“With a long-awaited update to its TV set-top box, Apple on Wednesday revealed a glimpse of its plans to conquer the living room, which analysts say the tech giant has neglected as its other gadgets deepen their hold on consumers,” Julia Love and Lisa Richwine report for Reuters. “Apple gave Apple TV a makeover, complete with a full-fledged App Store, integration with Siri and a new touch-sensitive remote control.”
“The new Apple set top boxes go on sale at the end of October starting at $149. The iPhone maker has already changed TV viewing, making it easier to watch shows almost anywhere. But the living room remains a coveted destination for tech companies as the site where consumers end their days and gather with their families,” Love and Richwine report. “Apple TV could become a significant source of profit for the company, analysts say, but revenue from programming and services will be key. Wednesday’s announcement did not include an Apple streaming TV service that bundles cable channels, which industry executives say the company is exploring.”
“The new App Store opens what had been a mostly closed environment to thousands of developers, said Jason Krikorian, general partner at DCM Ventures and a co-founder of Sling Media, creator of the Slingbox streaming media device,” Love and Richwine report. “The new Apple TV tackles one of the most frustrating parts of modern TV viewing – finding what to watch. The Siri voice feature lets people search with simple commands such as ‘find movies with Jason Bateman,’ based on a demonstration at Wednesday’s event… Smart TV holdouts might find themselves entranced by Apple TV if they give the gadget a chance, Carolina Milanesi, chief of research and head of U.S. business at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, predicted. ‘It draws you in,’ she said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: At just $149 for a 32GB model and inly $199 for a 64GB, Apple TVs are going to sell like hotcakes this holiday season. There’ll be millions of units in Christmas stockings next quarter!
SEE ALSO:
Hands-on with the all-new Apple TV – September 10, 2015
Gruber: Apple TV will define how all TVs will work in a few years – September 10, 2015
Here’s how much RAM is inside Apple’s iPhone 6s/Plus, iPad Pro and new Apple TV – September 10, 2015
New Apple TV sounds great, but where’s the 4K? – September 10, 2015
Apple TV: What features should it offer to users? – September 4, 2015
Why Apple TV is critical; investors shouldn’t underestimate its importance – September 4, 2015
Why Apple needs so much space for their September 9th event: A series of living rooms? – September 4, 2015
Did Apple pick the right or wrong time to unveil reimagined Apple TV? – September 4, 2015
Apple finally gets serious about pushing into our living rooms with new Apple TV – September 4, 2015
Apple dominates pay TV streaming with 61.9% viewership on Apple devices – September 4, 2015
Analyst: New Apple TV platform is bad news for Netflix – September 3, 2015
The new Apple TV’s potential beyond gaming – September 3, 2015
New Apple TV to offer A8 chip, 8/16GB storage, same ports, no 4K, and new black remote – September 2, 2015
New Apple TV will feature universal search, start at $149 – September 2, 2015
Apple TV 4 to focus on extensive Siri control, deep support for gaming – August 31, 2015
Apple TV 4 coming in October for under $200, Apple TV 3 becomes entry level; both get new streaming service – August 30, 2015
Apple TV said to have motion-sensitive Siri-capable remote with touchpad – August 28, 2015
The next-gen Apple TV’s marquee feature – August 18, 2015
Television is programming and content, and when and where to view it. How does Apple make this happen. I must have yawned during that portion if the keynote and missed it.
Television is currently about programming and content, but it is now also starting to be apps overlaid on programming and content to make the experience more entertaining, more interactive, and something altogether more interesting than just staring at a screen. Give this a little time and perhaps you won’t be yawning with self-satisfaction.
I am not satisfied, I am disappointed. AppleTV seems no different from Roku et al, and whatever AppleTV does that Roku et al cannot is immaterial to me. Plus Apple TV is more expensive. There is no need for me to pay Apple for a product that costs more and provides less of what I want. I can wait.
The only thing I saw that Apple TV does is the voice control and the fact that you can connect to iTunes but if you don’t use iTunes like I don’t renting movies or TV or buying and there’s no purpose and that.
Now I’m hoping that since Apple has an App Store will see what they do bit like with the Amazon fire TV there were a whole lot of apps the first month or so but now there are tons of TV apps and there’s crackle into BTV and lots of others that was limited commercial interruption you can watch all kinds of stuff.
Again the Apple TV looks like it could go somewhere but I don’t see like for me if I was going to completely redesigned a product why make it look basically the same why keep the interface basically the same man it’s 2015 let’s pump it up and make some awesome new interface that really shines on a TV.
And again no 4K video support but yet they release iPhones that will record them 4k video I believe that the only reason they did that was it was something that they could use to just say hey our phones recording 4k video android does not.
I do think that they’re getting boring I missed the one last thing in some of the surprises. I miss Apple being awesome today it’s all over priced. I never called Apple overpriced but yesterday that was my thought.
All I saw was bascually Siri and an App Store added which we knew and no big surprise
Nothing new, indeed. I don’t know if Apple is becoming complacent or just boring.
Fred- you bore the crap out of me with your one-note trolling. Get a job.
Entertaining nitwits like you is not my desire.
Fred thinks he’s entertaining.
If I wanted to entertain you all I have to do is jingle somwething in front of your face.
Well it’s sure not your car keys, since a lazy turd who spends all day trolling this website probably can’t afford a car.
Fred, I think you’re missing something. Apple only told half the story – for now. We learned about the device and its OS. But what was not presented are the content deals, and my hunch is because they are still negotiating with some of the remaining stalwart comb-overs with the networks and the studios.
My hunch is that the dinosaurs in Hollywood are playing hard ball, although rumors are that Apple has already lined up deals with a number of them. It’s likely that Apple is trying to secure as many deals as the company can before going public.
If you recall how many years to took China Mobile to finally agree to work with Apple, perhaps you might understand how difficult negotiations like this can be, especially when Apple has to successfully negotiate with a number of different content holders.
Let’s just say it’s not easy. Or quick.
Now that Apple has shown the hardware and OS, they can press this on the comb-overs, and perhaps they’ll get a clue.
Given how difficult this has been, it’s likely that Apple won’t launch with a full list of studios and networks at first, just like some rock bands didn’t get on the iTunes train when it rolled out of the station. But eventually they came around, and I’m willing to bet that the studios and networks, perhaps even cable or satellite companies might see the light. This may be why there are rumors afloat that Apple supposedly wants to do what Netflix and Amazon are doing – produce their own TV series. It could be a red herring designed to get the content owners on board, or if they won’t, the real thing. We’ll see.
Look for announcements about this late this year or early next year. That will be a big announcement by itself.
In short, be patient. You missed something very big while you yawned. Often, the biggest announcements that Apple makes are the ones they don’t.
“Often, the biggest announcements that Apple makes are the ones they don’t.”
Well, then, anything is possible. But consumers by things, not hopes and dreams and imaginations. Apple promises, but I suspect these are nothing but delaying tactics designed to lure the weak and the culpable into paying for something they know not yet exits. A fool and his money are soon parted and it behooves you to remain patient and circumspect.
I like the idea behind the voice search. Which Amazon had 1.5 years ago. Same with a Bluetooth remote.
Half of what I saw at the event is just things copied from other companies. But that’s tech today.
Voice search is the future that’s for sure but I had hoped to see something more advanced so you could be more natural with your commands.
I don’t know that gaming on tv on a basic thing like the fire or the atv is the future. Sure some will but I think like me most people want to consume movies and TV.
And I doubt apple will allow Kodi or plex on it and I don’t want to just consume apple stuff I have a whole library 2/3tb of movies and TV and I did not buy them from iTunes.
The layout is very much the same as before Its like old atv updated with iOS 7 colors. I wanted to see a new layout and design and something that could be customized by the user more.
Apple always has to have top movies at top but what if I don’t want that because I don’t care about the top movies?
The biggest and stupidest award goes to apple pencil because $99 for a stylus oh my gosh that’s crap.
In the end Apple TV has something’s going for it but why no 4k video? Amazon has s 4k video player coming out in the next month or so.
And iPhone what purpose is 4k video if I have no way to display it?
You may love your Mac but really do not have clue about what Apple is all about.
The company’s goal is to make products that make life easier. They most often reinvent product types such as the phone and tablets by combining technologies in a meaningful way.
Apparently you think everything Apple announced on Weds is crap because you do not want it. Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but there are several billion people on this planet and I bet a lot of them will be buying the new products.
4K video is still in its infancy. Hell we still have SD channels on cable. If Apple do not sell or rent 4K movies what is the point in having an Apple TV capable of displaying it? Note the device is probably capable of it but Apple will not switch that feature on until the content is there to support it.
I have rarely seen Apple add features like 4K unless there is a good use for it. Amazon’s player have it because it is a gimmick but virtually useless. Just like all the features that Samsung tout on their phones. The key is integrating the technology to make it useful and a powerful tool which is why no one else does that better than Apple.
You bet I love my Mac and my iPhone and my iPad but my job is electronics and so I keep up-to-date with all the latest stuff
And Amazon came out with a fire TV year and a half ago with the Bluetooth remote and voice search so I’m trying to figure out other than the fact that Amazon out of the drye and Amazon came out with a fire TV year and a half ago with the Bluetooth remote and voice search so I’m trying to figure out other than the facT Apple at a gyroscope in their remote for playing games I’m not sure where this is going to go. I mean in less you are and Abbet iTunes user for your movies and TV shows then what purpose does the box serve that is not already served by Roku or the fire TV or the Google Nexus player or a dozen other products out there
If you really seriously want to get into gaming for $200 you can buy the nexus shield console which is actually a game console and does a lot of features that Apple TV will never do because it’s not designed for that.
I mean it’s fun every once a while to pull up a game like asphalt eight or something like that implant on your big screen but after a while it’s just not that interesting and now again Apple may make it a lot better they may take something and they may blow up gaming on the TV but still I’m not convinced that we will see gaming take a huge leap forward in boxes like that
What I’d like to see is Apple quit being so lock down on things and open up the Apple TV a little bit and allow some other apps that might give more functionality and I would’ve loved to see a complete interface rewrite the interface is boring and it’s basically other than some minor changes it’s the same OS that they been running on the Apple TV since AppleTV t what I’d like to see is Apple quit being so lock down on things and open up the AppleTV a little bit and allow some other apps that might give more functionality and I would’ve loved to see a complete interface rewrite the interface is boring and it’s basically other than some minor changes it’s the same OS that they been running on the Apple TV since Apple TV2.
I’d like to see them actually rewrite the interface and give it a complete overhaul and make it nice and not so bland.
And again in less you were tied to iTunes or have a huge iTunes invested media library that you have paid for what purpose would someone want to go out and buy this when And again in less you were tied to iTunes or have a huge iTunes invested media library that you have paid for what purpose would someone want to go out and buy this when people have probably already either got one of these other boxes or will just stick to what they already have because it works for them
Personally I want something different than the Apple TV while it does look cool and I know my love my Apple products I can’t run Kodi on there so I would have to import my library to iTunes then find the metadata for every show and movie
They didn’t exactly give us anything to demonstrate why it would make sense to have 64gig vs the 32g. The lower end has 4x the storage of the 3rd gen Apple TV. If you won’t play lots of games, why bother with the $200 version? I’d like to know.
The new Apple TV is ok, but I’ll probably only buy two of them though and hold off until the next upgrade which will eventually upgrade the innards again. A8 vs A9x, no 4K future proof, nothing in the device from Apple’s Primesense purchase, all points to new abilities are still in the future hopper.
The additional storage must be for App and associated data. It is feasible that the 64GB would be applicable for holding multiple larger games.
I will also be buying the 32GB version. Already have 2 ATV3 and 1 ATV2. The latter will be handed down to my daughter.
At $149, I will be happy to have a device that can search for content across multiple services plus have the ability to play a few games if I feel like it.
I have a feeling this is where the game changing starts for ATV. It will be interesting to see how the Apps change the device’s utility.
From what I’ve read apps are limited to 200 megabytes with no local storage.
Does anyone know if the universal search work for connected iTunes libraries?
Ultimately, this isn’t going to offer me a lot more than I have at the moment. I occasionally get Netflix for a month and binge watch a few things, but it will be interesting to see what other services become available in the UK. Most of the “apps” currently on it are pretty useless. Unless BBC and Sky launch apps I basically won’t use this. It would be nice if this somehow streamed shows from my Sky box, but I doubt they would ever add that even if boxes were capable of it. Streaming content is pretty much impossible where I live, so apart from the odd film I buy in iTunes this isn’t going to replace anything for me – just like the old one didn’t.
I can’t see how because in order to have siri know whats there it has to have the iTunes library in in its database. So how you would add something like that to the database I’m not sure.
I would think Siri just sends out a request for the relevant information to whatever services (Netflix, Hulu, etc) it is searching and they send back results which then get included within what Siri displays. Since an Apple TV is accessing your iTunes library then it’s just another set of results to add in. I doubt Siri is search a combined internal Apple database of all iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, etc content. It’s just accessing those services.
So, it’s not a hobby anymore? 😉
I’m excited to buy one of these and run it through its paces.
I have one complaint and one feature request.
Complaint: Why, oh why, did they have to remove the optical digital audio output???? I happen to have a great but older Onkyo receiver that does not pass through HDMI and my 70-inch flat screen does not pass through sound, either. So that totally sucks. At this point, I have no way of running sound through my home theater 🙁
Feature request: It would be very cool if multiple Apple TVs could find each other on the same network and if media was downloaded to one device and requested for viewing on another that it would stream the content from the local network instead of the Internet — think local cache server on OS X Server.
I’ll come up with a solution for my sound problem (probably a separate device that separates sound from HDMI) but hope it won’t be buggy, limit my digital surround options or have copyright issues.
I don’t think the new AppleTV downloads ANY media. I think it is the same as the current generation AppleTV — it only streams media from other sources (your Apple devices, or various online sources, through apps).
The internal storage will likely be exclusively for the apps (and any config data apps need to store locally); not for any media.
Even the current model downloads movies and holds them until you download a different one . . . If you’ve ever re-watched a movie from the day before you’ll see that there is no need for buffering, so that 8gb of local storage is utilized . . . once you start watching a new iTunes movie, it erases for the next movie . . . What I’m saying is that if I load it onto a device upstairs I should be able to go downstairs to watch it and if it is already on a local device it would stream from there instead of the Internet for increased speed and less reliance on bandwidth.
Don’t count on that. Buffering that you speak of is purely for internal use. It would be surprised if various Apple TVs on the same network actually looked at each others’ caches before streaming from the online source. You never know, though; some engineer at Apple might have thought it to be a good idea to check first.
On the other hand, the benefits such possible cache data sharing would bring are fairly minimal, compared to the complications and possible trouble it might bring. In other words, probably just not worth it.
I agree with your complaint. Don’t know why Apple got rid of the optical audio out. I will need to get a separate audio splitter, too. Check out this device from Monoprice.com-looks like it will get the job done: http://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=10251.
This Apple TV is completely different from all previous ones. The main differentiator is App Store and third-party apps.
TV content (shows, news, movies) is no longer watched on TV. Majority of Americans now watch “TV” (loosely-defined term) on devices other than TV. They watch it when they want it; even on their living room TV, majority of people no longer watch linearly-programmed, ‘live’ TV channels. Instead, they use DVR to time-shift content, or their cable operator’s On Demand service, or other third-party devices (AppleTV, ChromeCast, Roku, etc).
Real-time TV is, at this point, mostly live sports and similar live events (Oscars, Emmys, etc). As more and more Americans are watching their entertainment on demand, AppleTV is now providing most complete offerings. Everything that you currently have on your iPad (or iPhone) — all third-party apps, from HBO Now, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, DailyMotion, YouTube, Vimeo, etc, etc — all of it is, or will be available on Apple TV, and it will be searchable using Siri.
My expectation is that AppleTV will overtake all other major gaming consoles within one year, never mind other streaming boxes. Gaming will be a major door opener, but once it is in the house, it will very quickly move to HDMI 1 input and stay there. It will likely become biggest cord-cutting catalyst.
I don’t see having Amazon prime on their Amazon could’ve made an app for the Apple TV years ago just like Netflix did but I doubt it because with Amazon having their own competing box I’m sure that other than the Roku I highly doubt we’re going to see any other TV box run Amazon primE. But hey leave it to Apple to talk them into it but I don’t know that Apple would gain anything from having an Amazon prime app on the atv and Amazon sure wouldn’t gain anything because they would lose sales from the fire TV which is the biggest selling point is that it’s direct access no buffering link to prime content.
I loved my atv2 but then apple drug their feet and it let others take over the TV box market.
What are you talking about?? Amazon Instant Video app is already on the App Store (for iPhone and iPad). It will be a fairly straightforward rework and re-compile for AppleTV.
Original AppleTV apps were NOT developed by third parties; they were developed by Apple, using third-party API (where those third parties agreed to provide such API). New Apple TV allows any developer to develop and submit their app to the App Store for Apple TV. This device is now wide open for anyone to develop for it.
Amazon loses massive amounts of money on their Fire boxes; the sole purpose for the existence of Amazon’s hardware (Fire, Kindle) is to sell content, which is why Amazon subsidises that hardware (i.e. loses money on sales). Having people use Amazon Prime content without having to sell them hardware is much more preferred by Amazon.