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“He fixed an old design blunder by popping buttons back onto the iPod Shuffle,” Pullen writes. “He completely revamped the Nano, not only making it smaller but more functional. He finally introduced an iPod Touch that’s a true iPhone without the phone, helping a crippled product live up to its full potential. He also pulled an entire social network out of thin air, with 160 million built-in users all raring and ready to LOL.”
“To be sure, it was an amazing display of Apple’s hardware and software engineering might,” Pullen writes. “But in his last at-bat, with the announcement of a revamped Apple TV, Jobs swung for the fences again, this time falling short.”
Pullen writes, “It’s possible, notes Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, that future updates to iOS could extend the new Airplay features to apps such as MLB At Bat, allowing iPads and iPhones to stream video other than iTunes media through Apple TV onto HDTVs. But there’s a good reason those iDevices go blank when Airplay starts slinging their movies up onto a connected television: latency. It doesn’t matter how smart Apple programmers are or how good your wireless connection is — there will be a delay between what’s on your handheld and what’s showing on your big screen, which means this isn’t a suitable workaround for playing Tap Tap Revenge at a mind-blowing 52 inches.”
MacDailyNews Take: Just as Apple TV’s USB port did, the new Apple TV’s micro USB (which Apple reserves for “service and support”) is intriguing. Could Apple have plans for it be used for something beyond “service and support” in the future? The thing does run iOS and it is powered by an A4 chip…
Pullen writes, “Without a hard drive, Apple TV is nothing more than a rental box, which is exactly what Rokus, TiVos, Vudus, and many other console devices already are… Without storage capacity and the ability to add functionality — either through Apple or by other means — the new Apple TV is likely to fall short, too. Yet at $99, it may yet be a hit. But hits are only enough to keep you in the game.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Surely Apple thought about the value of allowing, say, a weather app or the MLB app or umpteen other apps to run on Apple TV, right? It’s so glaringly obvious that there must be something else that we’re not seeing or haven’t considered yet. Anyone have any ideas?
miss.
Miss! I’m not a huge fan of shiny black plastic so I’ll be sticking with my original ATV’s
@MDN Take
Apple is planning a massive short sell on the stock, followed by a an Apple TV which allows users to remotely control the broadcasting networks.
I can’t say for sure if the new apple tv is a hit or a miss, but for $99, I’m more than willing to find out for myself. Based on the way I see this fitting into my entertainment ecosystem, a lot of the perceived shortcomings don’t seem to worry me in the slightest.
OK go back in time take out substitute iPod or iPad for AppleTV above and you have the same article. The best part about being a fan of Apple products is watching everyone talk about how bad a new product is going to be and then watch it sell millions of units.
I prefer my (2) old Apple TVs. I prefer to buy and/or convert my DVDs’ movies and shows to watch them multiple times. Why would I buy a device just to rent movies? And streaming? an HDMI cable for my MacBook Pro is cheaper.
I don’t see how labeling it a “hobby” instead of the next thing, is swinging for the fences. More like trying for a double instead of a single.
I notice that most of the people who complain about it being a failure or a miss, mention that it isn’t good enough to replace their existing ATV or DVR. As someone who doesn’t already have either of those (and dumped cable years ago), I say: “success”.
Hit
At $99 Apple`s just warming up, stay tuned
It’s a useful, future-looking hit. You can’t start out of nowhere for this device. You need a foot in the door on internet content.
Forget the USB port. It’s meant for what it’s said to be. Don’t hold out hope imho.
Apple’s new Apple TV: miss
Airplay is for streaming video, not turning your tv into a giant screen for your iOS device! This article rates Apple TV for missing functionality it was never designed to have!
I think apps may not come soon in the style of iOS.
Instead, we might see a Flex app. (or I sure hope so!) or Boxee. Either will simply fall under the internet heading under Netflix.
Let’s let the shipments go out… Won’t be a hit for all.. But I think it will do what its suppose to. “what it’s suppose to”. Not an end all. But I don’t think the old one should be pulled. Options options options. It was a cool concept and cool set top.
The new Apple TV is currently the 8th best-selling electronic device on Amazon.
i bought one
instead of a mac mini
i call that a hit 😀
I’ve been a big fan of the previous generation aTV. It’s done everything I wanted — get content from my Macs to the home entertainment center (stereo & TV) — music, video, and photos.
The new version looks to keep all those capabilities and adds Netflix (exactly what I wanted) and AirPlay from any iOS device.
In fact, the one thing taken away — local storage — has been a double-edged sword. I wasn’t a big fan of syncing since it only syncs with one (really) but streams from several computers. If streaming works, the new version is an improvement for me. No syncing, just stream from any source — Mac, MacBook, iPad, iPhone, whatever.
I’m thinking of selling my 1st gen aTV. Maybe hackers will find value in it and pay $50-100?
I really like my current AppleTV. After spending hours hacking it with ATV flash and installing additional software, SSH, ftp, adding an external hard drive … I realized I almost never use it for anything other than what Apple’s software did. Netflix was what I really wanted, and now it will be perfect. I wasn’t a big fan of buying drm’d movies, anyway.
It’s somewhere in between… As the owner of 2 existing model Apple TVs, the lack of a hard drive will hardly be noticed. I don’t like that the new software moves “My Movies, Music, etc) to a sub-category under Computer (Of course, I don’t like the current software defaulting to iTunes Store content either (even though the “My Movies, etc) is listed above it.
I was hoping that it would be more like the new Mac mini (Aluminum) in styling… In fact, during the demo it looked like it was graphite with a black logo (which would have been cool – like the current “black” nano)… I’m not a fan of the shiny black plastic… This is after all going in the living room and it will basically disappear in my dark wood entertainment center…
Definitely don’t like the 99-cent rental model for TV shows. I’ll still be buying the shows I want… A subscription model would have been preferred, but the lack of that option falls on the media companies… Would love to be able to buy Season Passes for current HBO & Showtime series… Buying Bill Maher 6 months after the show appeared, just makes NO SENSE… I’ll live with the free audio only broadcast… HBO, are you listening?
With all that said, I’ve already ordered one and wish I didn’t have to wait 4 weeks (we’ll see if it delivers on time, the first model was pretty late in actual delivery).
I’m wondering whether it actually possesses a small amount of storage that could be used to store additional apps? On the other hand, perhaps Apple will eventually allow you to stream apps, pulling each from internet one at a time, giving you access through your iTunes account. This would mean you could have access to a multitude of apps without the need for storage space on the device. Just a thought…
So one could stand to reason is has some storage of some sort internally. It uses an A4 chip as well. Lets wait until we see a hardware tear down.
I think that streaming, rather than downloading, video from whatever device you want, is an attractive feature. I have an ATV and have ordered the new version just to be able to do that. Oh and Netflix.
The device may be a modest hit or miss, but I think that all of this living room content stuff is too volatile and complicated (too many competing interests) for any Apple takeover with a killer device right now. But if there is, eventually, Apple has the best chance of creating it eventually.
We need a tear-down of what is in the Apple TV box.
Hit and Miss:
Hit: For users who can afford high speed Internet access.
Miss: For those who can’t AND do not want to always RENT.
I love my AppleTV. Is has been a truly great investment. The new offering seems a step backward for me. I love the old model.
That said, I am intrigued by some of Apple’s decisions. $99.00 is a great mass market price. Though – the product has an HDMI and Optical Audio output which are not mass market.
Ok – so most people at least have an HDMI slot – most don”t have multiple. So what gets the HDMI? Your DVR or AppleTV – my guess would be the DVR.
Optical Audio is the most perplexing to me. If you ask most people – they will say “What is optical audio?”. Don’t believe me, ask your friends as I did.
I am actually wondering if Apple has ramped up for those people who will be returning their AppleTV cause they have no idea how to hook up audio to their stereo systems. My bet is that some have optical and don’t even realize it.
WHAT? “Without storage capacity…” Apple built a BILLION DOLLAR SERVER FARM for storage. This guy has no idea of what Apple is up too. Millions of .me accounts with on-line storage.
Also, oh clueless one, the NEW AppleTV is a distribution module at each HDTV. Maybe if you get a Mac mini and hook it up to the main HDTV in your house, you would have what ever kind of storage you want.
What do these talking heads really do for a living? It can’t be writing about technology. They are clueless!