“In the latest round of rumors, reports emerged on Thursday that Apple will revamp its television set-top box in the first half of 2014,” Zack Whittaker writes for ZDNet. “But there’s a twist: The Apple TV device may soon include an app and game store, akin to that of its sibling products in the iOS-powered device range.”
“As first reported by 9to5Mac’s Mark Gurman, citing sources familiar with the matter, the device will include a revamped operating system — currently, it’s based on the same software used on the iPhone and iPad — that will fling open the doors to the amount of overall available content,” Whittaker writes. “By simply opening up the door to another point of purchase directly in the living room, Apple’s revenues could see a significant spike in the following fiscal quarters… While Apple TV can be used to purchase music and video content outside a desktop version of iTunes, the technology giant could be aiming to expand its revenue reach by giving another device the ability to buy apps.”
“Any developments in Apple TV could be a stepping stone for bigger and better things for the set-top box — which many still consider a test-bed project ahead of a fully-fledged television set,” Whittaker writes. “If this latest leak is to be believed — make no mistake, Gurman’s sources have near-impeccable accuracy — there are no plans to dish out a fully fledged television set for some time yet.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related article:
All-new Apple TV set top box coming soon with App Store possible, sources say – January 23, 2014
Ya Think. In case you have not been reading my posts, I have been saying this for the longest time, since the rumors started about the iTV. The market right now is NOT the TV but the set top boxes. Everyone got into the game. And with one swoop, Apple is in a position to put together a game changer as big as the the iPhone was. All the set top boxes will become garbage and could make some trouble for Microsoft, Sony and Nitendo.
Can’t happen soon enough.
Lines are blurring about what electronic “devices” do and how it is changing.
Survey noted that about 60% of all email is now opened on a smartphone first.
Interesting. Care to share that survey? I bet it would further break down to 50% iPhones and 10% others. iPhones are where the work gets done.
Yup, here it is from VentureBeat:
http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/22/65-of-all-email-gets-opened-first-on-a-mobile-device-and-thats-great-news-for-marketers/
To support apps, the Apple TV would need to have a decent GPU and a hard drive. Though the price and size of the device would increase, I am afraid the consoles would be able to start bragging about GPU specs vs. the Apple TV. In other words, it would no longer be in a class by itself and would need to position itself compared to the Xbox and play station. If Apple were able to do this well, it would be fun to watch them “just walk in” to the console market and KO the encumbents. A boon will be if apps already purchased could play on it – tapping into the existing app economy would be an advantage the other consoles could not easily overcome.
A hard drive? I know that you mean internal storage, which the 2nd and 3rd generations have 8gb of. This is plenty for now and I’m sure the 4th generation will have more. It’s not like you need to have all of your documents on it as it will use iCloud.
PippinTV? Why stop at games? Why not other apps, too? I don’t care if they raise the price and put more memory into AppleTV. I don’t know how well iPod Touch sales are doing but the whole iPod line seems to be dying and making up less and less of Apple’s overall revenue. Use AppleTV to compensate for loss of those iPod sales. Google has millions of those Android HDMI sticks going for them for increased activations and downloading of Android apps. That’s really quite an advantage. It would seem to me Apple would be wise to do the same to increase iOS market share if that’s the OS the new AppleTV would be running. Apple could charge as much as those high-end quad-core Android HDMI sticks cost ($150) and still have fairly decent profit margins. I’d definitely be buy if the next AppleTV allowed PLEX support.
I am hoping for a set-top combination of the Mac mini, Apple TV, and media server. Let’s blend them up and serve ’em snappy. Happy 30th anniversary, Mac!
I would love to play my current and future App Store purchases on TV sets. I still sometimes play my old Gameboy cartridges through a Gamecube and a TV.
To roaringmac: you do not think that the new 64 bit processor that is in the iPhone and iPads will be good enough? Use that processor and 802.11ac wifi will make all the set top boxes look like crap. Forget the hard drive as well. Use flash storage. This will raise the price but so what. I would spend $149 or even $199. If they do this and with the price of games and/or apps will change the whole set top box market and even put a hurt on the game consoles.