“Steve Jobs’ latest iteration of the set-top box gets mixed-positive reviews on Wall Street,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Forbes.
Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster: We see the new Apple TV as a meaningful change in Apple’s efforts in the digital living room. The addition of new content, such as Netflix, in combination with the $99 price (down from $229), will drive higher unit volumes compared to the the previous version of Apple TV. We estimate Apple has been selling about 400k Apple TVs/yr, which we expect will increase to about 1.5m Apple TVs in FY11. We estimate the incremental Apple TV units would add ~$50m in revenue to FY11. The negative on Apple TV is that, with the exception of Netflix streaming, the device is still relatively light on content. We see the Apple TV as an important step toward an all-in-one Apple television. We continue to expect Apple to launch an all-in-one Apple television in CY12. As consumers gain comfort with connected TVs and apps on their TVs, we believe Apple will eventually take its all-in-one philosophy to the digital living room like it has with the iMac and the iTunes ecosystem.
Advertisement: The all-new Apple TV is just $99. You know you want one. Free shipping.
Read the full article for more analysts’ opinions (Oppenheimer’s Yair Reiner, Altimeter’s Michael Gartenberg, Susquehanna’s Jeff Fidacaro, and many more) here.
I don’t think an all-in-one Apple television will happen. People don’t buy TVs that often, and current TV technology is changing so fast it really doesn’t make sense.
With this model, content providers should be giving me this black box.
Also, two words – backwards compatible. No component output?
Ok. Maybe I am missing something. But, the NEW AppleTV is a distribution module. I believe I may still pick up a Mac mini with a HDTV out put for my main TV and use the NEW AppleTV and my old AppleTV as nodes in my home network for the other TV sets. They can reach into the Mac mini or else where for streams.
Analysts are deliberately avoiding the most important part of the presentation. This is the fact that apple sold over 120 million ios devices, 20 million in just 66 days. Even more important is that they activated 230K devices a day. Verify with IR and they will confirm that this number reflects 3G devices alone. That is 15 million iPhones and iPad 3Gs as of aug 31 or 66 days after end of previous Q. Revenue will be over $20 billion.
Why would Apple make a HDTV when they could sell an AppleTV module to the existing TV makers and grab the entire market. For a $50 or $75 option you can buy a AppleTV Inside version of the HDTV. You could use the 2nd or 3rd tuner in the HDTV to stream media to accessible storage for the AppleTV to grab later. NO AGREEMENTS REQUIRED PAST WHAT THE TV COULD ALREAD RECEIVE.
If you can project an iPad movie via AirPlay, why not the whole iPad screen (or multiple screens) for games, or Hulu, etc?
Only SJ can make less = more with the aTV! In far west Eurasia here it is way more expensive, with less content than the US and no NetFlix!
Apple could have sown up the market with hard drive and peripheral recognition for the USB port, iPad/iPhone screen viewing (FaceTime by placing your iPhone camera in front of the TV) and limited gaming.
Sounds like you won’t be able to access videos on itunes. Am I reading it wrong. That’s a huge negative!!!
“ligth on content?” How about iTunesU and all these video podcasts in iTunes? Not everything is about them freaking movies.
As the owner of an Apple TV the differences between the new and old are these:
1 The new one runs iOS on an A4 chip instead of of an x86 variant of OSX on an underclocked Pentium.
2 The new one lacks an internal HD.
3 The new one blocks purchases as it has no significant storage.
4 By posted specs, the new one supports fewer formats.
5 The new one supports Netflix.
The UI is essentially the same.
If you have not heard yet, we old Apple TV owners will get no updates…no Netflix for us. Poor show Apple
Not a compelling product for me. It’s main raison d’etre, as far as I can see it, is as a vehicle to increase the renting of movies and TV programs, and at exorbitant prices.
True you can interface to Netflix, but I’m happy to stick with my laptop, which I can hook up to a projector. Why would I want to pay $5 for a movie that I can rent for $1 from RedBox ? And why pay $0.99 to rent a TV program ? You may decide otherwise, but for me the decision not to go with an Apple TV is a no-brainer at present.
1 from redbox is sd and laptop to projector is a fairly advanced rig for the average consumer. Apple is selling a cheap integration solution here, I agree with previous post that I would rather have it just project the screen of my ios 4 device but that is a quibble not a complaint. The biggest issue I have with this is that almost everything included here is already done by my 360 (although the prices are higher, but since apple rules the market they will likely start a price war). besides at 99 it doesn’t have to change the world to be pretty cool.
Why hasn’t anyone mentioned the USB port on the new ATV? What is it for? Could it be for future connection to external hard drive?
6 Purchases will have to be done from iTunes, and streamed to the aTV
7 The new one is quite a bit smaller
8 The new one will run cooler
9 The new one will be silent
10 The new one is a third of the cost
For some people points 2-4 may be deal breakers. For me, points 7-10 nudged me into the pre-order category.
The only thing this new AppleTV does is:
A. remove your ability to keep (store) media and,
B. remove your ability to view (pirate?) media by dropping the component outputs in favor of DRM compliant HDMI.
Everyone knows the chip on the older AppleTV is much more capable than Apple allows. The only reason they are not letting older AppleTV users in on the new features is because those units have hard drives and component outputs, and therefore are not as securely locked down.
Ultimately, this new AppleTV is designed to please the media moguls who want you to:
– pay for the device,
– pay more for ISP services,
– then pay for each and every show,
– control where and when you can watch those shows,
– AND most important … not let you get your evil stealing hands on any files.
It’s all very Orwellian.
Here’s the Canadian view from my seat….
The Canadian iTunes content is crap so there is nothing there that interests me, therefore I have a US iTunes account and keep it topped up with US iTunes cards. Hopefully that will get me Netflix, probably should try it on my iPad first to make sure.
The biggest deal maker for me is that I can stream content from my MBP to the TV. I can download the content I want to watch from some other sites and just stream it to the TV. That makes it worth buying simply because that content I downloaded outside iTunes can now be easily viewed on the TV.
@HorseSh8t
4. HorseSh8t
@Brau
Wow. You’re not smart.
A. You can keep as much media as you want and stream it to the device.
B. You can choose the inferior image quality of 5-cable component *inputs* or the superior quality of one-cable HDMI. And name me one instance on the AppleTV where content was “locked down” via the HDMI cable.
Ultimately, this device is intended to get as much content in the hands of the viewer for the least possible price. If you think anything more is going on here, you should probably not be left around small children.
Tell Oliver Stone I said “Hi”.
This is like dejavu all over again. As with the old AppleTV, the more I learn about this new version the less I like it.
It seems so … limited.
It looks nice though.
In the end I’m still wanting – and waiting for – capabilities that Steve and his media mogul buddies just don’t ‘get’ … or would prefer to see dead: I want to DVR broadcasts (over the air stuff) – that’s probably what they want dead. I don’t want my Mac involved unless I’m syncing content, or editing said content (like home movies) before watching it on AppleTV. And … I can’t believe I actually need to say this … I want GAMES … in other words, access to the App Store.
Seems simple enough to me.
One important question that hasn’t seemed to get any attention:
>Is iOS 4 instant-on capable?
That leads to another question:
>If yes, then how much does the necessary flash memory dig into profit margins at $99 MSRP?
I will spend more on a device that strips off HDCP so I can use the new Apple TV with my component distribution system than I will spend on the device itself.
(HD Fury2, btw, about $144 versus $99).
Apple has never been one to support old formats (whither VGA output on laptops, but show me a conference room in the country that actually uses DVI…)
I won’t purchase a apple tv, unless apple provide outstanding content for apple tv user which is different with ipad and iphone users. When I used apple tv, pc, apple tv, tv are necessary, I can do this with ipad as jobs did in its highly-anticipated press event, September 1st. So “Are you tempted by the new Apple TV?” Obviously, no! But according ifunia news blog new iPods, iTunes 10 are charming.
http://www.ifunia.com/news/apples-fall-event-itunes-10-new-ipod-nano-and-apple-tv-3/
@Stonee (or Stoned)
“I won’t purchase a apple tv, unless apple provide outstanding content for apple tv user..”
Apple “provides” what the networks allow. Dolt.
Draw a little harder on the next hit.
Always the negative …