It's interesting that the Apple TV was likened to Apple's capture of the digital music market.
Using this logic, we can then call the Apple TV the iPod for digital video-- and we all therein see the problem: price (or lack of features/value). Apple TV is sold for the same price as the first generation iPod was way back in 01... and the device doesn't fucking do anything.
If there isn't a deluge of major enhancements (and let's face it, UI overhaul), it would seem prudent for Apple to discontinue the product.
For $279 someone can buy an Xbox 360 and use Connect360 to stream and play (since the Dec 4 360 update) more formats than the AppleTV can support.
No one will cop to Apple's 600% markup on a device that doesn't do anything useful.
That being said I am in a very small minority and most persons dont even know you can get HD/Digital broadcasts over-the-air.
Can you now?!
I live some 23 short miles away from NYC and I can't get a single freakin signal! If I can't get a good (nee ANY) HD signal when I'm only 23 miles outside of NYC then that certainly says ALOT about the current status of HD broadcast antennas....
Imagine the US government effectively FORCED me into paying for cable if I want to stay informed about any emergency broadcasts.
Oh and before someone says radio... Unless I'm mistaken they have a roadmap to do away with anal. radio too...
A tuner is not going to happen. Why in the world would apple do that, while trying to secure contract extensions to video sales on iTS? Why would I purchase Lost, when I can PVR it? A tuner in this is an automatic death sentence to video sales. We all know it because that's why we want it. It just isn't realistic from a business perspective.
I can see A blu-ray player integrated, as well as support for playing downloadable HD content (720p/1080i, just to be a happy medium between quality and bandwidth limitations) but I just don't see a tuner happening without bargaining with different carriers and for Cable it's way more fragmented and varied than the Cell phone situation. It would be a nightmare, not to mention useless for anyone outside of the usage area (like say, Canada, UK, France...) and I thought the idea was to appeal to more people, not alienate more. If they kept all the features it has now, plus add the graphic power (read: remove limitations against) HD content as well as play Blu-Ray+DVD+DIVIX... THEN this would be killer. It's a realistic package that would get sales to double easily.
I'm really hoping that my current AppleTV will be software-updated to add new features. I bought it when it came out partly because there was an implication that since it was just an OS X box, it could be updated easily. If all the new one adds is BluRay, I don't care, but if significant new features (like renting etc.) are reserved for the new hardware model, I'll be ticked off.
I live some 23 short miles away from NYC and I can't get a single freakin signal! If I can't get a good HD signal when I'm only 23 miles outside of NYC then that certainly says ALOT about the current status of HD broadcast antennas....
Imagine the US government effectively FORCED me into paying for cable if I want to stay informed about any emergency broadcasts.
Oh and before someone says radio... Unless I'm mistaken they have a roadmap to do away with anal. radio too...
Freakin crock!
Dave
roof top antenna? if not, install one, and ditch the POS indoor antennas.
Also (more to the point) most stations are running their ATSC feed on a secondary broadcast antenna, so the ATSC broadcast is getting much much lower power than the NTSC broadcast. Locally here in Philly i know the affiliates are waiting until the 2009 NTSC turn-off date, then they will switch the ATSC feeds right over to the big towers.
What possible benefit would there be to Apple adding a Blu-Ray player? They're in the business of selling digital downloads. Blu-Ray is the competition.
Considering how poorly Blu-Ray is selling, (it may be trouncing HD-DVD, but overall sales have sucked), adding it to Apple TV would only make it at least $400 more expensive. I doubt there are more than a handful of people who would pay the $700 for an Apple TV, even if it had Blu-Ray.
Most of what the Apple TV needs can be added in software. The only hardware I want to see added is the ability to hook up external Hard Drives directly to it, and maybe a way to get a bluetooth keyboard to it, if they decide to put some sort of Safari on it. Though, again, I can't see people surfing the web much on the TV.
Add a way to purchase and rent directly on the device, and Apple TV will continue to outsell all of its competition.
AGREE! DVD is dead ... HD-DVD is dead ... gotta be blu-ray! But I also agree... I doubt it!
DVDs are still fine for me. If I'm anything like the majority of Americans, we're waiting for the price of HDTVs (all varieties) to drop further before buying. Blu-Ray has little interest for me now, they are simply too expensive (the players and the media).
Having said that, I think it's coming to do or die time for AppleTV. They need to vastly improve it, or drop it.
A tuner? I doubt it. Which makes me discount the rest of this story.
As for Sony, I was surprised to see them called the enemy. And I think it's only a matter of months until Universal comes back.
If Sony wants to be the enemy, let them. They're history with memory sticks and the rumors about TransferJet make me less likely to buy anything they put out. Not to mention their attempt to add ANOTHER standard to digital music...
Yeah - Apple did that too. But they were the ones who got digital music off the ground, so I'll give them some slack.
I'd consider an Apple TV with a Blu-ray player. But like another poster said, I want to get boxes off the stack, I don't want to add another one.
Ideally, I'd like to ditch cable/satellite for iTunes. If the Apple TV would stream news shows from the Internet I'd have done it already.
Update: Just saw this at Infinite Loop. "Something in the Air" - makes me wonder about a tuner. But I'd still have to say no way.
I live some 23 short miles away from NYC and I can't get a single freakin signal! If I can't get a good (nee ANY) HD signal when I'm only 23 miles outside of NYC then that certainly says ALOT about the current status of HD broadcast antennas....
For every analog signal I can pull in, I can get its digital counterpart with Elgato's little HD stick, and the digital signal is usually better. But I'm "only" 15 miles away from the edge of a ~#50 metro area.
If you want emergency notices, I suggest signing up for the Emergency Email Network instead, you can get notices by email, pager and I think SMS.
For every analog signal I can pull in, I can get its digital counterpart with Elgato's little HD stick, and the digital signal is usually better. But I'm "only" 15 miles away from the edge of a ~#50 metro area.
Jeff DM - I live a mile from downtown and the tall buildings. Most of the HD towers are about 6-12 miles away. I tried an OTA antenna for my Directv box. I had to aim the indoor antenna precisely to get results. Do you think I'd do better with Elgato? If so - I'd buy one in a heartbeat.
There is no way this thing would have a Blu-Ray drive. If it does have one, then it's going to be later in the year before this new Apple TV is released.
Apple adding "any" optical drive to the Apple TV is wishful thinking at best. They're goal isn't to replace your DVD with a new DVD capable player but leverage iTunes content for media.
Blu-ray is out of the question. The cheapest player is $350. The Apple TV needs to be as low as $199 to hit the numbers Apple needs. I expect a new player with a more consolidated chipset and larger storage options with a new Leopard based OS and support for sharing between ATV. So you can watch a show in the living room and decide you want to stop it and resume in the bedroom.
Buying directly from ATV will probably come as well.
I and nobody in my area gets digital OTA signals... they simply do not make it to here... mountain maybe? I dunno but all I do know is without a 200' tower I simply will not get any signal (acording to CEDA antenna-website..
Sony and Universal -- both fierce Apple rivals -- are unlikely to back the initiative.
This is an incredibly short-sighted (not to mention just plain stupid) position on the part of Sony and Universal. Apple is NOT a rival. They're a MARKET. Their position is analogous to say, Frito-Lay saying they're not going to sell their chips at Safeway because Safeway is a rival. Of course that would be stupid. Safeway is a major market for snack chips and other food, just as the iTunes Store is a major market for music, video and other media.
Competition is a good thing, and I'm glad to see other media markets, such as the TiVo / Amazon Unbox market coming on strong, but the content providers need to embrace the iTunes Store as a market and not get into this ridiculous notion of seeing them as a 'rival'. It's bad for the content providers, and it's bad for us (consumers). It won't have much of an impact on Apple, as their hardware business largely shields them from the ups and downs of the media market business.
Jeff DM - I live a mile from downtown and the tall buildings. Most of the HD towers are about 6-12 miles away. I tried an OTA antenna for my Directv box. I had to aim the indoor antenna precisely to get results. Do you think I'd do better with Elgato? If so - I'd buy one in a heartbeat.
you want to get a *real* antenna - find the right channelmaster for you.
The PS3 (a well selling BR player) is selling at 399 here in canada. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple and Sony partnered together to give blu-Ray an iPod-like shot in the arm, especially if it looks favorably to entice Sony movie downloads into the iTS eco-system. If this was the case I can see sony taking a hit on the drive to supply them to Apple. People want to get in on the ground floor of the next iPod-like item, just like AT&T did, with the iPhone. If Intel and apple could put aside differences for common business good, I sure SOny can do the same since they have just as much to gain.
I'm a little more agreeable to the idea of getting an AppleTV, but how soon depends on cost and feature upgrades. I'm most interested in having something that shows my photos, but that alone isn't quite enough for me.
i have "heard'" from someone i know that apple will be bringing elgato on stage. they are opening up the apple tv usb port for elgato usb tuners. o apple don't get bogged down with that market and let elgato deal with it.
not sure if this is for current apple tv's with a software upgrade or a new model.
Here's a thought that would get me to buy one... include an HDMI input on the AppleTV and push your cable boxes (or TiVo or whatever)'s output through the AppleTV. While I understand HDMI has some copy restrictions that may prevent this type of passthrough or relay, I would hope that Apple has enough industry connections to make it work.
With this kind of setup - one would not need to bother switching TV inputs when they want to use the Apple TV... at the press of a button AppleTV would "take over" the screen (much like FrontRow does on the desktop)... or put the Cablebox's output in some kind of PIP window. Another option would have the Cablebox's output darkened a bit - with a dashboard style layer of widgets overlayed. Another choice would allow for a Safari layer to take over the screen... maybe again putting the Cablebox's output into a PIP window or a split screen. An option to scale the CableBox's feed to say, 80 to 90% of the screen with a widget boarder of custom icons alerting you to weather changes... new emails... etc. and a family bulletin board "home screen" (showing the calendar, weather, to-dos, etc.) would be killer as well.
Include instructions for programming the extra buttons on the CableCo's remote to control the AppleTV... and I think you've got a winning solution (for me).
Here's a thought that would get me to buy one... include an HDMI input on the AppleTV and push your cable boxes (or TiVo or whatever)'s output through the AppleTV. While I understand HDMI has some copy restrictions that may prevent this type of passthrough or relay, I would hope that Apple has enough industry connections to make it work.
I said this when AppleTV 1st came out.. many people dismissed it and said "WE HAVE PLENTY OF HDMI" - yea well in my universe most sets come with 3
Comments
Using this logic, we can then call the Apple TV the iPod for digital video-- and we all therein see the problem: price (or lack of features/value). Apple TV is sold for the same price as the first generation iPod was way back in 01... and the device doesn't fucking do anything.
If there isn't a deluge of major enhancements (and let's face it, UI overhaul), it would seem prudent for Apple to discontinue the product.
For $279 someone can buy an Xbox 360 and use Connect360 to stream and play (since the Dec 4 360 update) more formats than the AppleTV can support.
No one will cop to Apple's 600% markup on a device that doesn't do anything useful.
That being said I am in a very small minority and most persons dont even know you can get HD/Digital broadcasts over-the-air.
Can you now?!
I live some 23 short miles away from NYC and I can't get a single freakin signal! If I can't get a good (nee ANY) HD signal when I'm only 23 miles outside of NYC then that certainly says ALOT about the current status of HD broadcast antennas....
Imagine the US government effectively FORCED me into paying for cable if I want to stay informed about any emergency broadcasts.
Oh and before someone says radio... Unless I'm mistaken they have a roadmap to do away with anal. radio too...
Freakin crock!
Dave
I can see A blu-ray player integrated, as well as support for playing downloadable HD content (720p/1080i, just to be a happy medium between quality and bandwidth limitations) but I just don't see a tuner happening without bargaining with different carriers and for Cable it's way more fragmented and varied than the Cell phone situation. It would be a nightmare, not to mention useless for anyone outside of the usage area (like say, Canada, UK, France...) and I thought the idea was to appeal to more people, not alienate more. If they kept all the features it has now, plus add the graphic power (read: remove limitations against) HD content as well as play Blu-Ray+DVD+DIVIX... THEN this would be killer. It's a realistic package that would get sales to double easily.
Can you now?!
I live some 23 short miles away from NYC and I can't get a single freakin signal! If I can't get a good HD signal when I'm only 23 miles outside of NYC then that certainly says ALOT about the current status of HD broadcast antennas....
Imagine the US government effectively FORCED me into paying for cable if I want to stay informed about any emergency broadcasts.
Oh and before someone says radio... Unless I'm mistaken they have a roadmap to do away with anal. radio too...
Freakin crock!
Dave
roof top antenna? if not, install one, and ditch the POS indoor antennas.
Also (more to the point) most stations are running their ATSC feed on a secondary broadcast antenna, so the ATSC broadcast is getting much much lower power than the NTSC broadcast. Locally here in Philly i know the affiliates are waiting until the 2009 NTSC turn-off date, then they will switch the ATSC feeds right over to the big towers.
Considering how poorly Blu-Ray is selling, (it may be trouncing HD-DVD, but overall sales have sucked), adding it to Apple TV would only make it at least $400 more expensive. I doubt there are more than a handful of people who would pay the $700 for an Apple TV, even if it had Blu-Ray.
Most of what the Apple TV needs can be added in software. The only hardware I want to see added is the ability to hook up external Hard Drives directly to it, and maybe a way to get a bluetooth keyboard to it, if they decide to put some sort of Safari on it. Though, again, I can't see people surfing the web much on the TV.
Add a way to purchase and rent directly on the device, and Apple TV will continue to outsell all of its competition.
AGREE! DVD is dead ... HD-DVD is dead ... gotta be blu-ray! But I also agree... I doubt it!
DVDs are still fine for me. If I'm anything like the majority of Americans, we're waiting for the price of HDTVs (all varieties) to drop further before buying. Blu-Ray has little interest for me now, they are simply too expensive (the players and the media).
Having said that, I think it's coming to do or die time for AppleTV. They need to vastly improve it, or drop it.
As for Sony, I was surprised to see them called the enemy. And I think it's only a matter of months until Universal comes back.
If Sony wants to be the enemy, let them. They're history with memory sticks and the rumors about TransferJet make me less likely to buy anything they put out. Not to mention their attempt to add ANOTHER standard to digital music...
Yeah - Apple did that too. But they were the ones who got digital music off the ground, so I'll give them some slack.
I'd consider an Apple TV with a Blu-ray player. But like another poster said, I want to get boxes off the stack, I don't want to add another one.
Ideally, I'd like to ditch cable/satellite for iTunes. If the Apple TV would stream news shows from the Internet I'd have done it already.
Update: Just saw this at Infinite Loop. "Something in the Air" - makes me wonder about a tuner. But I'd still have to say no way.
http://arstechnica.com/journals/appl...moscone-center
Can you now?!
I live some 23 short miles away from NYC and I can't get a single freakin signal! If I can't get a good (nee ANY) HD signal when I'm only 23 miles outside of NYC then that certainly says ALOT about the current status of HD broadcast antennas....
For every analog signal I can pull in, I can get its digital counterpart with Elgato's little HD stick, and the digital signal is usually better. But I'm "only" 15 miles away from the edge of a ~#50 metro area.
If you want emergency notices, I suggest signing up for the Emergency Email Network instead, you can get notices by email, pager and I think SMS.
http://www.emergencyemailnetwork.com/
For every analog signal I can pull in, I can get its digital counterpart with Elgato's little HD stick, and the digital signal is usually better. But I'm "only" 15 miles away from the edge of a ~#50 metro area.
Jeff DM - I live a mile from downtown and the tall buildings. Most of the HD towers are about 6-12 miles away. I tried an OTA antenna for my Directv box. I had to aim the indoor antenna precisely to get results. Do you think I'd do better with Elgato? If so - I'd buy one in a heartbeat.
Blu-ray is out of the question. The cheapest player is $350. The Apple TV needs to be as low as $199 to hit the numbers Apple needs. I expect a new player with a more consolidated chipset and larger storage options with a new Leopard based OS and support for sharing between ATV. So you can watch a show in the living room and decide you want to stop it and resume in the bedroom.
Buying directly from ATV will probably come as well.
I and nobody in my area gets digital OTA signals... they simply do not make it to here... mountain maybe? I dunno but all I do know is without a 200' tower I simply will not get any signal (acording to CEDA antenna-website..
Dave
Sony and Universal -- both fierce Apple rivals -- are unlikely to back the initiative.
This is an incredibly short-sighted (not to mention just plain stupid) position on the part of Sony and Universal. Apple is NOT a rival. They're a MARKET. Their position is analogous to say, Frito-Lay saying they're not going to sell their chips at Safeway because Safeway is a rival. Of course that would be stupid. Safeway is a major market for snack chips and other food, just as the iTunes Store is a major market for music, video and other media.
Competition is a good thing, and I'm glad to see other media markets, such as the TiVo / Amazon Unbox market coming on strong, but the content providers need to embrace the iTunes Store as a market and not get into this ridiculous notion of seeing them as a 'rival'. It's bad for the content providers, and it's bad for us (consumers). It won't have much of an impact on Apple, as their hardware business largely shields them from the ups and downs of the media market business.
Jeff DM - I live a mile from downtown and the tall buildings. Most of the HD towers are about 6-12 miles away. I tried an OTA antenna for my Directv box. I had to aim the indoor antenna precisely to get results. Do you think I'd do better with Elgato? If so - I'd buy one in a heartbeat.
you want to get a *real* antenna - find the right channelmaster for you.
http://tinyurl.com/2bjkc3
not sure if this is for current apple tv's with a software upgrade or a new model.
With this kind of setup - one would not need to bother switching TV inputs when they want to use the Apple TV... at the press of a button AppleTV would "take over" the screen (much like FrontRow does on the desktop)... or put the Cablebox's output in some kind of PIP window. Another option would have the Cablebox's output darkened a bit - with a dashboard style layer of widgets overlayed. Another choice would allow for a Safari layer to take over the screen... maybe again putting the Cablebox's output into a PIP window or a split screen. An option to scale the CableBox's feed to say, 80 to 90% of the screen with a widget boarder of custom icons alerting you to weather changes... new emails... etc. and a family bulletin board "home screen" (showing the calendar, weather, to-dos, etc.) would be killer as well.
Include instructions for programming the extra buttons on the CableCo's remote to control the AppleTV... and I think you've got a winning solution (for me).
Here's a thought that would get me to buy one... include an HDMI input on the AppleTV and push your cable boxes (or TiVo or whatever)'s output through the AppleTV. While I understand HDMI has some copy restrictions that may prevent this type of passthrough or relay, I would hope that Apple has enough industry connections to make it work.
I said this when AppleTV 1st came out.. many people dismissed it and said "WE HAVE PLENTY OF HDMI" - yea well in my universe most sets come with 3
1 for cable box
1 for dvd
1 for game system
Leaves Apples device out in the cold!
Dave