“With more fanfare and consumer enthusiasm than most companies could ever hope to muster, in late 2006 Apple announced the Apple TV. The Apple TV is Apple’s opening foray into the near-trillion-dollar industry of television and movie entertainment and is billed as a product that’ll revolutionize the home media experience,” Jason Tomczak writes for Digital trends.
Tomczak writes, “The Apple TV, like the iPhone, represents a bold and risky move away from the controlled and perfected realm of computing and into the generic and saturated media streamer markets. Will this new $299 Apple TV be the quintessential blockbuster hit, or will it quietly struggle for survival amongst consumers with ever-soaring expectations?”
“If you’re really not sure if the Apple TV is right for you, get yourself to an Apple store or some other retailer where the Apple TV is available for handling and testing. You may find yourself passing on the $299 expense. You may also find yourself in love and going home with an exciting new source of entertainment,” Tomczak writes. “Whether you jump on the Apple TV bandwagon or sit this one out, there’s no escaping the fact that the Apple TV is a huge phenomenon that will challenge conventional thinking and may even spur video content providers to think a little more about catering to the individual consumer’s habits and desires.”
Full, extensive review here.
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The current version of Apple TV is meant to turn your HD TV into a video iPod with a huge screen. It will appeal to any previous customer with an iPod, who also happens to own an HD TV. That’s a big number, but not huge relative to the total number of TV viewers out there. However, the number of iPod owners is increasing and the number of households with HD TV is increasing. Apple once again aims for the future.
I’m actually thinking about it. How did that happen?
It won’t become a phenomenon until Apple adds a movie subscription plan, flattening Netflix and Blockbuster in its path.
Have you seen Blockbuster’s market cap? It’s tiny.
tv won’t take off until Apple offers pr0n to the home viewer (a licenses a company that will).
“The Apple TV is Apple’s opening foray into the near-trillion-dollar industry of television and movie entertainment”
Unless you count the fact that Apple has been selling TV shows and movies for a long time now….
“tv won’t take off until Apple offers pr0n to the home viewer”
I’ll settle for Amanda Congdon in a bikini for now. Or Olivia Munn. Or both of them kissing. Too much?
I like using the keystroke, feels nice.
Yeah, I’m going to sit out on the Apple TV revolution for now. And probably forever.
We are hours away from Adobe’s big announcement and ChrissyOne deserves “some” credit.
The iTunes movies are too pixely. That’s the number one problem. It is AppleTV after all.
Subscription-coniption. Fergedabowdit already.
What is Adobe’s big annoucement?
Plus, if Blockbuster’s market cap is so small, that doesn’t necessarly mean Apple would buy it.
Lastly, I agree, there needs to be a movie subscription option.
I like to own my music.
But I don’t want to own movies.
I downloaded a tv episode this weekend. I watched it once and will probably never watch it again. Was it worth $2, barely.
But $10-15 for a movie. No way. I don’t buy DVDs now. I do rent DVDs though.
The CS3 stuff is very cool. I’ve been critical of Adobe but I have to admit they have some very cool stuff.
It will be announced tomorrow.
I think most of this hype around the AppleTV is way too lofty. The AppleTV has some major limitations. Unlike the iPod before, the AppleTV doesn’t play *my media* (divx, mpeg, DVDs etc) instead requiring me to convert my files to iTunes-compatible formats. This is what Sony tries to do with Atrac, and MS with MWA; we all know how well they’ve done. Also, outside the U.S.A. there is no video or movie content available on iTunes so what formats it can play via rental is a non-starter. Add to that the lack of true 5.1 surround and HD ability and it’s a deal killer. Streaming photos to your TV? Can you say family slideshow? Frightening. No-one will use this. They’ll put photos on a website like everyone else does. As for streaming music – an Airport Express already does that great.
Look what I can do !!!!!!!
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What typeface can I do the Apple logo? God, I’m pathetic…..but I have to know.
Well, that’s a hard one to follow…
‘huge phenomenon will challenge conventional thinking’
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There are already far too many ‘challenged thinkers’ around already
not you, sigh
Music. or any given song, is intended to be listened to over and over. It’s purpose is to inspire an emotional feeling. I can understand why people would want to own their recorded music. On the other hand, why do you want to own a movie?
Once you have seen the outcome in a movie why do you want to see the movie again? Movies are stories and in one regard are much like jokes. Once you have heard the punch line it seems odd that you would want to hear the joke again.
“Music. or any given song, is intended to be listened to over and over. It’s purpose is to inspire an emotional feeling. […] Once you have seen the outcome in a movie why do you want to see the movie again? Movies are stories and in one regard are much like jokes. Once you have heard the punch line it seems odd that you would want to hear the joke again.”
Personally, there are movies that I watch over and over because they inspire an emotional feeling. Sometimes it’s just a particular scene. For example, I love the scene in “The Incredibles” where the missiles are bearing down on the airplane. I can watch that scene over and over again.
So it really depends on the movie. You’re right–there’s plenty of dreck out there that I couldn’t see watching more than once, if that. Much like there’s plenty of dreck music that I might listen to once or twice and become bored with. But there are also movies with memorable characters and situations that I can watch over and over again and enjoy.
Here is my gripe about the Apple TV. From the rumors going around on the internet, it is running a version of OSX. The problem now is that even though Apple is selling this as an embedded type appliance, the fact that this content is now being stored on a harddrive, the fact that the drive will inevitably be filled with content, the fact that corruption and errors will inevitably occur, and the fact that the device appears to come with absolutely no easy way to restore it to factory condition leaves me wondering why anyone would really buy this? Had it come with a factory restoration cd, which made it easy to plug the device into a usb port on a mac or pc, and restore it to factory condition, then I might actually consider purchasing this device. Or had it actually stored a version of OSX in ROM, making it easy to format the harddrive and return it to its original factory state. The same applies for the Iphone. Hopefully Apple will not make the same mistake, but the thought that any problems with the device would instantly result in a service call to an Apple store, for something that possibly could have been resolved with a plug into a port and a format and reinstall. Even the Ipod offers this ability. I also notice that it has a “reset settings” feature, but this isn’t exactly going to help if something serious is wrong with the device. If people had to take their mac to the Apple store for every software related issue they had with their mac, or for a Genius to reinstall their OS for them, I think a great many people would be outraged. Anyway, that is just my thoughts.
7 out of 10 for a paradigm-shifting device?
Joe. You winey bitch, don’t buy it then. Goodnight