“In a sign that its television ‘hobby’ has turned into serious business, Apple announced an aggressively-priced new set-top box that takes aim at the heart of the cable TV and DVD rental industries,” Dylan F. Tweney reports for Wired.
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“The new Apple TV, which will go on sale at the end of September for $100, is a puny box just 1/4 the size of the previous model. It has an HDMI port, a power supply built in it, an optical audio port, an Ethernet jack, and built-in Wi-Fi,” Tweney reports. “‘It’s silent, cool and tiny,’ said Apple CEO Steve Jobs, showing off the diminutive metallic box… Jobs did not state whether it was running a version of iOS, although the Apple TV’s new interface includes some very iOS-like touches, such as icons that jiggle when you are rearranging them in your Netflix queue.”
“The company will also be providing a feature within iOS 4.2 that customers can use to share videos wirelessly from their iPhones, iPod Touches or iPads,” Tweney reports. “Called ‘AirPlay,’ the feature will let customers display a video from their mobile device, on an Apple TV-connected TV screen, with a single tap. IOS 4.2 [will] be available [in] November.”
“Apple TV customers will be able to rent first-run HD movies for $5, at the same time as they’re released on DVD. That’s a substantial improvement from the past, when there were significant time lags before movies were available through iTunes. Customers will also be able to rent HD TV shows from ABC and Fox for $1, a discount from the previous price of $3. The shows will run without commercial interruption,” Tweney reports. “Netflix customers will also be able to stream video from Netflix via Apple TV, and can also use the device to browse and view YouTube videos and content uploaded to Apple’s MobileMe service. Customers can also stream content from their computers, including photos, videos and music, with no syncing required.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “iWill” for the heads up.]
Got old apple tv. It’s ok. It still does everything the new one does, except stream from ios devices and netflix. I think streaming from iEtc is the real killer app. This transforms apple TV from a pc peripheral to an iEtc peripheral. I would imagine by ios 4.3 we’ll be streaming everything (games?, safari?) from our handheld devices to our TV.
For now, since I’ve got ATV flash, old Apple TV does more than new, I just don’t know how to use it all. Having said that, maybe ATV Flash capability elevates resale value of old ATV.
I might get one just tonplsy around. I currently have a samsung blu ray that streams netflix, blockbuster, YouTube and pandora and would like t get the new atv, but don’t want to dump my blu ray. I don’t stream pay movies, so all it would be is for netflix. I just wonder how that will stream over wifi. My current setup is hardwire Ethernet to my time capsule/router and that works great.
I can’t understand the British pricing for the new ATV:
$99 plus tax in United States
£99 in Britain. Equivalent to $154 at today’s exchange rate
Not even the addition of sales to the US price accounts for the huge mark-up in the UK. Since when did £1=$1?
Give Apple credit for what it does very well, overall. Apple products generally have a long life with functionality that improves over time with software updates. The iPhone and the iPod touch have both benefitted from software updates, and so has the AppleTV.
As I have posted before, Apple is largely at the mercy of content providers. In the case of music, Apple entered the market at a time when the labels were somewhat desperate and willing to experiment with online digital distribution, both streaming and purchasing. As Apple’s retailing power grew, it was able to leverage its power to eliminate DRM on purchased music tracks. A key factor in Apple’s favor was that the music industry predominantly distributed its products on DRM-free CDs for years before Apple entered the music business. So there was precedent.
Contrast that with the movie/TV industry, which has generally kept its products locked up with DRM and is in a stronger position going forward. They have made it clear that they are not going to cede a position of power to Apple by refusing to market their content through Apple (remember NBC’s boycott?), favoring competitors, and even planning their own online distribution business.
So Apple has stepped back and taken a different approach that is very similar to their AirTunes approach, but now includes video as well as audio. The Mac is now, even more than before, solidified as the hub of the Apple vision for the digital home (so it’s certainly *not* dead). All of your purchased/owned content can be streamed from your Mac. Your rented content is also streamed to your AppleTV. And you can also access other online video sources such as Netflix and YouTube. The AppleTV, itself, becomes a much simpler and less expensive iOS appliance that could easily be built into the next generation of televisions. And the iOS underpinning provides extensibility for it to become what I have been seeking – a flexible and comprehensive interface to online and local video and audio content.
This is a very positive step, IMO. I believe that the next step for many consumers will be to consolidate their audio and video content on NAS that can easily be accessed at home or on the road. This is especially appropriate for the Apple’s growing range of mobile iOS devices – you don’t need to sync and store everything locally if you can stream it on command. And the new AppleTV fits right into this approach. In some respects, your HDTV just became a giant iPad (without multitouch).
@MPC Guy: you got a Blu-Ray player with Netflix and digital streaming for $100? which one is that?
and for all those owners of older AppleTV feeling they’re entitled to some sort of software upgrade: look, this is totally new hardware and ostensibly a different build of the OS completely. you want a software upgrade? no problem, it’ll cost you a Benjamin.