“As rumors of an Apple-branded television set begin to die down, the company’s extant living room foray — the Apple TV set-top box — is quietly posting strong sales and impressive growth, new NPD data shared with AppleInsider reveals,” Shane Cole reports for AppleInsider.
“Apple TV and rival Roku system together dominate the third party set-top box market with approximately 80 percent between them, according to data from consumer research firm NPD,” Cole reports. “The market for streaming accessories is growing quickly, with sales up more than 30 percent on a unit basis over the last twelve months. Apple’s ‘hobby’ has posted a 23 percent gain over the same period.”
“Since its release, the Apple TV has become an essential part of many families’ entertainment workflows. Where a Mac mini may have once done duty under the television as a dedicated home theater device or a MacBook Pro may have become the center of attention while positioned on a footstool, a single click can now beam audio and video seamlessly and without wires from nearly any Apple device to the Apple TV and from there to a large HDTV display,” Cole reports. “Even an iPod touch, when paired with an Apple TV, can become a capable home media center.”
Read more in the full article here.
Love my jailbroken ATV2.
What benefits does jailbreaking an ATV provide?
Free tv. Free cable ( hbo, showtime etc) free movies ( any movie a-z) free pay per view ( boxing , mma, concerts.etc..) free music. And able to stream and movie files like . Mkv to your tv from you pc or Mac
The Apple TV here in the UK is neglected and won’t succeed unless Apple put some effort into understanding how the UK differs from North America. Roku’s, PS3s, Sky and Now TV boxes, Blu-Ray players, Smart TVs, cheap satellite and digital terrestrial set-top boxes and even the Nintendo Wii all come with UK-centric streaming apps such as the iPlayer. Not so Apple TV. Without those Apple’s effort is an also-ran.
iPad and iPhone both have iPlayer apps. It can’t be that hard for Apple and the BBC to port it over. That they can’t be bothered sends out a message that the Apple TV is not something UK buyers should contemplate.
Agreed. The difference in the UK is that the BBC launched iPlayer in 2007; while commercial broadcasters were worrying about advertisement revenues being negatively impacted by the internet, the commercial free BBC aggressively embraced it. This forced other terrestrial channels to do the same, even reluctantly, just to compete. So now almost every channel has a free ad supported streaming service available on a huge range of devices – except the Apple TV which doesn’t have a single one.
I love my Apple TV
I have no cable, no satellite, just Apple TV (and Netflix).
Airplay has reinvented my TV experience. I can’t imagine cutting the cord any other way.
On a technical note, does AirPlay actually stream the content from the phone to the Apple TV or does it hand off the streaming directly to the Apple TV.
I know when you are displaying content like photos and home videos the phone is steaming the content directly but I have always wondered if for example a youtube video was being streamed directly from the Internet once the video has been AirPlayed to the Apple TV.
I must have a PLEX channel and Roku provides that. That’s what all my movies are encoded for with x264/mkv. For $99 anyone should be able to afford both a Roku and AppleTV but I think I’ll wait until Apple decides to allow apps to run on it, otherwise I have no compelling reason to own an AppleTV.
…Unless you jailbreak it!
Is there a jailbreak yet for the current generation of Apple TV? I know someone was working on it but…
Don’t down vote L_B48 and DC. L_B48 has a need that the AppleTV does not currently meet, and DC is entitled (IMO) to jailbreak his AppleTV if he wants to risk it. No big deal. To each his or her own.
Jailbroken Apple TV with both xbmc,and atv flash installed is such a great and user friendly upgrade. Once you have it jailbroken I promise everyone, you will love it, pitch your friends to buy one. You have accsess to every movie ever made!! Also every TV show ever made Not to mention live tv and all sporting events live from around the world!!
Just google xbmc and watch some videos on you tube.
I need Plex and Amazon streaming video at a minimum. Air playing Amazon to Apple TV basically doesn’t work and you can setup Plex but it’s a kludge. So I returned my Apple TV and bought a Roku 3 which has vastly more capability, content, and features.
I have no problem whatsoever streaming Amazon video from my iPad Air to my Apple TV. I could not live with a set top box without AirPlay on it.
I really like my Apple TV too. We usually watch Hulu, Netflix and HBOGO on it and sometime mirror from iPhone or iPad. The only thing that sucks is we have Comcast and their Xfinity app doesn’t allow AirPlay.