“It’s still a mystery as to why Steve Jobs and company continually ignore Apple TV, referring to it as ‘a hobby.’ Being one of the biggest names in tech and unstoppable in the field of portable media players, Apple is in the position to become the leading name in the future of media centers,” Schuster writes. “If it could do half of what the iPhone did for the cell phone market, we’d all be ditching our DVD players in favor of terabytes of video files on a heavy-duty Apple TV. Instead, dozens of cheaper and more capable devices trounce Apple’s abomination in benchmarks and performance. Even Microsoft’s Xbox 360 loaded with XBMC — formerly known as Xbox Media Center — allows for better video management.”
Schuster writes, “However, since none of these devices carry the coveted Apple brand, they’re unable to sway the public from relying on physical media to watch their shows and movies. Jobs’ hesitance to include Blu-ray drives on Apple laptops seems like he’s open to ditching physical media, but there’s yet to be a follow-through. The company only needs to put their spin on existing technology — as well as actually advertise the thing — and they’ve found a brand new billion-dollar seller.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Steve Jobs doesn’t strike us as much of a TV watcher, so don’t underestimate the fact that he just might not know exactly what to do with Apple TV.
“You watch television to turn your brain off and you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on.” – Steve Jobs
Jobs might have to suck it up and give up some control to someone who consumes and therefore understands television the way Jobs seems to consume and understand music. Or, maybe, Jobs has some grand plan for which all the pieces are not yet ready. If so, it’s taking quite a long time. Really long.
That said, we’ve had Apple TV units since they debuted, of course. We use our Apple TVs for various functions, not the least of which are renting movies and purchasing TV shows that our horrible TimeWarner-provided DVRs miss or cannot record (most especially during NFL football season in the U.S. when schedules get pushed back, but TimeWarner’s stupid DVR’s can’t handle such, or any, changes. Half-recorded “Amazing Race” episodes — don’t judge us — just have to be the leading cause of iTunes Store sales of “Amazing Race” season pass sales. And, yup, we’re tired of seeing Andy Rooney pissing and moaning about the loss of typewriters, mimeographs, and bottled milk delivery instead of teams frantically screaming at taxi cab drivers and each other while racing around the world when we click “play” on our shiteous DVRs). Yes, we need to get TiVos, we know, we know, we know!
So, we do heartily recommend Apple TVs with the caveat that Hollywood seems intent on restricting its usefulness by limiting the feature film catalog and, especially, what can be rented, when, and for how long. For all other functions: music streaming, photo viewing, etc. the Apple TV is a wonderful device and, bottom line, well worth the price Apple is charging.
An aside: Most people don’t have TiVos because of the price (upfront cost and subscription fees) and/or they don’t understand the benefits that TiVo offers over the absolute junk DVRs that their cable providers offer. We have the money to cover TiVo’s costs and the understanding of the product’s benefits and we still haven’t gotten up off our asses to get our TiVOs. Beyond suggesting that we’re lazy (or very busy, we add hopefully), this also suggests that TiVo’s business model is broken or at least not working as well as it should be. Perhaps TiVO would be better utilized by more people if Apple bought the company or licensed the technology and integrated TiVo into Apple TVs. Imagine being able to push the stuff you’ve recorded via your Apple TV’s TiVo out to your Apple iPods and iPhones (even if only via WiFi to start; AT&T’s network might not be up to it, you know)? Maybe Apple getting TiVo or offering their take on the DVR is what we’ve been waiting for, subconsciously? TiVo Inc.’s market cap is $1.19 billion. While a nice chunk of change, that’s nothing that debt-free Apple, with over $34B in the bank and a market value over $170B, couldn’t swing with total ease, if they’d even notice that they spent it. The TiVo brand name alone has to be worth something significant and its inclusion could refocus people’s attention on Apple’s poor little red-headed stepchild, Apple TV.
What do you think, should Apple buy or license TiVo? And, if they did, would the content producers, of TV shows especially, have conniption fits (the threat of which is maybe why it hasn’t happened already)?
TV is good at what it was designed to do: tap into your personal media via iTunes and iPhoto. You can add lots of movies via Handbrake. That said, with the vague roadmap set out for it, I question whether I’d run out and buy another if the one I have quite on me.
Blu-Ray. I like it, my wife hates it. She much prefers movies shown in lower resolution. Soft, like the movie screens we grew up with. And there is some wisdom in this. Movie stars aren’t “bigger than life” when you can see every pore and zit in grisly detail. The benefits to this preference on TV are cheaper rentals and quicker downloads. HD downloads take about 5x longer at my house. Anyone else have buffering issues while watching an HD movie, only to discover that your Macs in other rooms decided to do backups and clog the network at the same time?
Netflix In (On?) Demand is actually very convenient. A lot of content. Not always the best picture, but that’s a sacrifice to convenience.
The biggest pain point for potential TiVo subscribers is compatibility and setup. A very large percentage (I believe it was somewhere around 15-20%) end up returning their TiVo to the store – either because they bought a unit that wasn’t compatible with their system (eg: satellite), couldn’t figure out how to set up the system (which is very complex, even for a techy), or were upsold to a generic DVR when they called their cable company for support.
All of these hurdles are exactly why Apple TV hasn’t ventured into DVR territory, yet. It’s a nightmare for the customer and their first experience with the product – which is everything Apple is against. Apple has attempted to bypass this pain point by delivering content over your home network through the iTunes store, which isn’t too exciting.
Apple has plenty of talent to design their own DVR interface. Their money would be better spent partnering with a service provider (Uverse, Fios, Comcast) in order to provide a seamless install process. Just like the iPhone, the partnership will have to be unprecedented in the amount of control Apple is given with the user experience…which is why the development of Apple TV is taking so long.
TV is Apple’s for the taking, if they want it.
Tivo royally screwed themselves (and consumers) for two reasons.
1) They decided not to fight the entertainment industry. Even after losing the Supreme Court Sony BetaMax decision, the entertainment industry continued their efforts at the CE level with lawsuits against Tivo (and others along with general threats against the computer tech industry). Tivo decided that, rather than to fight, it was easier (and cheaper) to cave on consumer fair use rights.
Ironically, Tivo’s troubles just showcases the entertainment industry’s short-sightedness and paranoia about technology at the consumer level as Tivo represented much less of a threat than the VCR. At the consumer level, time shifting is the only thing a Tivo by itself can really be used for, while VCRs were not only used to time shift programs, but to duplicate and distribute them.
2) Tivo sold consumers a bill of goods by tying their product to a continuous revenue model based on subscribing to a TV program guide in order to program a Tivo.
A service no VCR ever required. Imagine that.
Tivo makes their money selling a service (a program guide subscription), not a product. Too bad I’m not interested in a service (particularly one I don’t want).
I want a product. Specifically, a DVR that doesn’t require a program guide/subscription fee.
I never required a program guide or subscription fee to use any VCR I owned. It shouldn’t be necessary for a DVR either. Had VCRs required them, they probably wouldn’t have been anywhere near as successful a CE product as they were.
VCRs are pretty much extinct and, IMO, the CE market place is waiting for an easy-to-use, non-crippled DVR.
IMO, it’s the basics of what the AppleTV could be… along with whatever Apple wants to add in – meaning pretty much what it already is. Unfortunately, it’s clear that what the Apple TV is at this time is not enough for most consumers, or their sales numbers would not reflect what Apple calls a “hobby” product.
If Apple is waiting for online to shake out to the point where high speed, broadband access is nearly ubiquitous, and isn’t dominated by ISPs who limit/cap/want a piece of the content revenue pie simply because they provide access… then they are making a big mistake. It will be sometime before that little utopia develops.
If ever.
BTW, what’s with the AppleTV not having gigabit ethernet?
I agree with the subscription idea.
-two tiers:
–1st tier: TV only, shows available next day in SD and HD (Apple’s probably still waiting on licensing agreements).
–2nd tier: Streaming TV – new iFrame technology allowing for live TV that is scalable on iPods, computers, and SD and HD TVs – the availability of iFrame is brand new, so now it’s just waiting for licenses. It’ll cost more than first tier, but also include 1st tier HD for next day watching.
–Final tier: movie subscriptions in SD and HD. Will cost roughly what Netflix does and can be chosen ala carte or with either of the TV options. If choosing all of the options, it will cost you about $100-$150/month
oh yeah, and it needs app store games and apps and iPod Touch/iPhone remote app.
MDN word: period.
Apple are deliberately holding back on developing the Apple TV into a must-have device.
They are doing this because the studios are terrified – they have seen what happened to the music industry when everyone signed agreements with Apple to distribute content for the new-fangled iPod, never suspecting that Apple would own the music industry within a few years.
So the studios are afraid to offer content for the Apple TV, in case the same scenario occurs. The only way Apple can lure them in is by playing it very slowly, pretending that the Apple TV is an innocuous niche product, with no chance of it going mainstream and taking over the market.
Finally when the content deals are in place Apple will reveal the version they have had sitting on the shelf, and within a year will own TV and video on demand.
Expect to wait another another 3-5 years.
I studied the various DVRs before buying as TiVo. If Apple were to really compete with TiVo, giving us everything we get with a TiVo and more, I would be thrilled to buy an Apple TV. We all need the ability to be able to record TV shows and skip thru the commercials. VCRs are no longer an option with big screen HD TVs. There aren’t that many choices out there to buy your own box. Renting from the cable company is outrageous (what they charge). My TiVo isn’t much cheaper but it is better in many ways.
I think Jobs created the Apple TV as a bargaining weapon against content owners, particularly the TV and movie studios.
I suspect that if Apple went all out and upgraded it to provide all the functionality that consumers truly want (seamless dvr/tv-tuner features and effortless sharing of all recorded content across multiple devices) it would create a backlash from the aforementioned content owners which would make it difficult to negotiate contracts for content on iTunes.
But as it stands now, it serves as a not-so-subtle threat of what Apple is capable of doing if the studios decide to get too greedy and uppity with their content.
I reviewed the Apple TV update on my site iMacazine.com Check it out!