Gartenberg writes, “With strong positioning in Apple retail stores, marketing tied to popular devices such as the iPhone and iPad and growing content and service deals, Apple can slowly educate, evangelize and evolve the usage of the connected TV and slowly begin to change user behavior. Once Apple has a established base to show to developers, then Apple can then safely unveil tools for developers to write apps for the Apple TV. That will kick the developer machine into gear, so that the developer community can begin producing new applications that are appropriate for the TV screen. With a solid position on input two on the TV, Apple can begin to work with content providers without having to make a direct assault on their business.”
Read more in the full article – highly recommended – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
“going from hobby to serious business”
Shouldn’t it do the Pro-Am tour first
So… games?
Look, I’m playing Street Fighter 4, and totally in love with the Experience.. hm.. so I could do that on an Apple TV with
a) 2 iPod touches
b) 1 Apple TV
c) 1 TV
d) 1 copy of SF4 iPhone app / AppleTV app
Is that a good experience? I’m not sure.
iPads ate Netbooks. AppleTV is going to eat Game Consoles..
The remote app ALONE! is the killer app for Apple TV. Controlling Apple TV with iPad is a dream come true and it will only get better.
Net books…. Pfffssshh JUNK!
v1 Apple TV 160GB is on HDMI one. My EyeTV HD & 24″ LED Cinema on a MacPro is my main TV box and the LR HDTV is for when people come over. I watch very little live TV except sports.
Olbermann & Maddow by podcast daily via iTunes & season passes for Mad Men and other series.
I hate commercials.
It is going fast nowhere with 720p…
Anti-720p:
STFU and read this (and happy holidays, BTW!)
Why you shouldn’t care that Apple TV’s HD isn’t 1080p
AppleTV is a little Trojan Horse for the living room. No telling what it will transmit to the screen of the future, but you can prolly guess it will be different. The sky’s the limit!
Add FaceTime for cheap like less than $99 bux & a nice but not too expensive gaming upgrade w/a controller option it’ll take the market by storm & still be cheaper than the GooberTV. Lol
I stopped renting and buying movies from Apple when AppleTV started supporting Netflix! I am still confused about the strategy unless Apple takes a cut or is in process to purchase the company!
I only buy 3-input TVs.
@”Why you shouldn’t care that Apple TV’s HD isn’t 1080p”
This article talks only about the video consumption @ standard viewing distance. The problems are:
1. Consumers often consume video content at smaller distance and they see the pixels, so the old wisdom “1080p matters only on screens bigger than 50″ ” is crap. Try switching your much smaller computer monitor to 1024×768 (which is still higher than 720p) and see how you can live with that “720p is plenty”. Which brings us to the next point:
2. Proposing apps on AppleTV means non-video content, pretty much like your iDevice or Mac and this is when everyone will see how craptastic 720p is plenty.
Summarizing: 720p will bring AppleTV fast nowhere. And I am not even mentioing the problem of user/interaction for effective app deployment…
I do not understand this “input two” business. My TV has several inputs, including more than one HDMI, and has no preference for one over the other. What sort of TV is he talking about?
AppleTV might not be 1080p but non of it’s streaming competitors have true 1080p content either, so it is really a moot point.
AppleTV does accept 1080p content, however. I’ve already streamed a couple 1080p trailers to the AppleTV with no problem from my laptop and my desktop. If AppleTV was downscaling it somewhere in the chain, I couldn’t tell. It looked fantastic and streamed without a hitch.
I think Apple is just waiting for the average internet bandwidth to scale up and make streaming 1080p videos feasible.
@BurningZeppelin – true, at $0.99 – $9.99 a game – easily downloaded, it will really hurt consoles.
@Anti-720p:
Until the USA can deliver fast internet service (>50Mbps) easily and *affordable* for most people then 720p will work just fine. Most TV viewers don’t really care anyway–they really cannot, or will not, see the difference. Someday (hopefully soon) when the pipes are really humming then Apple will offer a 1080p version of ATV.
@ Harvey
“Input Two” is a theoretical reference to the *ranking of inputs* in order of importance to the average user/viewer. in this way of thinking, Input One is your cable box or cable card and is the actual television channel part of your TV. Input Two, therefore, is the next most important input; for most people this will currently be their DVD player. Apple is looking to get the Apple TV box placed number two in the minds of users/viewers.
Apple’s patience amazes me. I’m an early adopter of Apple TV. It was exciting, and I’ve been wondering, like MDN, why the heck they aren’t pushing it harder. Turns out they get Google to show it’s hand, made it a hell of a lot cheaper, and it looks like fixed all the major issues with it. Sweet. AAPL’s going to 600+.
What I want is TV shows offered with LIMITED advertising. I think the commercials are fine, just not 20 minutes of them. Tastefully done. I’m ok with that, I actually enjoyed being informed of products and competition in advertising. It’s half the reason I watch the super bowl sometimes.
Make the content cheaper for the consumer with LIMITED advertising Steve!
720 vs 1080
Most network HD is 720, excepting CBS & PBS. Much of what shows on your TV as 1080 is unconverted 720.
Anti-720p
Considering that both 720p and 1080p have to be highly compressed for internet delivery, and that 1080p required much more compression to equal the shorter download time, less bandwidth used and less storage space used (for purchases), your picture is not likely to come out looking any better, even though the specs may seem better.
Savvy?
Agree with iMaki, I only use my ATV2 for Netflix (on the TV that doesn’t have the PS3 and XBox). ATV won’t replace those game consoles unless Apple does games other than the games they do now. If Apple does license FaceTime to others, I could imagine using it on my PS3 with the Eye camera.
I doubt they’ll ever get the TV and Movie content to the extent of the iTunes music catalog. Too many competitors and paranoid/greedy content providers.
“excepting CBS & PBS”
I believe NBC is the only one to broadcast exclusively in 1080…i.
CBS and PBS do both 720p and 1080i.
I’m guessing that is a local affiliate’s rebroadcast choice?
ABC and FOX, to my knowledge, are 720p only.
I just bought a brand new AppleTV with BRAND NEW HDMI cables that are fully HDCP compliant. When I try to use Netflix on the box it gives me a “HDCP error”. This is freakin’ horseshit. now I have to spend 8 hours on the phone with Apple and they will surely tell me to change the cables. There are apparently 1000’s of others with the same problem and Apple is doing nothing…
Netflix works perfectly on my roku box, but not on AppleTV.
A W A S TE O F M O N E Y!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!