Phillip Swann, president of TVPredictions.com, who likes to call himself “Swanni,” predicted in December 2007 that “Apple will dump Apple TV by year’s end.”
2007 came and went. Apple did not dump Apple TV. In fact, they greatly improved it.
Undeterred by his inability to predict the obvious, “Swanni” tried again a month later. In January 2008, after seeing Apple TV 2.0, Nostradumbass stated, “I stick to my prediction.”
2008 came and went. Apple again did not dump Apple TV. In fact, they greatly improved it throughout the year while continuing to quietly – with little or no marketing – sell units adding to a total that’s likely approaching 2 million units by now, if not more.
And, of course, this past Sunday, “Swanni” predicted, “In 2009… Apple’s Steve Jobs will finally call it quits on his least favorite hobby, Apple TV.” iCaled. See ya next New Year’s Day. [Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Ottawa Mark” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: Apple has great resources. The company has over $25 billion in cash and is debt-free. Apple can continue improving and tinkering (most importantly, trying to convince Hollywood to relax the content reins) until Apple TV graduates from “hobby” stage.
We continue to recommend Apple TV highly (over time, the device just keeps getting better and better for free) while warning prospective buyers that Hollywood seems to be stingy with legal content (movie rentals especially) for the device. If you purchase an Apple TV to play movie content (the device offers many more features and shines in many of them), you may want to take matters into your own hands if what you want to see is unavailable. Learning nothing whatsoever from the music industry, the Hollywood studios are stupidly encouraging piracy by not flooding iTunes Store and Apple TV with content.
One thing holding back the ATV’s interface is the on-screen keyboard. The interface is fine so long as you don’t have to type anything, which kind of limits you when you want to search for stuff on YouTube, for example. Support for Apple’s wireless keyboard would greatly improve ATV’s ease of use and drive increased sales of their keyboards as well.
@nekogami13
That’s what I meant originally. I hardly think that confusing IR with RF would produce the spotty results I described – you obviously don’t own one yourself and are an arrogant fuck.
@me
I think his point was that someone thinking they are using an RF remote might experience spotty results depending on whether they accidentally pointed the device at the ATV’s IR sensor. When you know you have a line of sight remote, then you make a point of always aiming it accordingly.
The again after reading his comment, I guess he was being kind of arrogant.
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Keep guessing, Phil – ya moron. I think this “analysts” “predictions” might fit in the “Even a stopped click is right twice a day” category.
The CouchGuy would predict that Swanni will be wrong again… but it really doesn’t take a seer to figure that out. I do have some Apple TV-related predictions at http://www.couchapple.tv though…