The new Apple TV is not the solution for which the mass market is looking, says Ars Technica’s John Siracusa.
“The solution is a device that is unabashedly omnivorous,” Siracusa writes. “Yes, in traditional Apple fashion, it must provide a simple, elegant, user interface. But behind the scenes, it must be willing and able to accept content from as many sources as possible. This is what makes the device valuable and desirable: dealing with and hiding all this complexity!”
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“Is this show on cable? Satellite? Downloaded from the Web? Streamed from Netflix? Is it on my Mac? My iPhone? Does it need to be transcoded? Upscaled or downscaled? These are the things geeks deal with manually right now, and regular people have little chance of figuring out,” Siracusa writes. “People will pay for a device that will handle all of this for them. It might take a while, but word would get around about the new device that actually makes your living room less complex, for a change. One box to rule them all.”
“No gradual roll-out of content deals is ever going to give Apple TV the sales volume it needs to accelerate the progress of those deals, regardless of the price of the device,” Siracusa writes. “Content owners are now too savvy to just give Apple the kind of power it managed to attain with its iTunes music business; they’re dedicated to preserving the ‘competitive landscape,’ ensuring that no one device manufacturer or online service becomes dominant. The end result for consumers is a preservation of the status quo: confusion, complexity, chaos.”
Siracusa writes, “The only realistic solution is to make an end-run around the existing players. Instead of trying to establish yet another isolated beachhead, accept and absorb all available content by any means necessary and concentrate on providing a unified interface to all of it.”
Read more in the full article -recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Here’s the thing: Once you get down to $99, Apple TV becomes an impulse buy that, even with “only” ABC and Fox shows, Apple TV may still be able to achieve the sales volume it needs to entice the holdout networks on board. Throw in Netflix, $4.99 HD movies, YouTube, MobileMe, Podcasts, Remote control via iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad, flickr, AirPlay, and all the rest and many people will have more than enough reasons to justify dropping $99 on Apple TV.
Apple should also enable me to put the DVDs I already own into my Mac and to stream them to Apple TV. A software update should do for that.
Even if all it does for you is wirelessly stream iTunes content from your computer to the HDTV in the living room, it would be worth $99. The old Apple TV did that too, but it was not worth $200+.
Add in the current “cool” features, and you have an easy sale. An “impulse buy.” And once Apple has that “beachhead” on your living room’s HDTV, it’s just a matter of slowly rolling out new features and services over time to steady displace existing providers of content. Apple probably wanted to make a bigger splash with Apple TV 2.0, but what they have now is more than enough for the slow and stealthy strategy.
If the other networks have even half a brain then yes, hopefully within a few months
I think i’m more in agreement with Siracusa on this one. Content is key. You’ll never displace cable operators with only 2 major studios providing content. Netflix is already on every set-top box, so that’s not a game-changer.
@SamLowry – AppleTV will do exactly that without a software update. You just have to make sure your media is archived in iTunes. antiquated/pirate codecs are not supported.
“Even if all it does for you is wirelessly stream iTunes content from your computer to the HDTV in the living room, it would be worth $99.”
The Airport Express only streams audio and people (including me) had no problem buying those for $99.
Roku is still a better deal for your money, though.
Just the Internet radio and slideshow features are worth the selling price.
@Mac Bill How’s that? The HD/Wireless N version of that thing is $99!
@ Mike
So that means transcoding to h.264, and breaking the copy protection. That is not what I asked for. Instead, DVD Player should get a button “AirPlay”.
If it added in Hulu/Hulu+ as well as the ability to play individual networks’ free options (like the ABC app), it’d be a huge win
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@ SamLowry
So what? Get RipIt and Handbrake and you don’t have to fiddle with little plastic boxes any more.
“Can Apple’s new $99 Apple TV sell well enough to entice network holdouts?”
Yes
@Chrissy
Handbrake has been my friend for YEARS, indispensable.
@SamLowry
I ripped all my DVD’s ans use on my ‘original ATV” streaming and sync’d
What you suggest,
” DVD Player should get a button “AirPlay”.
They make these things called DVD players, that hook up directly to your TV, with no streaming required
When they offer season passes on iTunes instead if selling them on the DVD release date it will all be good.
When they offer season passes on iTunes instead if selling them on the DVD release date it will all be good.
When they offer season passes on iTunes instead if selling them on the DVD release date it will all be good.
When they offer season passes on iTunes instead if selling them on the DVD release date it will all be good.
When they offer season passes on iTunes instead if selling them on the DVD release date it will all be good.
When they offer season passes on iTunes instead if selling them on the DVD release date it will all be good.
When they offer season passes on iTunes instead if selling them on the DVD release date it will all be good.
I’d like to see them add apps, like Boxee has,
and yes, HBO and Showtime would be great ones!
Still wonder why Apple just doesn’t buy a large cable company, for access to content.
The new ATV, is pretty much what I wanted! in fact posted that here before, a $100.00 device to stream content from iTunes and iPads to HDTV!
plan on using them on our HDTV’s in our condo hotel!! no internet , streaming from our movie/TV collection
The end-around is airplay. Apple will beef up ios to allow anything to be streamed to your big screen.
It’s still cheaper for me to buy the shows I watch and use Apple TV than pay Comcast $1,200.00 a year. Adding Netflix and HD is the selling point for me.
Does anyone on the blog know whether Airplay replicates the screen of the iPod onto the TV? e.g. If I am using Apple TV/Airplay, will my racing game show on the TV. This would be an indirect way of running apps on the TV rather than downloading apps to the AppleTV which I guess isn’t going to be possible for now.
@Pridon
thats a very interesting question? but I like what you suggest! in that case the iPad would become the controller !!