New cloud-based Apple TV to cost $99, run on iPhone OS 4 - Page 5

And that's what I'm waiting for. I can't see it being a huge hit, regardless of the price, without some kind of new content deal. But if they have say a subscription deal, then wow.....

Like I said, it's naive to think he wasn't, proving it in court would be another thing.

And I think it's quite a leap to say that his entire tenure was an effort at IP thievery. I see it very simply. Google and Apple got together when they had convergent interests: Google apps helping make the iPhone more capable. They fell apart when they realized that they had diverging interests: Google realized that Apple's goal wasn't getting an internet portal into every single hand possible, but to make money selling those internet portals (which naturally meant they weren't going to make the technology as acccessible as it could be).

Regardless, when it comes to the topic at hand, again, what did Google copy that wasn't blatantly obvious to them? It's not like slapping a basic OS and browser and a search widget on to a cable box, is some absolutely off-the-wall concept....especially for a company that specializes in internet search. Haven't you ever flicked through your cable box menu and thought, "I wish I could easily search for that show?" I know I have. Those cable box UIs are so out of date and unfriendly. So Google's implementation of search on a cable box (and really that's what Google TV boils down to) would seem pretty obvious to me. Anybody who's spent more than five minutes searching through a cable box menu would have the same idea. I am willing to bet that the whole thing could well have been one of those 10% ideas from one of their employees.

Wonder what Google is gonna do when all the products that were discussed at the Apple Board after he left start hitting the market. Guess they'll still copy them, but they'll come to market years rather than months after.

I don't think the big battle is for anyone to win or lose. In the old days, you wanted to buy a movie it was DVD. Now there is DVD, Blu-ray, iTunes, YouTube, Netflix and a bunch of others. We are all just going to have to live with a huge array of options for the living room.

I have streamed 1080p video from my home server to other computers on the network whilst simultaneously copying around large amounts of data with no problems whatsoever. I will mention I'm not using wifi (for devices that don't move ethernet is a better choice) but this is still merely fast ethernet not giga-ethernet.

Once you get the content onto your home network streaming it between your devices shouldn't be a problem. Having a HDD in the AppleTV seems a waste to me.

But I don't like this model. I don't want to have to have two machines running to do the job of one.

Maury

Don't think of it as separate PC, think of it as an accessory device to extend your PC and the internet to your TV at minimal cost and effort.

If this is what Apple does (which seems reasonable on all counts) and it doesn't vibe with your particular needs then you don't have to buy it, can run a cable from your PC to your TV so you only have the one "machine" or choose a different service.

Not interested. Apple just wants to sell us movies. It doesn't actually want to help make our media lives make sense. Something like the Boxee Box is actually much close to what I'm looking for:

Streams movies on any server in your house.
Views photos live from any server in your house.
Plays music from any server in your house including iTunes libraries.
Plays all internet content.
Plays Netflix streaming movies.

Now THAT's a media integration platform worth getting excited about. A new piece of hardware to sell me overpriced movies from the iTunes store? Notsomuch.

To digitalclips and the original poster: PLEASE take some photos of your old gear like this and upload it to the Wiki Commons. We need to save these little bits and pieces for posterity.

Maury

Yeah, but I can hear my PC when it's on. Kinda kills the mood in the quiet parts.

Maury

I just hope Apple learned more about what Eric Schmidt and Google thinks than he learned about what Apple thinks.

On a different track, I wonder what Steve Jobs is learning about content and TV over on Disney's board, and how that is playing into AppleTV. There was news this week that Disney is looking to sell ABC TV, which Disney officially denied.

Maybe they will do what Apple did, copy cable TV's video-on-demand service. List of movies, plays when user selects the movie.

Much good discussion going on in this thread. And I think str1f3 (and maybe others in this thread) may have hit on a key point - advertising.

We know Apple is rethinking the AppleTV concept as it hasn’t been as successful as they thought it could be. So what might they be thinking? They're definitely thinking it needs to be cheaper, so what can be removed to make the AppleTV cheaper? And/or how can the AppleTV be monetized in other ways so that content providers get paid and it's priced at a level consumers are willing to pay?

So just some speculating off the top of my head, just tossing it out there to see where it leads:

1. Replace the AppleTV hard drive with a much smaller and cheaper flash drive.
Most people don't watch the same things over and over so they wind up having to constantly manage their local video storage. If the broadband WAN is fast enough for 720p downloads, it's easier to let the content be stored in the cloud ("one" copy at iTunes pointed at by your purchase receipt), or if one wants to pay extra for local storage to gain quicker playback startup time, somewhere in the LAN. (BTW, 1080p streams will cause people to exceed monthly caps on their broadband plans.)

2. Replace the Intel chip with the cheaper in-house A4 chip.
TVs are mostly used to watch TV/movies and to play games. Using the A4 chip and iPhone OS will allow iPhone Apps to be used on the TV. The main purpose is to allow for multi-player gaming using all of Apple's mobile devices. And provide additional monetization through apps and iAds in apps. Of course, all Apps will be available, but given the lackluster reception to widgets (even for Facebook and Twitter) provided by Verizon FIOS/Comcast/etc, I'm not sure the other Apps will matter all that much.

3. Add content subscription plans, partially or wholly subsidized with interactive advertising via iAds.
Content providers can't get enough revenue via sales of downloaded content so that they are willing to upset the cable providers or hurt the DVD revenue stream. That's why they aren't eager to make their content available on a timely basis. Yet subscriptions also don't provide enough revenue or have to be priced beyond what consumers are willing to pay. The solution is to add more parties to the transaction: advertisers. People seem willing to trade off watching ads for paying less. So, AppleTV will provide on-demand streamed content with targeted interactive ads (iAd). (Remember the Apple patent requiring one to watch the ad before you can continue... )

Could this be where Apple is headed? Any other ideas?

Seconded



Get a new PC?

I quite like Popcorn Hour. It has its flaws but you can get it for cheap and put in your own 3.5" HDD.

No one but you has written that, but that he might have done other more positive things does not excuse unethical behavior.

Apple did not build its computer business by licensing its OS to Dell and HP.

Apple did not build its MP3 player business by licensing its UI to Archos and Sony.

Apple did not build its mobile phone business by licensing its OS to Motorola and Samsung.

Why would Apple ditch a successful and replicable business model and start licensing to set-top box manufacturers and cable systems? They wouldn't; they're going to compete with those guys. Apple doesn't want you to use Apple TV to navigate your Comcast service; they want you to DITCH your Comcast service and use theirs instead.

As far as the idea of this new ATV being used for a game console, imagine Apple creating official apps for the iphone and ipad for various game controller configs. D pad, 2 sticks and 6 or 8 buttons. One on the iPad might be more like an arcade stick (the size matches the idea too) or maybe they have one that looks like an Arkanoid controller or a ball for Centipede style games. People link their phones, ipods and ipads with the ATV and it auto loads your default controller config.

No idea if this version of ATV will actually happen or not, but it's an interesting idea and fits with Apple's current direction.

An Apple TV content subscription model will only work if it's comprehensive. People won't pay $15 a month for Apple TV content that's also available on their cable; but they might pay $75 a month if Apple TV takes the place of their their cable.

The content companies -- NBCU, Disney/ABC, WB, Viacom, CBS, etc. -- will only play with Apple on a subscription plan if the new revenue looks to meet or exceed the lost revenue, i.e., if they money they get from Apple's subscription makes up for what they lose with cable fees based on fewer subscribers and advertising revenue based on lower ratings.

A decent share of Apple's subscription plan revenue plus the revenue from individually targeted advertising has the potential to make one viewer significantly more profitable on Apple's subscription plan than on a local cable system.

Will completely fail because there is no tactile feedback. You do not want to take your eyes of the TV to look at the iPhone to find the Fire or Jump button.

1. You didn't quote the part of my post where I said I wouldn't dump my cable plan for an Apple TV subscription plan unless it included live content, and I specifically said live sports, news and special events.

2. Comcast has a monopoly on cable (in some markets) but not on broadband. They're not the only game in town. Plus, cable companies operate under local franchise agreements. If Comcast overreaches on broadband pricing, some markets may decide to go to a municipal utility model for broadband and lease the lines back to cable companies for content only.

But if you look at computers and smartphones, Microsoft was able to overtake Apple by licensing their software for others to use and Android is catching the iPhone again by licensing their software for others to use.

GoogleTV is not that far away. By licensing GoogleTV to multiple manufacturers it makes it much easier for Google to sneak it into your home. You didn't intend to buy GoogleTV but your cable box or TV or Blu-ray player had it included.

Many people didn't understand the benefits of AppleTV. People here still complain about the lack of certain features (no DVR functionality etc which is kind of missing the point). Hopefully a $99 price point will make it easier for people to take the plunge and get an AppleTV. But don't ignore the threat from GoogleTV. It is a serious rival and does have an advantage using multiple hardware partners.

For high quality (BD level) you would need a stable 45 mbit connection. For broadcast cable HD quality, you would need 15-20 mbit. For low quality highly compressed 1080p (Xbox Live level) that would cost you around 10mbit. Current 720p iTunes streams are 5mbit, but to be frank, they look mostly awful.

Hopefully Apple will have multiple levels of quality so those with good connections can get a blu-ray quality stream, with lossless audio too. 1080p at a high bitrate is only half the story, it's essential to have DTS Master or Dolby True HD too.

Your constant stream of comments accusing Google of "stealing" certainly lean towards that kind of blanket mentality.

I am still curious about what you think Google "stole" from Apple, specifically when it comes to Google TV.

The Xbox Live Zune video marketplace has been streaming 1080p for a long time now. Plays virtually instantly and I've never had any spluttering or network issues. Quality is decent but obviously light years away from blu-ray.

As for blu-ray being dead, don't be so silly. It's just getting started. Even if a streaming service could match blu-ray quality (and so far, none have come anywhere near) there are still other huge advantages to BD, such as competition in the marketplace, the ability to lend/resell discs, hour upon hour of extras, and the ability for those with less than great connections to watch high end video.

I'm probably more into streaming than most, but there are big issues for streaming to overcome before it can rival BD, and I can't imagine them being solved for a decade or more. BD is here to stay.

GoogleTV's top engineer was the former CTO of OpenTV, a company that does middleware for cable TV and satellite. He left for Google in 2006. So maybe the TV thing didn't come from Apple?

Not sure what BDs you've been watching but I watch a LOT of them and it's very rare to see the bit-rate ever drop below 35mbits (except when the screen is just displaying credits etc). A lot of BDs sustain 45mbits for lengthy periods. Plus don't forget BD's high end audio will gobble up another 3-5mbits too.

I'd love to see someone offer a truly high quality streaming solution, but very few people would be able to take advantage of it.

I have never said Apple should license its software. That's what Google is doing. And I did point out the differences in the two approaches. Google is trying to do two things. They are trying to tie the web to TV for obvious reasons. Their other effort is aimed at changing the current stale cable box UI, which I think everybody can agree is crap. I personally think, they saw the trouble Apple went through with Apple TV and the content creators and decided to go a different route (ie.working with TV and cable box makers).

As for Apple's approach. We'll see how it goes. They couldn't pull it off last time. I can't see what's changed this time around on the big issue: content. The better form factor will be nice. The lower price will definitely be nice. Apps are nice too. But will it change the TV landscape? Without content that people want (ie. the latest shows at the same time as cable subscribers) probably not.

He probably wouldn't excuse himself from those meetings because he wouldn't want to divulge Google's secret plans for Android. Remember, Schmidt was on the board before Android came out. I have to assume he skimmed Apple for their future plans and let Google in on them. I think Schmidt is a sh*t.

Google TV and Apple TV are two completely different animals. The only they have in common is the final implement: the TV. So I am willing to bet that there's absolutely no relation and no advantage to any TV efforts Apple has been undertaking.

As it stands, based on what we know so far, I could see a lot of people getting both. For example, I'd rent a Google TV cable box from my cable company. And I'd get Apple TV so I can stream content from my Mac and maybe play a few games and use some Apps. Till Apple gets a content deal with content creators, that's actually competitive with cable, it's highly unlikely most of us would get rid of our cable boxes. And if you're keeping a cable box, then why not make it a Google TV box?

ummm...probably? If he didn't excuse himself, him and Google could have faced significant liability. He can't just not excuse himself because he would have given away Google's intentions. If he did that, you can bet that Apple would have sued. Have you ever known Steve to not be in a litigious mood?

Anyway, the point is moot. It's known that he did excuse himself. And the fact that Apple hasn't sued, certainly should indicate that Apple doesn't have a shred of evidence that he did anything wrong (which if he did sit in a meeting discussing the iPhone, they most certainly would have had). Aside from that, Schmidt joined the board in 2006. Google acquired Android in 2005. Do you really think that his fellow board members didn't know he was involved with a company that was developing a mobile operating system? Do you think they would have sat there and just let him sit through any meeting he wanted fully aware that Google was developing Android?

Not in the least of which is bandwidth caps. If you are streaming 1080p all the time, there's a much higher risk of busting the cap.

Eh, you'll learn the layout like any other and then its muscle memory. People said the onscreen keyboard for the iphone would suck and that was obviously wrong.

True, and I really feel sorry for those in Australia who have to deal some of the worst caps in the world.

I'm lucky as my current connection (50mbit cable) is uncapped, but of course, that could change at any point.

At $99 and I already had two 2TB Time Capsules since Christmas! But hold up everyone the one detail that most people are overlooking is that if it's iPhone OS and it will be running Apps from the App Store then that means Safari, Mail, Calendar, Pages, Keynote, Numbers and Contacts will be running on your 1080p LCD and or LED Flat-screen TV for ONLY $99 with addition of a $69 Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard and $69 Magic Mouse. This is great!

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4052/...473a225d_b.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4001/...e3e4e455_b.jpg

If it wasn't for the DRM on TV shows and Movies purchased through iTunes (which I blame on the movie studios not Apple) you'd be able to stream video directly from your Mac to your GoogleTV device and not bother with an AppleTV at all. At the Google I/O conference recently they showed off streaming music from iTunes to Android phones. Doing the same for non-DRM restricted video is pretty easy.

There is a lot of focus on content, but I think Apps are the really exciting part. For example Amazon could create GoogleTV and AppleTV apps. Now you can watch Amazon Video On Demand. ABC could create AppleTV and GoogleTV apps just like they have an iPad app. Now you have ABC without requiring cable and can pause/rewind episodes without needing a DVR. GoogleTV and AppleTV might appear to be completely different animals but add in a few apps and they quickly become very similar and also very powerful.

But with the iPhone screen you are looking at the same screen you are typing on. With the AppleTV you want to focus on the TV screen not at the controller.

Imagine trying to type on an iPhone or iPad without looking at the device. You will make mistakes. Traditional keyboards have tactile feedback: the edges of the keys, the ridges on the F and J keys. This enables you to type without looking at the keyboard. An iPhone does not provide this feedback so would make a poor controller for the AppleTV.

In addition, having to learn the layout and rely on muscle memory is not an Apple way of doing things. Apple makes user interfaces that are intuitive to use.

Read the article we're commenting on. It hasn't been that long since he left the board.

They are an unprincipled company with unprincipled principals.

Good stuff. People are also forgetting the CPU component here. As far as I can tell, the A4 is absolutely not up to the challenge of streaming 1080p. It can barely handle 720p--remember the iPhone and iPad don't use true 720p, they are using a version of 720p that has a much lower bitrate and is therefore faster to decode (not to mention smaller). My 2 year old MacBook Pro can mostly keep up with rue 1080p @ 40Mb/s but even now and then it hiccups when playing a high bitrate H264 file. The A4 is literally half the processor of my Core 2 Duo too; single core and clocked at half the speed. (My MacBook can't do H264 decode in GPU, so it's actually a good test of CPU performance).

Then of course you have to have CPU power left over to process network packets; my iMac can handle around 40Mb/s with the CPU averaging 3-5%. I don't think an A4 would fare so well, though I don't have hard numbers on iPad network throughput.

Remember, the A4 is a PoP (Package on Package) and SoC (System on Chip) also contains the RAM and PowerVR SGX 535 GPU with also contains a PowerVR VXD375 for video decoding of high-profile 1080p video.

VXD390 is capable of decoding full high-definition H.264 L4.2 (1080P60) and can decode multiple streams simultaneously to fully meet Blu-ray and other multi stream decode requirements.

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http://www.imgtec.com/news/Release/index.asp?NewsID=494 While that is the 390, not the 375, I wouldn't expect there to be much difference between these Imagination products. The one in the A4 seems to be only available to Apple. Even if it can't do Blu-ray full resolution high-profile H.264 @ 60fps like the 390 it will surely do 1080p for all the content that you'll find on any legitimate download site, so yes, it is "up to the challenge".

What you might be looking at is Apple's spec sheet for the iPad or iPhone 3GS and thinking, "if it works then why don't they allow it". There are many reasons for that but for a portable device that is trying to conserve as much battery life as possible, not pointlessly allowing 1080p on a device that obviously can't benefit from 1080p on the device is silly. In contract, the TV will be plugged in and therefore not need to conserve power. Even at full tilt it will use a lot power than the current Pentium M-based TV uses with it's nearly complete version of Mac OS X "Tiger" running on it.