AppleTV better get it together...FAST!
Link to story... from the people who brought you TiVo! 
I've agreed with this point of view from the first announcement of AppleTV. Steve needs to get it right soon, or AppleTV will face obsolescence quickly... or Apple will have to pay a pretty penny to buy the competition if they can get it right the first time.
Quote:
Quote from the article:
The people at Vudu seem particularly wary of Apple TV: they have bought two to test. But they are betting that movie downloads will ultimately be free from an awkward dependence on the computer, and they think that this could happen sooner than anyone else expects.
Quote from the article:
The people at Vudu seem particularly wary of Apple TV: they have bought two to test. But they are betting that movie downloads will ultimately be free from an awkward dependence on the computer, and they think that this could happen sooner than anyone else expects.
I've agreed with this point of view from the first announcement of AppleTV. Steve needs to get it right soon, or AppleTV will face obsolescence quickly... or Apple will have to pay a pretty penny to buy the competition if they can get it right the first time.
Comments
Thanks for the link SS. I'm left with a few doubts that this company is doing everything with the apparent ease that the artical implies, however small and nimble startups can move very quickly, where as, although Apple are small and somewhat nimble, they are practically huge and hence slow in comparison to Vudu.
But of course the Apple TV is pretty upgradable, and I'm sure could be opened up to the same sort of "instant on film selection" file sharing model that is currently being employed in the Vudu box.
Who wants to carry around movies when you could just leave them on the Apple TV?
Synching should go the other way. From ATV to the computer/ ipod
Apple TV needs to be able to download movies directly and independently from any computer.
Who wants to carry around movies when you could just leave them on the Apple TV?
Synching should go the other way. From ATV to the computer/ ipod
I bet this is what we will see in future updates, maybe when they upgrade the hard drive/movie quality. Also, when Apple moves to higher quality downloads it would be cool if AppleTV handled the encoding to an iPod format so that only the smaller movie get synced to the host computer.
1. Instant on movies.
2. No computer required.
Out of the two features one of them is going to dissapear. There are already strings in the Apple TV OS which clearly point to Apple TV direction connections to the iTunes store.
The instant on stuff I believe is being worked at by Apple. P2P networking is nice and I've suggested in the past that Apple and other companies simply use swarm technology to speed up the traffic. With Akamai's big pipes and a little secret sauce I would doubt that Apple is simply going to sit around and deal with slow downloads. SD downloads aren't a huge issue. They can be buffered a bit and then played. HD movies are going to be another story. I wouldn't be surprised to see HD movie downloads coming this year or early next year with some good features. I believe Apple TV will be updated to a Leopard OS X core as well.
The Elephant in the room is this negative bit of info.
? But its peer network can be run so cheaply, he says, that it needs to have only modest success selling its box, which should retail for around $300. (A final price has not yet been set.) The company can also someday add television shows, music and video games to its service.
If you don't launch with Photo, TV, and Music support Vudu you are simply not going to get the traction you want against the larger companies. The Apple TV will play games as well soon (more strings about games are being found)
There's going to have to be another Magic Bullet for Vudu to play David to Apple's Goliath here.
From this article I see two advantages of Vudu over Apple TV
1. Instant on movies.
2. No computer required.
And it has access to 5000 movies compared to Apple's pathetic 500.
If you don't launch with Photo, TV, and Music support Vudu you are simply not going to get the traction you want against the larger companies. The Apple TV will play games as well soon (more strings about games are being found)
I'm not sure about photo and music support, I don't know anyone who plays music or watches photos via their TV. TV shows on the other hand I would say were a necessity so yeah without that, I could see them at a big disadvantage.
The biggest flaw I see in it is how do you backup your purchased content? Hard drives are not reliable and they are not that big for movie storage. Now if they do it the way Steam does for games where you buy once and you can download as many times, then it makes it slightly better but I still like to know my data is backed up to DVD.
And it has access to 5000 movies compared to Apple's pathetic 500...
...The biggest flaw I see in it is how do you backup your purchased content? Hard drives are not reliable and they are not that big for movie storage. Now if they do it the way Steam does for games where you buy once and you can download as many times, then it makes it slightly better but I still like to know my data is backed up to DVD.
That's why subscriptions make more sense, and the box could even be offered for free under the right model. If I want to own a movie, I am definitely not buying an iTunes movie. It's Best Buy or Amazon.com for me.
I'm not concerned about the amount of movie tracks. If some company that hasn't even shipped a product yet has access to 5000 movies then conventional wisdom suggests that Apple will have equal access to said movies.
I don't see the new paradigm here. If a consumer wants to have a STB that playsback movies quickly it's already available with VoD options from Cable Co and that benefit doesn't cost you $300.
Clearly there's probably some stuff that hasn't been divuldged yet but from what I'm seeing, there's not enough groundbreaking stuff here. The article started out strong, whetting my apetite, but when the meal came it looked like the same ole casserole.
Clearly there's probably some stuff that hasn't been divuldged yet but from what I'm seeing, there's not enough groundbreaking stuff here. The article started out strong, whetting my apetite, but when the meal came it looked like the same ole casserole.
... and I HATE CASSEROLE!