“For those of you you’ve been following the stunted evolution of the [Apple TV], you’ve no doubt noticed it’s suffered greatly from the company’s obvious lack of confidence as well as some uninspired marketing. But if Apple plays its cards right, 2008 could be a very big year for Apple TV,” Bryan Gardiner writes for Wired.
“There’s much work to be done, however. In July, the device was almost totally eclipsed by the iPhone launch and ensuing hype. Of course, it also didn’t help that Steve Jobs himself uttered the now infamous ‘hobby’ word at the All Things D conference, when describing Apple’s foray into people’s living rooms. Interestingly, he refused to even call the Apple TV a set-top box, opting instead for: ‘sort of a new DVD player for the internet age,'” Gardiner reports.
“Given those facts it’s not all that surprising to learn that the company has only sold 400,000 units since its debut, according to Forrester analyst James McQuivey…and ‘will be lucky to sell another 400,000 in the year-end holiday rush,'” Gardiner reports.
MacDailyNews Take: So, “only” 800,000 Apple TV units will be sold this year without hardly any marketing on Apple’s part? How many units did competing solutions sell in the past year?
Gardiner continues, “If Apple can line up the necessary deals with movie studios and tweak a few features (a big “IF”), the Apple TV is still poised to go from “hobby” to “hit.” How massive a hit, you ask? Some analysts, like Blackfriars’ Carl Howe, are predicting the company will sell upwards of 7 million Apple TVs next year.”
Here’s a list what could — and in some cases, needs to — happen in 2008 for the Apple TV to assume its rightful place among the company’s star devices:
• Movie Rentals
• HD Content
• Optical Drive
• PVR Functionality
• Larger Hard Drive
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I’m buying one. Because all the hardware guts are there, and just needs a little bit of software enabling from Apples part.
Movie purchases and rentals must be able to be completed via Apple TV directly – NOT via the computer.
The device needs to be fully functional in the livingroom without need to get the computer involved.
I wish my ‘hobby’ had only cost 100 and not 300 considering how little it does. I hope this gets a huge functional upgrade.
Rather (and do) use a Mac Mini.
Hopefully a rental option will be through iTunes and not require the use of an ATV.
Points 4 and 5 are definitely not gonna happen and are the type of requests that come from people who don’t understand what Apple TV is and is supposed to do..
Simply put, Apple TV is a media playback device for iTunes content.. Nothing more, nothing less. Apple tv will never be an “everything under the sun” device. It won’t incorporate current technologies like optical drives and PVR’s BECAUSE Apple tv is meant to eventually replace those devices.
It’s a forward thinking device for a content on demand future.
Furthermore, Apple TV will never offer support for competing video codecs and formats like DivX and others BECAUSE Apple wants to unify video content on the internet to it’s own Quicktime format..
Clearly remember all the media hype that Steve had taken over the living room and nonsense about some other gadget that would change the world or revolutionize how tvs would be watched – crap like that.
Turned out that the crap was the $300 door stop with still another Apple logo on the top.
Can’t wait to see how Steve breathlessly declares that it is now truly revolutionary and no longer limited to just showing you what’s on your upstairs PC.
Either that or nothing at all – making it even more embarrassingly stupid to have launched it in the first place.
Putting Optical in aTV is like putting floppy in iMac.
The best Apple TV is a Mac Mini.
Put an HDMI jack on a Mini and kill the Pentium D powered iPod.
I have to agree with MikeK!
Points 4, 5 and also 3 will never happen. I really really don’t understand why people keep suggesting those. It’s simply come from “people who don’t understand what Apple TV”.
I mean, what would be the point of iTunes? What’s the point allowing you to record for free what you’re supposed to buy in my store? Wake up guys!!!
Optical drive? What the hell?
All Apple needs to get a buy from me is the iTunes movie rental service and expansion of their catalog with a lot more studios on board. PVR functionality would be nice but it flies in the face of what they’re trying to do so I don’t expect it.
Woops, in my above post I meant points 3 and 4 will never happen. I do think Apple will continually offer larger hard drives.
An optical drive only makes sense if it were Blu-ray. Plus a rental store and I am sold. As the product is right now, I’m on the fence teatering on not buying it.
I am also fence sitting until I see what Rev 2 has to offer,
@Gil
Even Blu-Ray doesn’t make sense on Apple TV. Why? Because Apple TV really is as Jobs says “A DVD player for internet age.”
Apple TV is a replacement for physical media and dvd players much like the iPod was a replacement for physical Cd’s and cd players.
The battle between Blu-ray and Hd-DVD will be stillborn before a winner is ever declared. The next generation format is going to be digital, not physical. That’s what Apple is betting on with Apple TV.
There is no doubt that Apple will be the first to axe optical drives from it’s computers. With iPods, iPhones and other portable devices, physical media will no longer be necessary.
Instead of thinking of how Apple tv can incorporate existing technologies, you need to think of how it will replace those technologies.
It’s got a ways to go yet, but I fully believe Apple tv will become a hit once Apple begins offering the higher quality content that is needed and people begin to understand it’s purpose.
I just bought a used appletv off of ebay last week.
It came yesterday.
I wish the drive was bigger.
It is amazing and fun. Time to fire up thoth and load up my apple tv with some hd movies.
I love how everyone has decided that the Apple TV is a failure since it’s only sold 800,000 units. Of course, all of the other competition it has combined probably hasn’t even sold 1/2 of that amount.
For what it is and does, I’ve been happy with my purchase. It’s basically an iPod for my home theatre system, and I didn’t unrealistically expect it to do anything more than that anyway. I’ve got a PS3 and a DVR, so I don’t need the Apple TV to play DVDs, record TV programs, or any of that stuff. It just needs to handle all of my iTunes audio and video content just like an iPod or iPhone does, and it does do that quite elegantly.
Here’s a list what could — and in some cases, needs to — happen in 2008 for the Apple TV to assume its rightful place among the company’s star devices:
• Movie Rentals
• HD Content
• Optical Drive
• PVR Functionality
• Larger Hard Drive
They just don’t get it, do they?
They are living in a past where cramming loads of features and functionalities to replicate a consumption and business model that is no longer sustainable is the order of the day.
The persons who authored this are deaf, dumb, blind, stupid and criminally foolish.
Jobs WILL NOT RUIN THE CONSUMER EXPERIENCE AT THE ALTER OF MORE AND MORE AND MORE FEATURES.
Apple being the first to axe optical drives in computers someday is an interesting yet extremely plausible idea, Mike. Goes to show how unlikely it is that they’d put one in the Apple TV.
Aren’t they rumored to be releasing a laptop without an optical drive?
And a Blu-ray drive would increase the cost. They’d be traveling backwards in that regard since everyone wants it to be cheaper.
Damn iPhone. I wanted an extra space in there.
My mistake too, about larger hard drive. But PVR and optical drive just make no sense on Apple TV given Apple strategy. And it is, as one pointed before, about replacing existing technologies, not complement them.
I don’t have Apple TV, and don’t need it… for now. Just like some people didn’t need a computer until the early 90’s. Apple TV looks indeed like it’s dead in the water. But more content in iTunes, rentals, etc. will slowly make it a hit.
The one thing I would love to see is being able to use Apple TV to play games I have on my computer. With a wireless Wii-like controller it would be an awesome addition and the one thing that would make me consider buying an AppleTV2.
I say build it all into a 40-50″ flat panel, include Blu-Ray, and I’m on board.
@Deepdish…
if you’ve got an airport extreme you don’t need to load up the atv with movies. You can stream them from your mac by using your itunes library as your source in the atv settings. Saves time loading them up, and works seemlessly.
My TV feeds off the 3TB RAID NAS on my home network. iTunes (including music, TV shows, ripped DVD movies and mpg4 home movies), iPhoto libraries for everyone on the network reside in this central location. TV is the hub that brings all the content to the entertainment center in the living room. I like it. Add movie or TV rental that offers better variety and/or pricing than I get from my cable company’s VOD and that is icing on the cake, but I am happy without it.