isn’t compelling enough. Apple has to solve the problem elegantly and simply to really get this thing in everyone’s livingroom. It’s a start, but only a very meager one.
@mm said: …it’s not going to appeal to a large audience…I’m not ditching cable so I can pay Apple $1.99 every time I want to watch a TV show…It won’t be a TV replacement for anyone…How about putting the DVD into the player and pressing play? That takes 5 seconds.
Falkirk: MM, a year or even a couple of months ago I would have agreed with you. But here are 4 reasons that give me pause.
1) Are you sure you’re a good judge of what will “appeal to large audiene(s)”? I know I’m not. You’ll probably laugh, but I just don’t get text messaging. And it’s incredibly popular. And I never would have backed the Billion dollar water industry or invested in a coffee house (Starbucks) that was going to sell $5.00 cups of coffee. Perhaps we shouldn’t be so arrogant as to state that we know what people will like.
2) Not so long ago people couldn’t understand why you’d pay for cable TV when you could get TV for “free”. But now cable rules. I can easily understand how you would balk at the idea of paying $1.99 for each TV show you buy when you can get it already as part of your cable service. But do the math. Some people are paying $100 bucks – sometimes more – for their cable TV. That’s $600 a year. At $1.99 that’s 300 TV shows – 25 a month. While we’re used to the current all you can eat style of TV, many people no longer have time for that lifestyle. They only want to watch a couple of select programs and they want to watch them on their scedule.
3) People are ALREADY paying Apple $1.99 every time they want to watch a TV show. I mean think about it. Current Itunes customers get poor quality shows that they can only watch on their teeney Ipods or their computers. And STILL they are buying those shows by the millions.
4) You say: “How about putting the DVD into the player and pressing play. It takes 5 seconds.” But you’re wrong. TV (without TiVo) provides content on the stations schedule, not ours. On demand movies are clunky and inconvenient. To use a DVD you have to go to a store to rent it or buy it or use a service and have it mailed to you. It doesn’t take 5 seconds. Apple TV is the only solution that allows for true impulse buying. You get the urge, you selct the TV show or movie, you click a button and you watch it while it streams from your computer to your TV. Voila!
I’ll flat out admit that thinking along these lines is all new to me and still a little hard to comprehend. From records to tape, from tape to CD, from CD to digital. It’s all coming at us at a frightening pace.
guess i’ll weigh in, too. was not sure how appletv was going to fit into my media consumption habits. a couple of posts discuss how apple is trying to change habits, just like it changed habits for listening to music with ipod. i know i did. how many people rediscovered thier music junkie roots when it became possible to carry your complete collection in your pocket? i even started buying cd’s again, go figure.
just bought my second 32″ hdmi lcd. it was originally for my ps3 to watch blue rays, but i went down the slippery slope of getting a 2nd digital hd satellite set top box and when searching for a 2×1 hdmi switch came home with a sony 5.1 hdmi switching htib. problem was the 5 disc hdmi upconverting dvd changer took up an hdmi input, so i’m still looking for a switch to hook the ps3 back up. so now hd nascar with 5.1 surround is a standard sunday afternoon thing. i never was even interested in watching a race before. point is once you have this type of experience, it’s hard to go back. so while you can say you don”t see the sense in it, you likely have not been bit by the full hd 5.1 bug.
apple, as some have already said, knows this will happen. what they also figured was i would have to buy a quad core to convert media that is not bought from itunes. they will have you coming and going. some analysts are beginning to also see the full impact of the shift to hd and how apple is playing it. booyah steve!!!!!
“Quit thinking synchronously. Apple TV is clearly an asynchronous solution, so no provider needs the bandwidth to stream HD content in realtime. “
Good point, Lets say your ISP can stream data to you at an actual throughput rate of 1 megabit. That should be good for getting you one blu-ray movie every two or three days.
“Apple TV turns any HD capable TV into a giant wireless video iPod. “
No because of the quality limitations it turns it into a giant wireless piece of shit.
I have to say, I am quite surprised to hear people complain about 720p and call it “shit”. Broadcast HDTV is being compressed so much that you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between a 1080i broadcast and a 720p source. I find it hard to believe that people are automatically dismissing the 720p output of the AppleTV, but seem to be content with their overly compressed 1080i TV content they are getting now…
Doesn’t make sense to me.
MW: “mind” – How can you not mind 1080i broadcasts, but AppleTV’s 720p drives you crazy?
And almost always, 720p looks better than 1080i to my eyes at least.
“Doesn’t make sense to me.”
Why they don’t support 1080p on a device which is trying to be the future of home entertainment? Agree. But most consumers, particvularly Mac owners,are just not that discerning.
“Why they don’t support 1080p on a device which is trying to be the future of home entertainment?”
Because they can come out with future iterations of the device that DO support 1080p later once there is content for it? That makes sense to me. The HD TiVo doesn’t do 1080p. The DirecTV HD DVR doesn’t do 1080p. Why is everyone griping about AppleTV not doing 1080p?
Looks to me like people are just looking for something to complain about. And how do you know that the device couldn’t support 1080p at some point in the future when content is made available by Apple? There isn’t even 720p content available on iTunes yet. That doesn’t mean the AppleTV itself is bad – just that the content isn’t out there yet.
“The HD TiVo doesn’t do 1080p. The DirecTV HD DVR doesn’t do 1080p. “
Which makes sense because there are no 1080p broadcasts.
However for home blu-ray players 1080p is there today.
So what you’re really saying is that you don’t expect it to compete against new standard setters in audio components, that Apple TV is not going for the top end, rather for the middle group of consumers who are happy with mediocrity, who by the way are the same group who would buy 128kbps AAC files.
Apple knows their market!
Can’t hate on that!