Apple HDTV rumors resurface

[AppleInsider]

Years-old rumors that Apple will roll out a line of Internet-connected displays have resurfaced in reports that suggest the company will bundle its Apple TV product within a new line of HDTVs.

In a report referencing a rumor floated by Mahalo chief Jason Calacanis, who claims that he knows "first-hand" that Apple is working on what's described as a networked television, CNET writer Nate Lanxon noted that the assertion "isn't surprising" given Apple's 30-inch Cinema Display.

Back in January 2007, American Technology analyst Shaw Wu supported such rumors with a research note stating that the company was working on "large screen" technologies within its development labs. "We are not certain on timing but our analysis indicates that AAPL is beyond prototype on large-screen technologies (for a larger monitor or possibly Apple-branded HDTV)," he advised clients at the time.

However, that was nearly two years ago. Since then, Apple has continued to sell video projectors from Epson and NEC in both its online and physical retail stores but does not sell HDTVs in either, indicating that the company hasn't exactly rushed to enter the HDTV market. A number of cost and usefulness factors have likely come into play.

Cinema Display vs HDTV

Apple already faces tough competition in its high-end Cinema Display line. Apple's largest 30" display costs $1800 and requires a "Pro" level Mac with Dual Link DVI graphics in order to drive the screen's 2560x1600 resolution. A name brand 32" HDTV costs closer to $700, because it uses inexpensive parts to deliver a much lower resolution picture.

Apple TV is designed to target those simpler TV displays. It can theoretically deliver a 1920x1080 (1080p) signal, but most content is typically supplied at 1280x720 (720p), or roughly a quarter the resolution of the 30" Cinema Display. Apple's HD iTunes content is distributed at the lower standard HD resolution, as is most HD cable and free HD broadcasts. There is next to no content delivered at 1080p outside of Blu-ray discs, which have yet to make a significant impact on the market outside of a videophile niche.

The majority of HDTVs under 40 inches are also "only" 720p resolution, as full 1080p resolution displays are considerably more expensive but only deliver a visible superiority on sets larger than 50 inches. Some networks also favor the 720p standard for its smoother image quality in fast moving sports programming, including ABC, FOX and ESPN; other networks supply their HD programming in 1080i, including CBS, NBC, HBO, and Discovery, which provides a sharper picture in low motion still shots.

Apple TV provides nominal support for 1080i video, but content it delivers from iTunes is 720p, while most podcasts are either 720p, standard definition 640x480, or even lower quality. YouTube supplies 320x240 video, although Google is beginning to roll out a higher quality 448x336 encoding option.

Mind the (price) gap

The vast difference in price and quality between Cinema Display computer video resolutions and the relatively low resolution HDTV market means that HDTVs are a far more competitive, commoditized mass market. That results in little room for Apple to differentiate itself as a TV vendor.

Instead of selling its own low margin, high volume TV sets, Apple has shipped the Apple TV appliance as a device that can work with any modern HDTV set from any manufacturer. In the direct-to-TV arena, Apple TV compares with HP's $350 MediaSmart box, or Sony's $300 Sony Bravia Internet Video Link module tied to Amazon's Unbox service.

No manufacturer has seen any runaway success in selling an Internet-connected HDTV for streaming downloads, photos, music and related content like Apple TV. HP's strategy of attaching its MediaSmart box to its own HDTVs has not resulted in any particular success, and Sony's incorporation of its Bravia Internet Video Link module has faired roughly as well.

Much of this challenge stems from the cost. Putting a $229 Apple TV into an HDTV costing $700 or more would add 32 percent to the price of the set. In a market where price is often the primary consideration, this may be a difficult sell.

Low Margin HDTV + Low Margin Apple TV = Win?

Price breakdowns indicate that Apple's margins on the Apple TV are already razor thin, particularly when compared to Macs, the iPod, and the iPhone. That gives Apple little room to strip the price down further, even if it were incorporated directly into an HDTV set. It simply includes too many expensive components. Apple sells the unit as nearly a loss leader to gain a foothold in the slowly emerging market for direct TV downloads.

Instead, Apple has been incrementally improving the software of the Apple TV to features such as HD video downloads, support for Dolby Digital 5.1, and most recently HD TV programming from iTunes and Remote features that integrate with the iPhone and iPod touch. Apple has taken dominant market share in video downloads as existing rivals, including Vongo, have failed and new competitors such as Vudu have struggled to match Apple's aggressive price cuts.

If anything, Apple's best bet may be to work out a deal to bundle Apple TV units with the HDTVs sold by manufacturers, or else striking deals with partners such as Best Buy to sell the unit as an accessory with the new HDTV units it sells. Given that Apple hasn't shipped its own HDTV set incorporating Apple TV features over the last two years of reportedly investigating the possibility, it would seem likely the company is taking its time investigating alternatives to jumping into the risky HDTV business all on its own.
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ] (http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=10233)

[GQB]

Apple will not start selling HD monitors. That's a commodity market, already saturated by companies with WAY more experience and focus than Apple. Takes up LOTs of warehouse space which Apple doesn't have in its retail chain.
They REALLY will not start selling Monitors with AppleTVs built in.
The market for all-in-one TVs with built-in everything died years ago, and I don't see anyone who wants to have their digital technology (DVR, DVD, etc) tied to their monitor. Even cable-cards have died a quiet death.

[walshbj]

Apple will not start selling HD monitors. That's a commodity market, already saturated by companies with WAY more experience and focus than Apple. Takes up LOTs of warehouse space which Apple doesn't have in its retail chain.
They REALLY will not start selling Monitors with AppleTVs built in.
The market for all-in-one TVs with built-in everything died years ago, and I don't see anyone who wants to have their digital technology (DVR, DVD, etc) tied to their monitor. Even cable-cards have died a quiet death.

Commodity? You could say the same thing about computers and mobile phones. They didn't drop Computer from their name for nothing. It's been a long time since the Cinema Displays were updated, and I'd say the HDTV thing has a lot to do with it.

Interfaces and remotes have become a nightmare for people trying to watch TV. Look for Apple to make it easier.

[dr_lha]

There is next to no content delivered at 1080p outside of Blu-ray discs, which have yet to make a significant impact on the market outside of a videophile niche.

Sorry but that is pure crap statement, mainly because of the existance of the PS3, which has sales numbers in the millions and are not a "videophile niche".

[CREB]

People need to go back into Apple's history and see what Jobs was thinking years ago. An Apple TV is not far fetched.

[bsenka]

Price breakdowns indicate that Apple's margins on the Apple TV are already razor thin,

This surprises me, as the one thing that really stands out to me is that the Apple TV is grossly overpriced for what it does. If this is true, they really need to figure out a way to make them less expensive to build.

[mariofreak85]

I would buy an Apple HDTV in a heartbeat. I'm sure it would include all sorts of extra goodies. Maybe even let me use it as a monitor.... wirelessly. It would be even more awesome if they integrated a DVR into it (VERY VERY VERY doubtful). I'm tired of my POS Comcast cable box freezing and mucking up my recordings.

[AHeneen]

I'm confused...is this article actually suggesting that Apple will drop the cinema displays in favor of HDTVs???? While obviously HDTVs are much cheaper, they are (as pointed out ) of much less resolution. There are some of us out here who like our cinema displays for the resolution...crisp, clear, and bright. Apple can go ahead and introduce a tv...I think it would have to be something VERY revolutionary...iPhone revolutionary...in order to have any type of success, there's just too many HDTVs out there. Like the article said, price is the bottom line not aesthetics or ability to stream content from your computer (haven't AppleTV sales proven this???). Anyways, I don't care if Apple releases a TV, just that a TV doesn't replace my Cinema Display!!

[bigmc6000]

What content is on the PS3 that is 1080p and isn't BD? (Not talking about the games here) Do they deliver TV shows at 1080p? The PS3 hasn't sold millions because it's a BD player - it certainly helps justify the expense but that's still not the primary reason most buy PS3's.

"BD's have yet to make a significant impact on the market outside of the videophile niche" is about as accurate as you're going to get - until the prices come down to the DVD prices and the players drop to $100 range it's not going to take off and become mainstream.

[crees!]

Would use of the rumored line of NVDIA chips in a TV make any sense?

[daniel84]

Sorry but that is pure crap statement, mainly because of the existance of the PS3, which has sales numbers in the millions and are not a "videophile niche".

I think what was being said was that virtually the only source of 1080p HD content is from BDs. Yes, PS3 has a Bluray drive, but has it increased demand 1080p content? The answer to that is probably not. I know a few people with PS3s and none of them even have any Bluray movies...

[pmjoe]

Apple TV provides nominal support for 1080i video, but content it delivers from iTunes is 720p, while most podcasts are either 720p, standard definition 640x480, or even lower quality.
1080i? Not in any spec I've ever seen. Unless you just mean upscaling 720p to 1080i, but that's not "video" playback.

[jomo5280]

Well regardless, hopefully it will be a big update soon - as Yahoo is already cranking on their TV box/Widget platform: :mad:
http://connectedtv.yahoo.com/
http://connectedtv.yahoo.com/partners/att

[hmurchison]

Cablecards have died?

http://www.tru2way.com/

Will Apple create a HDTV? That depends on what technologies they can bring to the field. I think that there's room for improvement in HDTV where interfaces are concerned. Can Apple leverage their talents here is unknown to me.

The HDTV market is no different that computers.

You have the low end/low margin entry level.

You have the mid price monitors

You have the high end/high margin monitors

We know Apple is not going to be a player in the low end. If they do enter the HDTV field they won't be competing with the Magnavox or low end Visio stuff.

I think we're still a generation or two of SoC chips aways from embedding an Apple TV into a HDTV but overall it makes sense once the BoM is down to just a few chips and memory.

[pmjoe]

Years-old rumors that Apple will roll out a line of Internet-connected displays have resurfaced in reports that suggest the company will bundle its Apple TV product within a new line of HDTVs.

In a report referencing a rumor floated by Mahalo chief Jason Calacanis, who claims that he knows "first-hand" that Apple is working on what's described as a networked television, CNET writer Nate Lanxon noted that the assertion "isn't surprising" given Apple's 30-inch Cinema Display.

So you took some rumor about "networked television" and somehow turned that into Apple making HDTVs? Maybe it's just a better version of the current Apple TV.

That said, I am left wondering if the new video port on the Mac might be HDMI and we'll see a new line of displays Apple that'll take HDMI including from the Apple TV.

[NasserAE]

This surprises me, as the one thing that really stands out to me is that the Apple TV is grossly overpriced for what it does. If this is true, they really need to figure out a way to make them less expensive to build.

I've always thought that! Either Apple is not taking full advantage of the AppleTV hardware or they have other plans for it. I really believe that Apple should consider opening AppleTV for gaming if possible or to think about it in the next AppleTV hardware upgrade (whenever that will be).

I would buy an Apple HDTV in a heartbeat. I'm sure it would include all sorts of extra goodies. Maybe even let me use it as a monitor.... wirelessly. It would be even more awesome if they integrated a DVR into it (VERY VERY VERY doubtful). I'm tired of my POS Comcast cable box freezing and mucking up my recordings.

I wondered why no one released a WiFi LCD HDTV yet! I've heard about LG releasing one last year but nothing since. An HDTV with something similar to AppleTV (mainly a replaceable HDD and a processor) built in is not that bad if you consider that people keep their TVs for long time. At least this will reduce wiring and the number of remote controls.
The problem I see here is that not many people who already own an HDTV will be welling to pay another $1000+ for a TV. So this might not be viable option for Apple now.

[RichL]

The main problem I see is that the Apple TV is vastly overpriced - especially in the UK. I owned for a while but, whilst it was a nice piece of kit, it didn't do enough to justify the price tag. Especially when a £150 Xbox 360 has almost identical functionality and a whole lot more.

I still dream of a Mac mini with 1TB HDD and HDMI output. That would be my perfect TV media player.

[foobar]

I know a few people with PS3s and none of them even have any Bluray movies...

if anything, the number of bluray movies sold should be an indication. And it's still orders of magnitude lower than DVD sales. Maybe it's not exactly videophiles, just people with enough money.

[dr_lha]

I think what was being said was that virtually the only source of 1080p HD content is from BDs. Yes, PS3 has a Bluray drive, but has it increased demand 1080p content? The answer to that is probably not. I know a few people with PS3s and none of them even have any Bluray movies...
Well Iron Man just sold 500,000 on Blu-Ray, how many of those are going to be watched on PS3s do you think? My primary argument was that Blu-Ray is not a "videophile niche", although I wouldn't argue that its a small part of the market right now. "Videophile niche" makes it sound like something no non-videophile would bother with which is simply not true, not compared to the niche products like DVD-A in the Audiophile market are, for example.

[solipsism]

Sorry but that is pure crap statement, mainly because of the existance of the PS3, which has sales numbers in the millions and are not a "videophile niche".
Including the sales of all PS3s are Blu-ray players the number of Blu-ray drives compared to DVD drives is quite low. WE'll have to wait until the calendar Q4 results are in before we'll be able to see how well BRDs are doing in comparison to DVD and digital downloads. It is still very much a 'videophile niche' as most people are okay with up-converting DVDs and the "good enough" quality of instant access to streaming HD content. Time and time again, convenience and price has shown to be the most important aspects to consumers.


People need to go back into Apple's history and see what Jobs was thinking years ago. An Apple TV is not far fetched.
Considering that the AppleTV already exists, I'm assuming you are referring to an Apple-branded HDTV. But this offers too many issues. How many sizes do they offer? Do they use plasma, LCD, projection, or the up-and-coming OLED? Have you seen the size of the TV sections of department and electronic stores? Apple making their own TV makes no sense and you then you run into the issue of the HDTV or Apple's media extender breaking before the other components do, like with the all-in-one VHS/DVD TVs

The best option is to go with an industry standard that allows for the AppleTV to be secured to the back of the HDTV, like with HP's failed media extender. The only issue is that Apple would have to get with TV manufacturers to get the AppleTV's IR receiver—or the USB port on the back—to connect to and respond to the HDTVs IR receiver.


This surprises me, as the one thing that really stands out to me is that the Apple TV is grossly overpriced for what it does. If this is true, they really need to figure out a way to make them less expensive to build.
WHAT! Name a cheaper media extender? For $229 you get 802.11n, 100BASE-T (wish it was 1000BASE-T), 40GB HDD, 1GHz Intel CPU, 256MB DDR2 RAM, Nvidia 7300, HDMI 1.3, Component, analog and optical audio. You can also buy and rent audio and video right from the device which makes it very convenient.

Granted, it's not for everyone, but after seeing the $215 Popcorn Hour—the one that most closely matches the AppleTV HW specs—not work because of Vista, not to mention the complete lack of both a HDD and WiFi the AppleTV is an exceptional deal. The only crutch is that you need to perform the simple and quick task of installing the appropriate codecs via the USB port on a flash drive.

[bigmc6000]

Well Iron Man just sold 500,000 on Blu-Ray, how many of those are going to be watched on PS3s do you think? My primary argument was that Blu-Ray is not a "videophile niche", although I wouldn't argue that its a small part of the market right now. "Videophile niche" makes it sound like something no non-videophile would bother with which is simply not true, not compared to the niche products like DVD-A in the Audiophile market are, for example.
And they sold over 7 million regular DVD's and I'll bet the regular DVD sales won't drop off quite as quickly as the BD. So the most popular movie to release to-date on BD sells about 1/14th the # of DVDs. The general numbers aren't anywhere near this kind of performance for BD either. The movies that are special effects heavy are going to sell better on BD than something like the Notebook but until people are convinced that watching some like the Notebook on BD is a better idea DVD is going to remain atop the heap.

[Cory Bauer]

...Blu-ray discs, which have yet to make a significant impact on the market outside of a videophile niche.
Blu-Ray discs are accounting for up to 13% of DVD sales (http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/10/11/nielsen-videoscan-high-def-market-share-for-week-ending-october/), which is more than double what it was in March. (http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/09/25/blu-rays-market-share-has-almost-doubled-since-hd-dvds-demise/) A niche yes, but a rapidly growing niche that puts internet-based movie series like Apple TV to shame. Apple won't even separate their movie sales from rentals (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/06/19itunes.html), instead saying that they rent or sell 50,000 movies a day. I would estimate at least 90% of those are rentals, but even 25% would only be 87,500 movie sales a week. By contrast, Iron Man alone on Blu-Ray sold half a million copies in seven days. (http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=1899)

[RichL]

Granted, it's not for everyone, but after seeing the $215 Popcorn Hour—the one that most closely matches the AppleTV HW specs—not work because of Vista, not to mention the complete lack of both a HDD and WiFi the AppleTV is an exceptional deal. The only crutch is that you need to perform the simple and quick task of installing the appropriate codecs via the USB port on a flash drive.

The Popcorn Hour has a WiFi option for around $17. It also takes standard IDE/SATA HDDs, which are very cheap these days and go up to 1.5TB in size. Codec support is also exceptional and supports 1080p playback.

It's an "enthusiast" device though. The UI is incredibly slow and there's quite a few niggling issues with it.

[Wolfman]

1080i? Not in any spec I've ever seen. Unless you just mean upscaling 720p to 1080i, but that's not "video" playback.

AppleTV provides nominal support for 1080i. Since the output resolution is offered, it is supported and the statement is correct.

AppleTV doesn't have a display where you could apply the phrase "native resolution", any content that doesn't match the selected output resolution will be scaled.

That's the way the device should work.

Of course it would be nice for Apple to upgrade their hardware, but without useful 1080p content online, that would be completely worthless.

The limited usefulness of any of those mentioned devices can be blamed on the studios not releasing their content in fear of cannibalizing their DVD sales, not Apple, Sony, etc. It's that simple.

[Wolfman]

Blu-Ray discs are accounting for up to 13% of DVD sales (http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/10/11/nielsen-videoscan-high-def-market-share-for-week-ending-october/), which is more than double what it was in March. (http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/09/25/blu-rays-market-share-has-almost-doubled-since-hd-dvds-demise/) A niche yes, but a rapidly growing niche that puts internet-based movie series like Apple TV to shame. Apple won't even separate their movie sales from rentals (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/06/19itunes.html), instead saying that they rent or sell 50,000 movies a day. I would estimate at least 90% of those are rentals, but even 25% would only be 87,500 movie sales a week. By contrast, Iron Man alone on Blu-Ray sold half a million copies in seven days. (http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=1899)

In the case of "Iron-Man" Apple can't even sell the HD version or even rent the movie in either format. This is why statistical comparisons are so worthless at this point.

Each market/channel works under different rules driven by content providers. Online always comes last...

[rhowarth]

If AppleTV had a DVD player (or better yet, a BluRay player) then I would replace my existing DVD player with that in a shot. My TV only has so many inputs, and while I'm more than willing to give movie rentals and purchases from the iTunes store a go, I have *a lot* of DVDs that I'm not going to give up any time soon.

I don't have any burning need for BluRay discs but if I am going to invest in another home entertainment gadget at this point it ought to add something to what I can already do so I'm future-proofing myself to some extent. Better still would be a Mac Mini with BluRay...

-Rolf

[bobmarleypeople]

I tell ya what, it would be pretty cool if Apple released their own TV sets as long as they use the eye candy you expect from Apple when channel hopping. For the UK, built in FreeView tuners are a must or possibly built in FreeSat tuners. I'm hoping this isn't just going to be bundling an Apple TV with regular TVs as that would be stupid. The current Apple TV is generally useless unless you hack it to bits so you can play videos that aren't quicktime formats.

Xbox Media Centre TV. Now THAT would be awesome.

[Wolfman]

That's a ridiculous and biased comment if ever there was one. Blu-ray halted HD DVD and that's not significant? All studios and most electronics companies with the exception of Apple (yet- watch Wed) have a significant commitment in blu-ray- that's not an impact??

And wait until after the 4th Q, a lot of people will be eating their words.

Eating what words? The average consumer appears satisfied with watching upscaled DVD's in a $50 player instead of spending $10 more for a BD disk.

The commitment of the electronics industry is really of little relevance here. Unless BD disk prices drop to near the price of standard DVD's, you will not see phenomenal shifts (and certainly not by 4Q)

[paulgreen]

I wondered why no one released a WiFi LCD HDTV yet! I've heard about LG releasing one last year but nothing since.

Yes, you are sort of right. I have one of those LG WiFi-enabled LCD HDTVs (LN46A750 -- nice TV, btw). Unfortunately, streaming content from a computer is limited to wired ethernet connections (using DLNA which does not work very well -- I've tried it using Twonky, a commercial DLNA server with mixed results). Their WiFi protocol provides very limited content (e.g. weather). A fully-fledge wireless system from Apple to work with Samsung televisions would be great.

[xyz001]

1080i? Not in any spec I've ever seen. Unless you just mean upscaling 720p to 1080i, but that's not "video" playback.


Alot of Cable TV stations broadcast in 1080i. Basically the bandwith of digital cable today only alows for either 720p or 1080i.

Most stations go with 720p but a few go with the much higher resolution 1080i. (interlaced) Unfortunately you only get to see half the picture at a time, resulting in a little more flicker.

1080p though is THE ONLY FUTURE FOR TV and the sharpness is incredible. Apple knows that, and they know that nobody else provides an easy way to get content.

So i believe (and hope) Apple will make a TV!

[bigmc6000]

Eating what words? The average consumer appears satisfied with watching upscaled DVD's in a $50 player instead of spending $10 more for a BD disk.

The commitment of the electronics industry is really of little relevance here. Unless BD disk prices drop to near the price of standard DVD's, you will not see phenomenal shifts (and certainly not by 4Q)
And certainly not given the current state (actual or perceived) of the economy. People aren't going to be thinking about paying $10 more PER DISC when they are scrapping for gas money. DVD sales might be ok and movie tickets will do very well (historically speaking recessions/depressions spur huge box office numbers) but the push to BD is going to be slower than Sony (and others) had hoped.

[carloblackmore]

I think the fact that Apple doesn't sell HDTVs in it's stores while it does sell projectors, cameras and other media peripherals is proof that they have plans to develop their own HDTV product at some point.

[moracity]

Apple will not start selling HD monitors. That's a commodity market, already saturated by companies with WAY more experience and focus than Apple. Takes up LOTs of warehouse space which Apple doesn't have in its retail chain.
They REALLY will not start selling Monitors with AppleTVs built in.
The market for all-in-one TVs with built-in everything died years ago, and I don't see anyone who wants to have their digital technology (DVR, DVD, etc) tied to their monitor. Even cable-cards have died a quiet death.

I would agree with you - but that's exactly what many said about Apple entering the cell phone market. Given the success the iPhone has had, it wouldn't be all that crazy to enter the TV market. However, the time may not be right yet, especially given current economic issues. I am certain there is a strategy to do it when the time is right. My guess is that the AppleTV was really testing the waters and that the endgame is an HDTV with all its features.

[Wolfman]

If AppleTV had a DVD player (or better yet, a BluRay player) then I would replace my existing DVD player with that in a shot. My TV only has so many inputs, and while I'm more than willing to give movie rentals and purchases from the iTunes store a go, I have *a lot* of DVDs that I'm not going to give up any time soon.

I don't have any burning need for BluRay discs but if I am going to invest in another home entertainment gadget at this point it ought to add something to what I can already do so I'm future-proofing myself to some extent. Better still would be a Mac Mini with BluRay...

-Rolf

That's definitely not going to happen. The whole concept of the machine is to deliver digital content (via Internet/network), not physical media.
And it would push AppleTV to a price point where simply too few people would buy it.

The PS3 is a perfect example. Sony has been choking on the cost of the device for a long time, trying to sell a console that was simply too expensive for many. And that was even based on a model where the console is already sold at/below costs to sell high-margin games.

I don't think even the lower-end XBox 360 has made a single buck for Microsoft.

[Virgil-TB2]

Blu-Ray discs are accounting for up to 13% of DVD sales (http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/10/11/nielsen-videoscan-high-def-market-share-for-week-ending-october/), which is more than double what it was in March. (http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/09/25/blu-rays-market-share-has-almost-doubled-since-hd-dvds-demise/) A niche yes, but a rapidly growing niche that puts internet-based movie series like Apple TV to shame. Apple won't even separate their movie sales from rentals (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/06/19itunes.html), instead saying that they rent or sell 50,000 movies a day. I would estimate at least 90% of those are rentals, but even 25% would only be 87,500 movie sales a week. By contrast, Iron Man alone on Blu-Ray sold half a million copies in seven days. (http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=1899)This is just hyperbole.

The article states that BluRay is a niche at this point and you reply with ... yes it is. http://forums.appleinsider.com/images/smilies/1confused.gif
Then you quote all these obviously "managed" industry numbers after the fact.

Sure Iron Man "sold" a half a million copies, but I remember when DVD first came out in North America and "Lost in Space" sold a ridiculously high amount of copies also. In fact you couldn't buy a DVD player without having a copy of "Lost in Space" tossed in the bag with it at the time. These early sales figures generated by the industry itself are full of loss-leader items and promotional arrangements that have very little to do with the actual popularity of the medium.

Ask anyone who works at a Bookstore what the Best Seller list really represents. DVD's and BluRay are no different.

[Wolfman]

I think the fact that Apple doesn't sell HDTVs in it's stores while it does sell projectors, cameras and other media peripherals is proof that they have plans to develop their own HDTV product at some point.

A point that many overlook in retail is that TV's are not a cash cows anymore and deliver incredibly low margins.
That combined with expensive shelf/storage space, reasonably high return/damage rates doesn't make a compelling argument to carry, let alone manufacture a HDTV.

When selling a single 23" Cinema Display, Apple makes a more money than Best Buy selling a 46" HDTV.

[bignumbers]

Apple should (and I think will) boost the current Apple TV product up a notch or two. But no chance of Apple shipping their own brand of TV. As others have indicated - it's a saturated market with little if any way of differentiating yourself.

It would be nice if a TV existed with the existing Apple TV's functionality, plus an iPod dock. They'd sell a few, but not enough to sustain the product(s).

Best to give the existing product a big boost (3.5" hard drive, maybe an optional BD drive, bluetooth, SDK) and let Best Buy push it with every TV no matter what size or brand.

So: Would be cool, but won't happen.

[solipsism]

A point that many overlook in retail is that TV's are not a cash cows anymore and deliver incredibly low margins.
That combined with expensive shelf/storage space, reasonably high return/damage rates doesn't make a compelling argument to carry, let alone manufacture a HDTV.

When selling a single 23" Cinema Display, Apple makes a more money than Best Buy selling a 46" HDTV.

And that 23" or 30" ACD is often being used with one of Apple's MBPs or Mac Pros, which only enhances the sale of the two products.

[pmjoe]

AppleTV provides nominal support for 1080i. Since the output resolution is offered, it is supported and the statement is correct.

[...]

Of course it would be nice for Apple to upgrade their hardware, but without useful 1080p content online, that would be completely worthless.
The rest of that statement was about video playback resolutions. As far as I know, Apple TV does not support 1080i playback, which is what the statement implied. It's pretty much required to support input/output scaling between 720p and 1080i to be considered an HDTV compatible device.

I can record 1080i right now off my cable box or various USB tuners. I don't need 1080p content to be online for it to be useful.

[GQB]

I would agree with you - but that's exactly what many said about Apple entering the cell phone market. Given the success the iPhone has had, it wouldn't be all that crazy to enter the TV market. However, the time may not be right yet, especially given current economic issues. I am certain there is a strategy to do it when the time is right. My guess is that the AppleTV was really testing the waters and that the endgame is an HDTV with all its features.

As always, time will tell.
But I'll stick by my bet that the market for all-in-one televisions is going down, not up.
The various technologies change too rapidly for anyone with common sense to get stuck with needing to get a new monitor if advances happen in the content player. Or is everyone here still using one of those TVs with built-in VCR?

And Apple is not going to start selling 50" monitors out of their stores... ain't gonna happen. That's a BIG difference from selling tiny little boxes with iPhones in them.

[zygoat]

Some networks also favor the 720p standard for its smoother image quality in fast moving sports programming, including ABC, FOX and ESPN; other networks supply their HD programming in 1080i, including CBS, NBC, HBO, and Discovery, which provides a sharper picture in low motion still shots.

Um, this is exactly backwards. 1080i59.94 provides "smoother image quality in fast-moving sports programming", while 720p29.97 (etc.), being half the field rate (or less) but around twice the vertical resolution per frame, is better suited to provide a "sharper picture in low-motion still shots".

-b

[pmjoe]

Apple should (and I think will) boost the current Apple TV product up a notch or two. But no chance of Apple shipping their own brand of TV. As others have indicated - it's a saturated market with little if any way of differentiating yourself.

It would be nice if a TV existed with the existing Apple TV's functionality, plus an iPod dock. They'd sell a few, but not enough to sustain the product(s).

Best to give the existing product a big boost (3.5" hard drive, maybe an optional BD drive, bluetooth, SDK) and let Best Buy push it with every TV no matter what size or brand.

So: Would be cool, but won't happen.
Yeah, I think it'd be nice if Apple TV supported the following via its USB port:

iPod dock
choice of DVD or Blu-ray drive
TV tuner
external drives for additional storage

But it'd look like crap to hang all those devices off of there (plus possibly a USB hub to give you enough ports), so I don't see Apple doing it.

[rhowarth]

That's definitely not going to happen. The whole concept of the machine is to deliver digital content (via Internet/network), not physical media.
And it would push AppleTV to a price point where simply too few people would buy it.

I agree, not in an AppleTV. But how about a new Mac Mini with BluRay? I don't particularly mind how much the device costs, and I would love to buy online digital video content from Apple, but my TV only has one spare input. That means that in order to use an AppleTV I'd have to give up being able to watch DVDs and that just ain't going to happen, sorry Apple!

[BanditoB]

What if Apple were to build an HDTV with an Apple TV that had new DVR functionality added?

When I say DVR functionality, what if it could record and playback any signal that the HDTV receives. This would make it source agnostic. It could record a DVD or a satellite/cable feed or off-the-air television or even your favorite video game for a review of your technique. If it went to the next level, it could store this in iTunes and let you serve it up anywhere in your household, including you iPod/iPhone. If they make a new AirPort it could also include an HDMI output so that you could play back on any TV similar to the way AirTunes functions.

This would be ahead of most companies offerings so far, but is likely not feasible due to piracy concerns and copyright laws.

Oh well, it's a thought.

[Cory Bauer]

This is just hyperbole.

The article states that BluRay is a niche at this point and you reply with ... yes it is. http://forums.appleinsider.com/images/smilies/1confused.gif
Then you quote all these obviously "managed" industry numbers after the fact.

Sure Iron Man "sold" a half a million copies, but I remember when DVD first came out in North America and "Lost in Space" sold a ridiculously high amount of copies also. In fact you couldn't buy a DVD player without having a copy of "Lost in Space" tossed in the bag with it at the time. These early sales figures generated by the industry itself are full of loss-leader items and promotional arrangements that have very little to do with the actual popularity of the medium.

Ask anyone who works at a Bookstore what the Best Seller list really represents. DVD's and BluRay are no different.
My point being, if Blu-Ray is a "niche" at 13% of DVD sales, then downloadable movie sales aren't even on the map. And no one was giving away copies of Iron Man on Blu-Ray to fudge the numbers, as you seem to imply.

[Ireland]

This surprises me, as the one thing that really stands out to me is that the Apple TV is grossly overpriced for what it does. If this is true, they really need to figure out a way to make them less expensive to build.

Razor thin is an exaggeration. It's simply not Apple's usual 30%. It's like the iTunes store, where Apple is supposed to barely break even: John Gruber has proved this rumor bullshit.

I'm confused...is this article actually suggesting that Apple will drop the cinema displays in favor of HDTVs???? While obviously HDTVs are much cheaper, they are (as pointed out ) of much less resolution.

I don't know if it is. But like you say, they are different so I don't see that happening. Unless Apple start to sell 3rd party monitors ;)

[bloggerblog]

This surprises me, as the one thing that really stands out to me is that the Apple TV is grossly overpriced for what it does. If this is true, they really need to figure out a way to make them less expensive to build.

The ATV is not overpriced at all, it might seem high because it is not subsidized. If ATV required a monthly service fee it would be a lot cheaper, which I think they should do something like that. $2.00 per show without rental is definitely too high.

I find one major drawback to renting movies online, they're much much higher in price than renting a DVD, that is if they're even available for rent. By law purchased DVDs could be rented without having to pay royalty fees to the movie houses. That is why companies like RedBox can rent the latest releases for $1 while ATV would initially have the same movie only for sale at $15, and after a few months it becomes available for rent at $4.

Yeah... Apple really needs to provide a program similar to, if not better than, NetFlix. This way the device and the rentals become affordable.

[hmurchison]

Um, this is exactly backwards. 1080i59.94 provides "smoother image quality in fast-moving sports programming", while 720p29.97 (etc.), being half the field rate (or less) but around twice the vertical resolution per frame, is better suited to provide a "sharper picture in low-motion still shots".

-b


You've just built a strawman because you've inserted frame rates when the article stipulated none. Of course 1080i60 is going to be superior to 720p30. What you're comparing in progressive terms is 1080p30 to 720p30.

However most broadcasters are not broadcasting 720p30 they are broadcasting 720p60

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/720p#720p_versus_1080i

In the USA, 720p is used by ABC, Fox Broadcasting Company and ESPN because the smoother image is desirable for fast-action sports telecasts, whereas 1080i is used by CBS, NBC, HBO, Showtime and Discovery HD due to the crisper picture particularly in non-moving shots.

So AI's statment is correct ..though so is yours even though it doesn't directly address the scenario of AI.

[pmjoe]

Um, this is exactly backwards. 1080i59.94 provides "smoother image quality in fast-moving sports programming", while 720p29.97 (etc.), being half the field rate (or less) but around twice the vertical resolution per frame, is better suited to provide a "sharper picture in low-motion still shots".
Are you claiming that a 1280x720 picture has a higher vertical resolution than 1920x1080?

Does anyone broadcast in 1080i59.94? Isn't 1080i30 (1080i29.97) commonplace? Isn't it 720p59.94 for that matter?

The reason why some claim that 720p is better than 1080i for sports is because there are sometimes increased compression artifacts in 1080i due to the higher bandwidth required ... and/or [edit] the better frame rate with 720p60.

[Wolfman]

The rest of that statement was about video playback resolutions. As far as I know, Apple TV does not support 1080i playback, which is what the statement implied. It's pretty much required to support input/output scaling between 720p and 1080i to be considered an HDTV compatible device.

I can record 1080i right now off my cable box or various USB tuners. I don't need 1080p content to be online for it to be useful.


AppleTV provides 1080i & 1080p output resolutions. 1080p only via HDMI

[jfanning]

The ATV is not overpriced at all, it might seem high because it is not subsidized. If ATV required a monthly service fee it would be a lot cheaper, which I think they should do something like that. $2.00 per show without rental is definitely too high.


The 160GB version is €399, the PS3 is €373. How is the ATV not overpriced?

[gugy]

I think the article clearly demonstrates why Apple should not venture on doing a HDTV.
Seriously there is no reason to ask Apple to put their brand on everything. I would love to see them back focusing on computers hardware and software than start spreading their brand all over the place and losing focus on what is important.

HDTV profit margins are very thin and manufactures are merging, outsourcing and cutting costs to stay afloat. Apple bringing their business to the HDTV market would not change the landscape much. Plus there is amazing technology already out there that brings fantastic picture quality to the current displays.

Apple needs to focus on their own AppleTV hardware first, make the product compelling to the mass market prior to entering the HDTV set segment. Right now AppleTV is even called by Steve Jobs a hobby. Unless they shift their strategy and make a a serious piece of hardware, why bother making a television.

[zygoat]

You've just built a strawman because you've inserted frame rates when the article stipulated none. Of course 1080i60 is going to be superior to 720p30. What you're comparing in progressive terms is 1080p30 to 720p30.

In essence all I was trying to say was that for a given frame rate, interlaced video will provide a smoother and seemingly more lively picture than its progressive counterpart, by virtue of the doubled field rate. Perhaps I was reading more into the statement than was intended, though.

However most broadcasters are not broadcasting 720p30 they are broadcasting 720p60
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/720p#720p_versus_1080i

Interesting; I didn't actually realize that 720p"60" was commonplace. Presumably then that would provide an even better picture (difference in resolution notwithstanding) than 1080i.

Are you claiming that a 1280x720 picture has a higher vertical resolution than 1920x1080?

No, but if it's drawing at twice the field rate (720p vs 1080i) there's a greater rate of new visual information being delivered.

Does anyone broadcast in 1080i59.94? Isn't 1080i30 (1080i29.97) commonplace?

I think we're saying the same thing. It's de facto in the industry (at least, at the post facility where I work) to call 1080i video at 29.97 fps (59.94 fields per sec) as "1080i59.94".

-b

[SpamSandwich]

I think the article clearly demonstrates why Apple should not venture on doing a HDTV.
Seriously there is no reason to ask Apple to put their brand on everything. I would love to see them back focusing on computers hardware and software than start spreading their brand all over the place and losing focus on what is important.

HDTV profit margins are very thin and manufactures are merging, outsourcing and cutting costs to stay afloat. Apple bringing their business to the HDTV market would not change the landscape much. Plus there is amazing technology already out there that brings fantastic picture quality to the current displays.

Apple needs to focus on their own AppleTV hardware first, make the product compelling to the mass market prior to entering the HDTV set segment. Right now AppleTV is even called by Steve Jobs a hobby. Unless they shift their strategy and make a a serious piece of hardware, why bother making a television.

I still think that until very high speed broadband and WiMax have achieved greater acceptance in the US, it's too early to offer an all-in-one Apple HDTV. Also, it doesn't really make sense to equip a TV with computer components that would be so rapidly outdated, unless those components can be swapped out for faster and bigger networking and storage at a later date. And we all know how Apple can be as far as backward compatibility is concerned.

[Wolfman]

Blu-ray discs are actually already quite comparable to DVDs when originally realesed and way lower THAN VHS movies when originally released. Anyway it's the price of the machines that have already dropped in half compared to last year. And holiday/depression discounting hasn't even started yet. You'll see.

On average selling prices, they are not. Certainly not quite that is, according to the Blue Ray Association, not going to happen anytime soon either. http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/39347/97/

While I love the quality of BD, I am not holding my breath. While the current economic outlook can lower prices, it will also lower consumer spending...

[xwiredtva]

Well I as a customer of the MacMini Home Theater concept do appreciate this type of news. However I run my Mini through a 720p Projector which puts a 148" screen (16:10) on my wall. With Front Row I'm all good. I've purchased HD content through itunes and found the quality outstanding!

If I were Apple...

AppleTV upgrade to Via C7 Nano 2.0ghz running OS X. This would give them the SSE3/4 codes and smooth scaling HD Content even in 1080i/p resolution. It also reduces the power cunsumption from the Pentium M by 2/3rds. Reduced heat and 1 board controller chip would reduce costs as well as increase speed and reduce room in the box itself. Via's Padlock encryption could easily be used for Apple OS X as well. C7 Nano is NOT available outside of prototypes yet but in testing compared to the Intel Atom 330 (dual core 1.6ghz) it outperformed it 4:1 in video playback of HD content and used the same if not less power. It's also the first 64bit mini-cpu with a TDP below 5w. And they have plans for a dual core 11mmx11mm chip for 2nd half of 2009!

Cost wise the Via is about 20% cheaper than the P-M as well and with 1 board controller instead of 2 you save on power, heat and cost again. Via Chips are used on Comcast HD set-top boxes (C3/C7-M ULV and have proven to give exceptional performance on HD streamed content- See iTunes Video model). All Via C7 cpu's are x86 compliant, Nano adds x64 along side x86 for a x86-64 dual compatible code and allows out of sync proccessing.

The ONLY way to accelerate AppleTV sales is to add a Tuner at the very least. PVR would be cool too.

Screens... Anything from Panasonic would be Best. But I think we'll see Apple partner with 3rd party companies to integrate AppleTV into the TV's themselves. Apple would supply the boards and HD's, TV companies would build these into the sets. So you would see 50" LCD 1080i TV's NOW with integrated AppleTV!

[Kendoka]

...it doesn't really make sense to equip a TV with computer components that would be so rapidly outdated,

Amen.
Thus there will be no TV from Apple.
And no Apple branded radio either.

[gugy]

it doesn't really make sense to equip a TV with computer components that would be so rapidly outdated, unless those components can be swapped out for faster and bigger networking and storage at a later date. And we all know how Apple can be as far as backward compatibility is concerned.

Very true, one more reason I don't like AIO things very much.

People tend to keep their tv sets for while. I had my Sony CRT 32" for 12 years before upgrading to a plasma flat panel from Pioneer. I have intention to keep this set for at least another 6 to 7 years. Why would I want a piece of tech that can be outdated in 2 years like AppleTV while my TV sets still delivering flawless picture?
I much rather buy every two years a new AppleTV stand alone box for $200 than upgrade my whole set. It just doesn't make sense IMHO.

[Wolfman]

The 160GB version is €399, the PS3 is €373. How is the ATV not overpriced?

In Europe, the AppleTV is surprisingly expensive. The 40GB version, which better compares to the PS3 costs $229 in the US. Probably because the content sales/rental market is so small compared to the US.
Unlike Sony, who sells the PS3 at a loss to receive large revenues from sales/royalties on high-margin games, Apple is in business to make money.

I hardly call that overpricing...

[Johnny Mozzarella]

What I want...
32" 720p HDTV + AppleTV + iSight HD + TimeCapsule(500GB)... $999
or
40" 1080p HDTV + AppleTV + iSight HD + TimeCapsule(1TB)... $1499

Apple should use Samsung LCDs and build in a Apple TV with a drive that can also be used for TimeMachine backups.
Put a iSight HD into the screen and allow it to be used for video conferencing.
The AppleTV should also integrate with the iPod Touch and iPhone.
AppleTV should stream whatever is on the screen to an iPod Touch or iPhone within the WiFi area.
Option to have caller ID info and TXT messages appear on the screen.
AppStore for AppleTV...extend the functionality of the AppleTV with additional apps and games.

[Johnny Mozzarella]

I still think that until very high speed broadband and WiMax have achieved greater acceptance in the US, it's too early to offer an all-in-one Apple HDTV. Also, it doesn't really make sense to equip a TV with computer components that would be so rapidly outdated, unless those components can be swapped out for faster and bigger networking and storage at a later date. And we all know how Apple can be as far as backward compatibility is concerned.

Apple has offered software updates for the iPhone, iPhod Touch, AppleTV and of course Macs that allow older units to not become obsolete quickly.

[bloggerblog]

The 160GB version is €399, the PS3 is €373. How is the ATV not overpriced?

As we all know XBox, PS3, and Wii sell at a loss, below manufacturing and distribution costs. They make their money from games and game developers.

ATV makes little to no money from YouTube, Podcasts, TV shows, and Movies. Add-up the hosting, infrastructure, bandwidth, and IT services and you're left with zilch if not -ve.

[IrishMac]

I wonder if the rumors about the 'Brick' have mistakenly referred to a laptop case production process. The 'Brick' could be a revamped Apple TV, take 3 so to speak. Pure speculation of course but then so is this article.

I think it would be safer for Apple to beef up the ATV than go into the HDTV market.

[Ireland]

I think the article clearly demonstrates why Apple should not venture on doing a HDTV.
Seriously there is no reason to ask Apple to put their brand on everything. I would love to see them back focusing on computers hardware and software than start spreading their brand all over the place and losing focus on what is important.

HDTV profit margins are very thin and manufactures are merging, outsourcing and cutting costs to stay afloat. Apple bringing their business to the HDTV market would not change the landscape much. Plus there is amazing technology already out there that brings fantastic picture quality to the current displays.

Apple needs to focus on their own AppleTV hardware first, make the product compelling to the mass market prior to entering the HDTV set segment. Right now AppleTV is even called by Steve Jobs a hobby. Unless they shift their strategy and make a a serious piece of hardware, why bother making a television.
That's the same opinion which said I think Apple is stupid to get in the music player business. Why they shouldn't make a phone etc. This is one train your not going to be able to stop, cause like phones, it's on their product roadmap. They already sell the content, and they want the living room. The Apple TV will be the box, but this will be the high-end option. They'll sell a few million of them in year one, at least. It will be worth it for them, as they'll be a higher profit margin than other guys. As they'll be a bit more pricy. And it will be an priceless brand-boost. Just you try and stop them.

[thompr]

A point that many overlook in retail is that TV's are not a cash cows anymore and deliver incredibly low margins.

You can say EXACTLY the same thing about cell phones prior to Apple's entry into the market. And now, the only reason the iPhone is making money is that it is subsidized via linkage to a service. What if Apple does the same thing with a "networked TV"? The services Apple can provide are becoming quite wide ranging, e.g. "Mobile Me", iTunes, On Demand Rentals, etc.

I don't expect this tomorrow, or anytime soon, but I wouldn't discount the possibility that Apple makes a MUCH stronger move into the digital home at some point in the future.

Thompson

[gugy]

:lol::lol:

Not trying to stop any train my friend.

Just using common sense to why this is not worth the risk at this point in time. Appleinsider offers a very good reason why is not a good idea. Instead you just present wishful thinking to back up your wishes. Bring the facts buddy.

If Apple makes an amazing HDTV that has better picture than Pioneer Kuro and on top of that offer out of this world tech and a comparable price tag, I will gladly sell mine and buy it and congratulate you. But I am not wasting time like you creating a thread every two months to try to make my dreams come true.:no:

[bwik]

40" Apple TV (black gloss)

Apple TV interface and boards

160GB or 320GB drive

Blu-Ray drive

1080p

Apple interface to correct the hopeless Comcast / DVD / DirecTV / VHS mess that my mom can't figure out: PRICELESS

For every nerd there's a mom who just wants to watch DVDs on an Apple TV that isn't so damn annoying and hard to use as today's setup, which is rapidly approaching helicopter-grade difficulty of operation.

[Ireland]

Not trying to stop any train my friend.

Just using common sense to why this is not worth the risk at this point in time. Appleinsider offers a very good reason why is not a good idea.

Actually I think Dan doesn't offer good reason at all. He compares this Apple Television product to an entry level, cheap, 30" HDTV. Apple will sell on striking hardware, ease-of-use, great "never-seen-before-on-a-TV" software, and seamless integration with the iTunes store, your computer(s), your network and your digital life. Heck, the bloody thing will have just one remote; FINALLY!!

This whole thing would obviously work better if Apple sold it alongside a new TV Show subscription service, but we'll see what happens there. It could even be subsidized if that was the case.

You'll pay more for this, but it will be a lifestyle product, and it would sell well, at a profit. I won't rub it in your face when they release this TV, but like I've been saying for a long time now, it's coming, it's just a question of when.

Apple doesn't compete on price, well not really - Daniel should know better.

[Virgil-TB2]

My point being, if Blu-Ray is a "niche" at 13% of DVD sales, then downloadable movie sales aren't even on the map. ...I never said anything about download-able movies, and your original comment that I replied to, was a defence of the sales figures for BluRay. I was pointing out the convoluted logic of your remarks and how they kind of don't make sense. ... And no one was giving away copies of Iron Man on Blu-Ray to fudge the numbers, as you seem to imply.I implied the possibility of that and reflected on the general inaccuracy of the kinds of numbers you were quoting.

You haven't actually refuted me on that either, you just made another hyperbolic statement about how "no-one" does (or did) that, whereas I at least pointed to historical examples of such practices being rampant. Mine was a speculative remark based on past practice and history, your reply was the rhetorical equivalent of "Oh Yeah?"

It seems at this point that my argument is better supported than yours.

[gugy]

I won't rub it in your face
.

You can rub it as much as you want. If the product is worth and outstanding, I am going to benefit from it too. So who cares.
Until then you are full of hot air. But you already confirmed that in the past yourself.

Also the folks of Appleinsider bring good reasons and back up my point of view. So, I guess I am in good company. ;)

[Ireland]

You can rub it as much as you want. If the product is worth and outstanding, I am going to benefit from it too. So who cares.
Until then you are full of hot air. But you already confirmed that in the past yourself.

Also the folks of Appleinsider bring good reasons and back up my point of view. So, I guess I have good company. ;)

All your smily faces tell me you do. And I don't need backing up. Whether the world disagrees with me or not, I have my own opinion.

[kaiser_soze]

This article is utterly useless, not so much because it contains no factual information, as because the conclusions for the prospects of Apple sucessfully marketing an HDTV with Apple TV built in are based on contrived, nonsensical logic.

The article assumes that the incremental cost of adding Apple TV functionality to an HDTV would be essentially the same as the standalone cost of the Apple TV product. In reality, that incremental cost is likely to be only a fraction of the cost of the standalone product. The article argues that it would make more sense for Apple to partner up with another TV manufacturer to incorporate Apple TV functionality into their TV. Such partnerships might make sense, but even if so, they would not constitute a valid argument against such a TV carring the Apple brand, which would offer several advantages in its own right. The article even argues that it would make more sense to sell the Apple TV as standalone accessories for other brands of TVs. That wouldn't accomplish anything at all, and it doesn't offer any cost savings as compared to Apple TV functionality being incorporated within the TV.

All in all, this article just does not make a whit of sense, and it seems more like something that some naive pundit would write as a contribution to this forum than an article that would be put out by AppleInsider. Virtually none of it is factually correct, and the conjecture is overtly lacking a semblence of logic.

[Ireland]

This article is utterly useless, not so much because it contains no factual information, as because the conclusions for the prospects of Apple sucessfully marketing an HDTV with Apple TV built in are based on contrived, nonsensical logic.

The article assumes that the incremental cost of adding Apple TV functionality to an HDTV would be essentially the same as the standalone cost of the Apple TV product. In reality, that incremental cost is likely to be only a fraction of the cost of the standalone product. The article argues that it would make more sense for Apple to partner up with another TV manufacturer to incorporate Apple TV functionality into their TV. Such partnerships might make sense, but even if so, they would not constitute a valid argument against such a TV carring the Apple brand, which would offer several advantages in its own right. The article even argues that it would make more sense to sell the Apple TV as standalone accessories for other brands of TVs. That wouldn't accomplish anything at all, and it doesn't offer any cost savings as compared to Apple TV functionality being incorporated within the TV.

All in all, this article just does not make a whit of sense, and it seems more like something that some naive pundit would write as a contribution to this forum than an article that would be put out by AppleInsider. Virtually none of it is factually correct, and the conjecture is overtly lacking a semblence of logic.

Essentially this is how I felt after I read it to, but never expressed it. Thanks for reading my mind, concisely.

[jfanning]

In Europe, the AppleTV is surprisingly expensive. The 40GB version, which better compares to the PS3 costs $229 in the US. Probably because the content sales/rental market is so small compared to the US.
Unlike Sony, who sells the PS3 at a loss to receive large revenues from sales/royalties on high-margin games, Apple is in business to make money.

I hardly call that overpricing...

Why would the 40GB ATV compare to the 80GB PS3?

The consumer does not care it Sony etc is selling the device at a loss, they just see the price, and I can't justify the price (of the 40GB or 160GB) ATV, since my PS3 does the functions of a ATV, plus a hell of a lot more for less money.

[gugy]

Whether the world disagrees with me or not, I have my own opinion.

That's totally fine, but it would be nice if you accept that many folks here have different opinions and views than you, instead you rather just joke about the ones who disagreed with.

Cheers man. Keep the good work.

[jfanning]

As we all know XBox, PS3, and Wii sell at a loss, below manufacturing and distribution costs. They make their money from games and game developers.

ATV makes little to no money from YouTube, Podcasts, TV shows, and Movies. Add-up the hosting, infrastructure, bandwidth, and IT services and you're left with zilch if not -ve.

So what you are saying is, Apple is selling a dead end product, and really should kill it now?

[Pachomius]

I imagine a day when you can carry around your iPhone as your PC and connect it to anything to get a better view of the screen. Connect it to a docking station with a monitor and a keyboard anywhere in the world and have your full PC at hand - heck, the iPhone already has more power than my PC id 6 or 7 years ago. It'll connect to the internet via AT&T and have all the other full desktop capabilities. I can imagine a world where my iPhone connects to my Apple HDTV wirelessly and I can use it to check and do everything while I watch my favorite TV show using PinP

Apple - please lead the way

[Ireland]

That's totally fine, but it would be nice if you accept that many folks here have different opinions and views than you, instead you rather just joke about the ones who disagreed with.

Cheers man. Keep the good work.

I don't joke, I disagree.

[Ireland]

I imagine a day when you can carry around your iPhone as your PC and connect it to anything to get a better view of the screen. Connect it to a docking station with a monitor and a keyboard anywhere in the world and have your full PC at hand - heck, the iPhone already has more power than my PC id 6 or 7 years ago. It'll connect to the internet via AT&T and have all the other full desktop capabilities. I can imagine a world where my iPhone connects to my Apple HDTV wirelessly and I can use it to check and do everything while I watch my favorite TV show using PinP

Apple - please lead the way

Sorry, why is the iPhone connecting to the TV did you say?

[gugy]

I don't joke, I disagree.

yeah, right...

[Ireland]

yeah, right...

I know, I agree.

[gugy]

thanks for the laugh. you are a good joker.

Cheers bro

[TenoBell]

The HDTV market is no different that computers.
.

I would agree with you - but that's exactly what many said about Apple entering the cell phone market. Given the success the iPhone has had, it wouldn't be all that crazy to enter the TV market. However, the time may not be right yet, especially given current economic issues. I am certain there is a strategy to do it when the time is right. My guess is that the AppleTV was really testing the waters and that the endgame is an HDTV with all its features.

I cannot see what Apple has done with computers or mobile phone can be compared to the TV. With computers and phones Apple built a unique and expandable platform with an customized OS and developer tools. There is no need for any of this with a television.

The only real differentiators with televisions are price and picture quality. The menu UI isn't that great on most TV's but I don't see why people would care that much about the menu UI to make an Apple TV successful.

[TenoBell]

My point being, if Blu-Ray is a "niche" at 13% of DVD sales, then downloadable movie sales aren't even on the map. And no one was giving away copies of Iron Man on Blu-Ray to fudge the numbers, as you seem to imply.

True enough downloadable video is in a fledgling state right now. But its future growth curve will be a lot better than Blu-ray's future sales.

In July Youtube recorded 5 billion downloads. In time this will translate into movies and television.

[TenoBell]

This article is utterly useless, not so much because it contains no factual information, as because the conclusions for the prospects of Apple sucessfully marketing an HDTV with Apple TV built in are based on contrived, nonsensical logic.

The article assumes that the incremental cost of adding Apple TV functionality to an HDTV would be essentially the same as the standalone cost of the Apple TV product. In reality, that incremental cost is likely to be only a fraction of the cost of the standalone product. The article argues that it would make more sense for Apple to partner up with another TV manufacturer to incorporate Apple TV functionality into their TV. Such partnerships might make sense, but even if so, they would not constitute a valid argument against such a TV carring the Apple brand, which would offer several advantages in its own right. The article even argues that it would make more sense to sell the Apple TV as standalone accessories for other brands of TVs. That wouldn't accomplish anything at all, and it doesn't offer any cost savings as compared to Apple TV functionality being incorporated within the TV.

All in all, this article just does not make a whit of sense, and it seems more like something that some naive pundit would write as a contribution to this forum than an article that would be put out by AppleInsider. Virtually none of it is factually correct, and the conjecture is overtly lacking a semblence of logic.

The potential problems of Apple making a TV are valid. The only reason I can see taking such a strong stance is because you want Apple to make a television. Even though its true televisions are a commodity market and their isn't much new or compelling Apple would have to offer.

[Johnny Mozzarella]

I think the article clearly demonstrates why Apple should not venture on doing a HDTV.
Seriously there is no reason to ask Apple to put their brand on everything. I would love to see them back focusing on computers hardware and software than start spreading their brand all over the place and losing focus on what is important.

HDTV profit margins are very thin and manufactures are merging, outsourcing and cutting costs to stay afloat. Apple bringing their business to the HDTV market would not change the landscape much. Plus there is amazing technology already out there that brings fantastic picture quality to the current displays.

Apple needs to focus on their own AppleTV hardware first, make the product compelling to the mass market prior to entering the HDTV set segment. Right now AppleTV is even called by Steve Jobs a hobby. Unless they shift their strategy and make a a serious piece of hardware, why bother making a television.

Mac = general purpose computer
MacBook = general purpose portable computer
iPod = entertainment specific portable computer
iPhone = communication specific portable computer
AppleTV = entertainment specific computer

Putting the screen into the Apple TV makes it a more integrated solution.
More and more devices are converging with the computer.
No company is better equipped to develop a modern "TV" than Apple.

[hittrj01]

As we all know XBox, PS3, and Wii sell at a loss, below manufacturing and distribution costs. They make their money from games and game developers.

ATV makes little to no money from YouTube, Podcasts, TV shows, and Movies. Add-up the hosting, infrastructure, bandwidth, and IT services and you're left with zilch if not -ve.

I know this is off-topic, but the Wii is sold at a profit, but is the only one of the three that is. It's not a large one, but it is sold above cost.

Back to the subject, I can see Apple doing well in the HDTV market. They would obviously not compete with the lower-end brands, but with the likes of Pioneer in the plasmas and Sony in the LCD's. Both have been able to distinguish themselves from competition, and I think Apple can do the same.

All the arguments people have of not being able to distinguish brands in the HDTV market is just as true in the cell phone market, or was, until Apple entered the fold. Apple has a way to make their products different, and I think making an HDTV with a removable hard drive for AppleTV and/or DVR functionality would be pretty cool.

Also, and this is a big point, let's not forget the power of the Apple logo. To this day, I still believe the iPhone would not have been as successful, even with all the revolutionary aspects of it, had it not had that little piece of fruit stamped on the back of it.

[TenoBell]

All the arguments people have of not being able to distinguish brands in the HDTV market is just as true in the cell phone market, or was, until Apple entered the fold. Apple has a way to make their products different, and I think making an HDTV with a removable hard drive for AppleTV and/or DVR functionality would be pretty cool.

Seeing that nearly all of the major computer manufacturers have attempted to combine computers and televisions. People for the most part have not been very receptive to this combination.

From what we've seen people don't want to deal with hardware and software on a television. They just want the television to be a television with as little effort from the user as possible.

[gugy]

[QUOTE=Johnny Mozzarella;1321907
No company is better equipped to develop a modern "TV" than Apple.[/QUOTE]

Johnny,

While I agreed somewhat with your statement above you have to take in consideration that the current state the HDTV market means very low profit margins.
Also most of manufactures offer great products right now, but they are still struggling to make it. Some are outsourcing, merging and re-structuring in order to survive.

My point is while Apple could make a sophisticate and nice HDTV, I don't think offering just a AppleTV built-in would be revolutionary and increase ten-fold sales of an HDTV set like they did with the iPhone.

Before Apple venture into making a television, they have to nail the AppleTV box into something that the consumer really wants and craves and see potential to buy it to utilize with iTunes store, etc. Once this product have mass appeal like the iPod, iPhone, etc, we might be able to see it expanding their presence into things like in a tv set.

The current displays out there are great in terms of picture quality. The UI and the way people interact and how they get content is the frontier Apple should go after, bring their easy to use approach and challenge the norm. They can do that with the stand alone AppleTV box and I hope they will do.

my 2 cents.

[hittrj01]

Seeing that nearly all of the major computer manufacturers have attempted to combine computers and televisions. People for the most part have not been very receptive to this combination.

From what we've seen people don't want to deal with hardware and software on a television. They just want the television to be a television with as little effort from the user as possible.

I'm not saying that a computer and television combo would be wise, but I have the confidence that if Apple ever did make an HDTV, they would do it right. I agree with you that making a television as hassle-free as possible is the ideal way to do it, but hasn't that been Apple's goal with everything they've made, to make it as hassle-free as possible? Combining an AppleTV/DVR with your HDTV would cut out potentially two more devices and cables, would cut down on the headaches of people having to set up even more things and make sure everything is connected right, and would give Apple the edge that they seem to create in every other market. A lot of people didn't think they needed or wanted a phone that could get on the internet (among other things) until Apple came around and did it right. I'm not saying it's as easy with televisions, but Apple's track record of making new, innovative, and desirable products is hard to ignore, and I believe they could be able to do it in a market that is saturated, but not nearly as much as cell phones are.

[mdriftmeyer]

Apple will not start selling HD monitors. That's a commodity market, already saturated by companies with WAY more experience and focus than Apple. Takes up LOTs of warehouse space which Apple doesn't have in its retail chain.
They REALLY will not start selling Monitors with AppleTVs built in.
The market for all-in-one TVs with built-in everything died years ago, and I don't see anyone who wants to have their digital technology (DVR, DVD, etc) tied to their monitor. Even cable-cards have died a quiet death.

marginal market.

[Cory Bauer]

I never said anything about download-able movies, and your original comment that I replied to, was a defence of the sales figures for BluRay. I was pointing out the convoluted logic of your remarks and how they kind of don't make sense. I implied the possibility of that and reflected on the general inaccuracy of the kinds of numbers you were quoting.

You haven't actually refuted me on that either, you just made another hyperbolic statement about how "no-one" does (or did) that, whereas I at least pointed to historical examples of such practices being rampant. Mine was a speculative remark based on past practice and history, your reply was the rhetorical equivalent of "Oh Yeah?"

It seems at this point that my argument is better supported than yours.
I provided links to back up my claims, while you have provided nothing to support your belief that those claims are inaccurate, beyond your insistence that they could be and thusly should be disregarded entirely. Show me a link that refutes Blu-Ray's share of DVD sales, or a story about truckloads of Iron Man Blu-Ray's being distributed freely. Please.

Insisting that the numbers are rigged doesn't make it so; you need proof. And saying that one time some other movie was given away is not proof.

[Wolfman]

Why would the 40GB ATV compare to the 80GB PS3?

The consumer does not care it Sony etc is selling the device at a loss, they just see the price, and I can't justify the price (of the 40GB or 160GB) ATV, since my PS3 does the functions of a ATV, plus a hell of a lot more for less money.

I don't think we spoke about price justification; we discussed overpricing.
Sounds like your argument is solely based on the expectation that Apple should sell at a loss so that you can feel it's right-priced.

If you are buying a PS3 only for BD movies, you are getting a great product and nobody argues that point.
If you are using it for gaming as well as most people do, you are paying a whole lot more for your PS3, you just don't seem to know it.

There typically is no free lunch in retail...

[GregAlexander]

AppleTV provides nominal support for 1080i. Since the output resolution is offered, it is supported and the statement is correct.

AppleTV doesn't have a display where you could apply the phrase "native resolution", any content that doesn't match the selected output resolution will be scaled.

There are 3 issues here
1) the maximum quality video that the AppleTV can play (720p25)
2a) the maximum output resolution sent to the TV (1080i60)
2b) the input the TVs can accept (usually up to 1080i60 on plasma)
3) the native resolution of the TV screen (usually 480p, 720p, or 1080p)

On the AppleTV - people confuse 1 & 2a. The AppleTV can not play a 1080 movie, it's not capable of it.

Likewise, on TVs people have confused 2b & 3. Plasmas were advertising themselves as 1080i even if they were only 480p TVs. Fortunately TV makers have been forced to make the true resolution clear. The give away phrase is "1080i" on a Plasma - Plasmas can NOT be be natively "interlaced".... so if it says 1080i it's just the input accepted.

Um, this is exactly backwards. 1080i59.94 provides "smoother image quality in fast-moving sports programming", while 720p29.97 (etc.), being half the field rate (or less) but around twice the vertical resolution per frame, is better suited to provide a "sharper picture in low-motion still shots".

No he was right. The 1080i60 replaces half the lines every 1/60th of a second, which can work great on a regular old cathode ray tube. But a plasma screen can't show just 1/60th of the lines, so when half the lines are replaced it has to continue showing the other half of the lines which come from a picture 1/60th of a second ago. If the picture hasn't moved much, those other lines fit almost perfectly. But in fast motion scenes they don't, and you get a weird series of horizontal lines where the picture is moving (called the 'combing' effect).

So 720p30 would refresh less often than 1080i60, but each picture would be very clear (clearer than the higher resolution 1080 with combing effects). Of course when it's broadcast at 720p60 the frame rate is matched.

Oh, 2 other sources of confusion
1) when 1080i refreshes HALF the lines 60 times a second, most times that's referred to as 1080i60. But every now and then I see an article that calls that 1080i30... due to measuring whole frames rather than every second line (aka fields).

2) when it comes to movies, it's a 24 frame movie that is then converted into 1080i60... but it's done in a way so that TVs can easily convert it back to 1080p24. So for movies, the interlaced vs progressive differences disappear, as do the 60 frames a second. It's 720p24 vs 1080p24... and easy to say which is better.

Are you claiming that a 1280x720 picture has a higher vertical resolution than 1920x1080?
A lot of TVs simply halve the resolution for fast moving TV scenes. Some estimate which sections of the picture are moving fast and halve that part of the picture's resolution, while for the still sections they combine the previous field. There are several ways of converting interlaced to show on plasma/lcd screens - and the latest technology for estimating every 2nd line is really impressive.

The reason why some claim that 720p is better than 1080i for sports is because there are sometimes increased compression artifacts in 1080i due to the higher bandwidth required ... and/or [edit] the better frame rate with 720p60.

No... mainly it's the combing effects. Remember also that 1080i60 broadcasts the same number of pixels as 720p60 (though progressive compresses a little better). 720p30 has half as many pixels of course since it has half the frames - but since MPEG4 compression encodes what has changed since the last frame, each frame in 720p30 has changed more than when there are twice as many frames.

It's not at all simple this stuff.

Oh another factor to make things more confusing :)
3) the latest compression schemes are starting to put LESS effort into the fast moving scenes and MORE into the still sections, which goes against what's been done for years. The theory is that you can't tell how good the quality is in fast moving sections anyway, so make the still sections look STUNNING and people will rate the whole picture as better quality. This is kinda similar to what better 1080p Plasmas already do with 1080i as I described above. Of course, if you pause a fast scene you'll see that the detail isn't there... but the comparisons of paused fast motion scenes miss the point of this compression.
(I have to say I haven't watched this type of compression knowingly. I did once watch a 4Mbps 720p24 film of people walking in a snow storm and it was terrible, it couldn't handle all the detail of the snow... it would have looked far better if they'd dropped the resolution to 320p24 for those scenes!)

[GregAlexander]

This surprises me, as the one thing that really stands out to me is that the Apple TV is grossly overpriced for what it does. If this is true, they really need to figure out a way to make them less expensive to build.

Hmmm... yes and no. At a glance it is expensive, but if you line up all the HD options it starts to fit quite well.

The "for what it does" comment is the most important bit. I don't have a large sample - but people I know who think the AppleTV isn't worth it have been incredibly surprised at 'what it does' once they use it for a short while. And I think half the critics would be silenced if Apple just supported divx files.

WHAT! Name a cheaper media extender? For $229 you get 802.11n, 100BASE-T (wish it was 1000BASE-T), 40GB HDD, 1GHz Intel CPU, 256MB DDR2 RAM, Nvidia 7300, HDMI 1.3, Component, analog and optical audio. You can also buy and rent audio and video right from the device which makes it very convenient.

Yeah, for it's hardware it's well priced. But above what many people want to pay.

I wonder if the rumors about the 'Brick' have mistakenly referred to a laptop case production process. The 'Brick' could be a revamped Apple TV, take 3 so to speak. Pure speculation of course but then so is this article.

I think it would be safer for Apple to beef up the ATV than go into the HDTV market.

Yeah, that would be nice. The rumours of the graphics chips going into the latest iPhones showed that Apple's partners already produce portable graphics chips that can natively output HDTV to TVs.

What if Apple uses the iPhone as the basis for the next AppleTV?
ie: the iPhone ARM cpu, a better graphics decoder, and the iPhone OS - of course no touch screen, no battery, and may as well use a desktop hard disk. I'm reasonably sure they could pull it off - would it save money though?


If I were Apple...

AppleTV upgrade to Via C7 Nano 2.0ghz running OS X. This would give them the SSE3/4 codes and smooth scaling HD Content even in 1080i/p resolution. It also reduces the power cunsumption from the Pentium M by 2/3rds. Reduced heat and 1 board controller chip would reduce costs as well as increase speed and reduce room in the box itself. Via's Padlock encryption could easily be used for Apple OS X as well. C7 Nano is NOT available outside of prototypes yet but in testing compared to the Intel Atom 330 (dual core 1.6ghz) it outperformed it 4:1 in video playback of HD content and used the same if not less power. It's also the first 64bit mini-cpu with a TDP below 5w. And they have plans for a dual core 11mmx11mm chip for 2nd half of 2009!

Something like that is also worth considering.

The ONLY way to accelerate AppleTV sales is to add a Tuner at the very least. PVR would be cool too.

Screens... Anything from Panasonic would be Best. But I think we'll see Apple partner with 3rd party companies to integrate AppleTV into the TV's themselves. Apple would supply the boards and HD's, TV companies would build these into the sets. So you would see 50" LCD 1080i TV's NOW with integrated AppleTV!

It's not the only way :)
Apple could simply add AVI/DivX playback to the ATV and a lot of people would be more interested. Nice up-sell to HDTV purchases too, but I suspect the show producers wouldn't see it that way.

Or perhaps they could partner with TiVo... use the AppleTV to watch shows recorded on a TiVo somewhere else in your house.

Or they could work as a "virtual PVR"... choose what you want to 'record', Apple records it centrally for you, and downloads it to your AppleTV.

The only real differentiators with televisions are price and picture quality. The menu UI isn't that great on most TV's but I don't see why people would care that much about the menu UI to make an Apple TV successful.

The only current differentiators are price and picture quality. But that's the point isn't it? - can Apple create a 3rd differentiator that NO-ONE else has even considered? If Apple creates an interaction method that makes the TV easier to use it'd be appealing to some people. A basic example, I'd say 1/3 of plasma screens are set to the wrong aspect ratio (all shots are stretched). There's room for something there - though yeah I'm not sure whether it's enough room for Apple to play in. Perhaps there's value where Apple can merge the regular TV experience with online options.

I do think that an Integrated AppleTV+screen is likely to have the appleTV technology outdated far earlier than the screen itself, the value of integration would depend on the extra cost up front and future upgrade options.

[chriskeo]

I can see Apple doing well in the HDTV market. They would obviously not compete with the lower-end brands, but with the likes of Pioneer in the plasmas and Sony in the LCD's. Both have been able to distinguish themselves from competition, and I think Apple can do the same.

Last time I checked, Apple doesn't exactly compete with the Dell computers that sell for $349, so even in computers they can't compete with everyone

[greglo]

I know this is off-topic, but the Wii is sold at a profit, but is the only one of the three that is. It's not a large one, but it is sold above cost.

Considering the Wii has been on the market for nearly 2 years with no price cuts (correct?), the profits line would be pretty substantial...

And FYI, the 360 has been making dough for quite awhile now; perhaps not after the recent price drops, but even then the loss would be tiny, and I'd still be surprised if it was any.

Quick google: http://www.techspot.com/news/23612-microsoft-makes-tiny-profit-on-xbox-360-hardware.html

Even after just 1 year on the market the manufacturing cost had dropped nearly 40%, bringing them $70+ profit at a retail price of $399. Add another 2 years of manufacturing, and retailing at $299, I imagine the profit is still double digits.

[Cory Bauer]

True enough downloadable video is in a fledgling state right now. But its future growth curve will be a lot better than Blu-ray's future sales.
Not if the internet providers have anything to do with it; Comcast is currently implementing 250GB caps, and other providers are expected to follow suit. That's only enough bandwidth for six Blu-Ray-quality movies. I rent no less than eight a month from Netflix.

[hittrj01]

Last time I checked, Apple doesn't exactly compete with the Dell computers that sell for $349, so even in computers they can't compete with everyone

If you had read my earlier post, I had said that they would be competing with the Pioneers and the Sony's of the TV world. I never said they would compete with everybody, just like the iPhone doesn't, but that they would be able to differentiate themselves and be successful. Not in the lower bracket, but in the high-end market (read: profitable market)

[hittrj01]

Considering the Wii has been on the market for nearly 2 years with no price cuts (correct?), the profits line would be pretty substantial...

And FYI, the 360 has been making dough for quite awhile now; perhaps not after the recent price drops, but even then the loss would be tiny, and I'd still be surprised if it was any.

Quick google: http://www.techspot.com/news/23612-microsoft-makes-tiny-profit-on-xbox-360-hardware.html

Even after just 1 year on the market the manufacturing cost had dropped nearly 40%, bringing them $70+ profit at a retail price of $399. Add another 2 years of manufacturing, and retailing at $299, I imagine the profit is still double digits.

You are correct, and I stand corrected. It was my mistake to look at information about launch days for each system instead of considering the current market. At the time of each system's launch, the Wii was the only one being sold above cost, but you are correct, that has drastically changed as component pricing has gone down. My mistake.

[solipsism]

And FYI, the 360 has been making dough for quite awhile now

The word is they are no longer losing money per unit sale, but they are still in the hole by several billion.

[TenoBell]

Not if the internet providers have anything to do with it; Comcast is currently implementing 250GB caps, and other providers are expected to follow suit. That's only enough bandwidth for six Blu-Ray-quality movies. I rent no less than eight a month from Netflix.

I think those who like Blu-ray hope this will be the case.

[jfanning]

I don't think we spoke about price justification; we discussed overpricing.
Sounds like your argument is solely based on the expectation that Apple should sell at a loss so that you can feel it's right-priced.

If you are buying a PS3 only for BD movies, you are getting a great product and nobody argues that point.
If you are using it for gaming as well as most people do, you are paying a whole lot more for your PS3, you just don't seem to know it.

There typically is no free lunch in retail...

OK, since my PS3 will do everything that the ATV will do (play videos, play music, stream music/videos off network, purchase videos), plus play games, plus play BD movies, and DVD's, and CD's, and will work as a DVR in some countries. And since the price is in the middle of the two ATV models, it is a lot better deal than a ATV. Regardless if Sony is selling it at a loss, I don't care, I know that I paid a certain price for it, and I was happy at that price.

I look at the ATV, see the price Apple is charging for it, do I think about buying a ATV? No, I would rather get a second PS3.

As for paying a whole lot more? That is crazy talk, you have to buy games for any platform, the PS3 has region code games, I can buy them from any country I like, and I don't pay retail prices for them.

[GregAlexander]

I look at the ATV, see the price Apple is charging for it, do I think about buying a ATV? No, I would rather get a second PS3.

There's something to be said for making your money off other aspects - Sony makes its money from the games. Apple dropped the AppleTV price as soon as they released movie rentals in the US iirc. They did the same in Australia about 9 months later. I assume they still make some money on it, but shuffled where their priorities were.

Perhaps Apple will make enough money from apps and movies to lower the cost.... or maybe they can sell the AppleTV at the current price and give away $200 worth of rentals (or half price rentals for a year, up to $200 value... etc). It's not a way Apple seems to work normally though.

[caliminius]

If anything, Apple's best bet may be to work out a deal to bundle Apple TV units with the HDTVs sold by manufacturers, or else striking deals with partners such as Best Buy to sell the unit as an accessory with the new HDTV units it sells.

I really can't imagine ANY electronics retailer partnering with Apple to bundle AppleTV's with HDTV's instead of a Blu-Ray player like they currently are doing. Selling a Blu-Ray player means they may get more business from that customer when they come back to buy movies for the player. The AppleTV is a dead end revenue wise for retailers unless Apple is going to give them a cut of iTunes movie sales.

[Wolfman]

OK, since my PS3 will do everything that the ATV will do (play videos, play music, stream music/videos off network, purchase videos), plus play games, plus play BD movies, and DVD's, and CD's, and will work as a DVR in some countries. And since the price is in the middle of the two ATV models, it is a lot better deal than a ATV. Regardless if Sony is selling it at a loss, I don't care, I know that I paid a certain price for it, and I was happy at that price.

I look at the ATV, see the price Apple is charging for it, do I think about buying a ATV? No, I would rather get a second PS3.

As for paying a whole lot more? That is crazy talk, you have to buy games for any platform, the PS3 has region code games, I can buy them from any country I like, and I don't pay retail prices for them.

Crazy talk? If you buy games for the PS3 you have paid Sony again, no matter how you slice it. In fact you and the game developer has... This is wether you pay retail or not. You can ignore that of course but should consider it in your price comparisons.

Same as indirect taxes; just because they aren't broken out doesn't mean they don't exit...

Btw. I do have a PS3 from the day it was launched and love it for BD movies & games. The remaining media UI is rather sad and unintuitive. I use AppleTV for that.

[bloggerblog]

So what you are saying is, Apple is selling a dead end product, and really should kill it now?

How did you deduce that? The ATV has massive potential.

[w00master]

As we all know XBox, PS3, and Wii sell at a loss, below manufacturing and distribution costs. They make their money from games and game developers.

ATV makes little to no money from YouTube, Podcasts, TV shows, and Movies. Add-up the hosting, infrastructure, bandwidth, and IT services and you're left with zilch if not -ve.

For Nintendo, this is simply never been true. All of Nintendo's consoles have *never* sold at a loss for the company. It's a clear difference in philosophy over Sony & Microsoft.

However, Microsoft for the first time (earlier this year) posted a profit for the XBox 360 division. At this point (based on manufacturing/etc), I highly doubt MS is selling the 360 at a loss.

[Alfiejr]

Until Apple comes up with an AppleTV that is a genuine hit there is no credibility to the notion it will start selling premium HDTV's with one built in. it would be a total flop.

and everyone agrees the AppleTV needs to do more than it does to become a real hit.

but there is no consensus at all about what that "more" should be. witness the many posts here.

my own pitch, which is rarely mentioned anyplace, is that it should become a "mirror" for using an iPhone/iPod touch wirelessly on the sofa, duplicating on your TV screen what you see and control on the your iPhone/touch. all the apps, games, surfing, media, etc. now that would be really something new and exciting.

[solipsism]

Until Apple comes up with an AppleTV that is a genuine hit there is no credibility to the notion it will start selling premium HDTV's with one built in. it would be a total flop.
I don't understand why one would want it built in. The only possible conveniece it the use of having one remote to rule them all, but that can be done in other ways. Like using a USB port connected to any number of vendor TVs or all types and sizes to relay info to the AppleTV that will then send the appropriate audio and video signaling.

[Pachomius]

Sorry, why is the iPhone connecting to the TV did you say?

a remote, etc.

[jfanning]

Crazy talk? If you buy games for the PS3 you have paid Sony again, no matter how you slice it. In fact you and the game developer has... This is wether you pay retail or not. You can ignore that of course but should consider it in your price comparisons.


No matter what you buy someone is getting money from it.

Apple is selling items to be placed on the ATV, they should be making some bit of money from this, so you can't make the comparision to Sony on that one.

There is no reason for the ATV to be so expensive, except for the fact it has an Apple logo on top


Btw. I do have a PS3 from the day it was launched and love it for BD movies & games. The remaining media UI is rather sad and unintuitive. I use AppleTV for that.

Is that right? I find the PS3 will play back media from my uPNP NAS a whole heap better than an ATV will

[jfanning]

How did you deduce that? The ATV has massive potential.

Because you said...

"ATV makes little to no money from YouTube, Podcasts, TV shows, and Movies. Add-up the hosting, infrastructure, bandwidth, and IT services and you're left with zilch if not -ve."

Apple is in this game to make money, if they cannot make money from the device then why sell them.

[Ireland]

a remote, etc.

What's etc.? What other reasons would you need, considering the UI is on the TV.

[GregAlexander]

The MacBook announcement is interesting for the AppleTV.
At present, the AppleTV has an older Intel chip with a separate GPU.
(The Mac Mini has a modern Intel chip with built-in GPU).

I imagine that the next AppleTV could easily use the same NVIDIA GPU and stick with the older Intel CPU. The 9400M GPU can handle 1080p... so maybe this is the direction we'll see next year? Or is the chip too expensive for the aTV?

Another alternative (as I said earlier) is that we see the AppleTV based on iPhone's ARM chip and a bump up on the iPhones GPU (the same GPU family as the iPhone uses now can also handle HDTV at the high end).
(I presume the iPhone's ARM processor can not work in tandem with the NVIDEA 9400M, which has a chipset designed for Intel chips... but I'm not sure about other NVIDEA options.)

[solipsism]

The MacBook announcement is interesting for the AppleTV.
At present, the AppleTV has an older Intel chip with a separate GPU.
(The Mac Mini has a modern Intel chip with built-in GPU).

I imagine that the next AppleTV could easily use the same NVIDIA GPU and stick with the older Intel CPU. The 9400M GPU can handle 1080p... so maybe this is the direction we'll see next year? Or is the chip too expensive for the aTV?

Another alternative (as I said earlier) is that we see the AppleTV based on iPhone's ARM chip and a bump up on the iPhones GPU (the same GPU family as the iPhone uses now can also handle HDTV at the high end).
(I presume the iPhone's ARM processor can not work in tandem with the NVIDEA 9400M, which has a chipset designed for Intel chips... but I'm not sure about other NVIDEA options.)

That is a good question, but Intel GMA X4500HD can also do 1080p. We know Apple likes to use as much of the same HW as possible, but the AppleTV is the odd man out, and I'm not sure that the media extender needs the extra power of the 9400M, what the cost difference is, or if Apple even cares to make the AppleTV support 1080p natively when they don't offer 1080p videos in the iTS.

The iMac was updated this past April with a special Santa Rosa/Penryn package with Montevina aspects. Will Apple do a silent iMac update for the holidays or wait until MacWorld? I think it's the latter for the iMac, as well as all other Mac desktops. I think the Mac Mini will get a complete revamping, too, going more green, but won't see a price difference. Will the Mac Pro get Nehelam (at least to showcase the high end model) later this year or will we have to wait for MacWorld? Again, I think we'll have to wait until MacWorld.

[460FILMS]

Regarding the 1080p delivery argument over PS3 and BD players, note that at this time, there is almost ZERO content (aside from certain CG-generated console game content) that is actually ACQUIRED (photographed and recorded) in 1080p. As mentioned by AppleInsider previously, ABC and Fox currently acquire and broadcast in 720p, using 720p-native cameras (or 1080i cameras, utilizing a subsequent 720p downconvert). CBS and NBC acquire their HD content with (mostly) 1080i cameras, and broadcast it in 1080i. Except for certain specialized digital cinema camera systems (and P2-based Panasonic ENG/EFP cameras), 1080p acquisition is not employed in current TV production, and therefore, virtually no on-air programming has been ACQUIRED in 1080p. In digital motion picture production, however, this is quickly changing.

[Corey]

I would not be at all surprised to find Apple selling TV's. They now have the store fronts, they can insert the AppleTV into them, and they can market the first mass produced TV with a 6 button remote.

[Ireland]

I would not be at all surprised to find Apple selling TV's. They now have the store fronts, they can insert the AppleTV into them, and they can market the first mass produced TV with a 6 button remote.

That's the idea! I don't buy this economic downturn bull. If this device, is simple enough, cool enough, powerful enough and integrates like magic with your devices and the internet; people will save to buy one. If Apple made a TV there's no doubt in my mind it would be a hit!

It would be sexy, networked, and run a variant of OS X like the Apple TV box. Why wouldn't you buy!? Seriously.

[walshbj]

...If Apple made a TV there's no doubt in my mind it would be a hit!



Is there really any doubt that sooner or later we'll see a tv? I bet they're sifting through the hacked Apple TV stuff and deciding what to include right now. Even while we're sleeping.