Apple upgrades Apple TV to 'beloved hobby' as sales doubled to over 5M in fiscal 2012
During its conference call for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2012, Apple announced that Apple TV sales hit five million units by the end of the fiscal year, prompting CEO Tim Cook to call the product a "beloved hobby."
The increase in sales represents a near doubling of the 2.8 million Apple TVs sold over the course of 2011, and growth is looking fairly stable going into the holiday shopping season.
For its fourth fiscal quarter of 2012, Apple announced that it sold 1.3 million Apple TVs, a 100 percent increase from the year-ago quarter. The number is identical to the device's performance in the June quarter, which also saw 1.3 million unit sales, representing a 170 percent increase from the same period in 2011.
After a hardware refresh in March, the $99 media streamer gained the ability to output 1080p video, making the small device an enticing option for customers who didn't already own a legacy version.
While the so-called "hobby" is reaching new heights with an ever-expanding audience, Apple is rumored to be working on a derivation of the Apple TV which may come in the form of a set-top cable box with cloud-based content storage, or an advanced universal remote. The purported device is not expected to debut anytime soon, however, as analysts speculate a 2013 launch.
Comments
Apple TV is the best example of why Apple products are great. It is limited in what it can do, but it does what it does perfectly. You're under no illusions about what you're buying.
I think that's really what makes their design philosophy so strong. Microsoft are keen to have the Surface do everything - it will be a tablet and a PC (if you attach a keyboard to it) and it will do neither especially well. The iPad however is 100% tablet and it does that really well. That it can do some stuff you would normally do on a PC is merely an interesting side effect - Apples aim was to make the tablet be perfect as a tablet.
The Apple TV is the same.
I love my Apple TV.
Apple TV is good enough to be a major reason I stay in the Apple ecosystem, I have it and a Roku hooked up to my home theater projector.
The remote app for iOS devices is genius, Airplay and mirroring from iOS & OSX PC's is flipping awesome.
The Roku is great, but it requires a reboot every day or so after it freezes up.
Just picked up a 2nd one for the bedroom.
Wow..5M!! Pretty darn good for a hobby!
Adobe TV, BBC, all coming shortly (guessing/hoping). As an avid user, the WSJ videos (apart from the crap repeating adverts and crap motion graphics) is a convenient ondemand news source and hopefully a taste of whats to come. (the live feed of the 23rd event, pixelated often which was a bit disconcerting assuming apple where experimenting)
Seriously though, why can't there be an Apple TV app for iPads! I mean literally identical to Apple TV's interface, for when away from home.
I use iTunes Match now since iOS 6 on all devices so not sure.
I like roku, but it's better than the roku by a mile in terms of usability through apple products, streaming quality, and UI.
Hbo, show time, amazon instant video, and a music streamer like pandora would take the Apple TV to the next level- and they don't have to do a thing (just allow it).
The Apple TV is a good example of how Apple improve their products over time. At the beginning, I had connection problems , and I was unable to find the origin (may be firewall problems). Now it is almost perfect. I think Apple identified long ago that mastering home wireless communication was the key to their future offering. With 802.11 n, we shall get incredible connection speed, which will be the basis for future products ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by PaulMJohnson
Apple TV is the best example of why Apple products are great. It is limited in what it can do, but it does what it does perfectly. You're under no illusions about what you're buying.
And yet I suspect that Apple would rather not have those limits. But they don't hold the power, the studios and networks and the Execs with their heads still up their butts about digital distribution do.
Once Apple can get the Studios to really play ball then the Apple TV won't be a hobby. It will be a key piece of the ecosystem and it will be worth it to Apple to really do some push on it. Perhaps at that point they might think about that 'real' TV or at least a Cinema Display that could be a TV as well. They might even try to get digital 3d files (at least perhaps the passive style that Pixar etc uses) into the store. and so on