Apple TV gains YouTube support, 160GB option
Apple CEO Steve Jobs took to the 
All Things Digital conference stage with surprise news that his company's media hub would soon grab YouTube clips -- and unveiled a hard drive upgrade behind the scenes.
During his interview with the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg at the fifth annual D event, Jobs revealed that a software upgrade to the Apple TV would give access to YouTube videos through its Internet connection, demonstrating the function through a segment of "America's Got Talent."
Unlike the computer experience, however, owners wouldn't access the clips directly; instead, clips would be added manually by a team that hosts the videos in an Apple TV-ready form. YouTube account holders could then login to their accounts from the hub and either browse individual categories or search for themselves using only the Apple Remote.
Image quality, however, wasn't set to be one of the changes. Jobs noted that the conversion would be an as-is method rather than employ upscaling or other enhancements. "You get what you get," he said.
"Thousands" of videos will go live when the update appears in mid-June, but continuing work will see the entire YouTube catalog in Apple TV form sometime during the fall.
And addressing concerns that the stock Apple TV's 40GB hard drive was inadequate for avid media collectors, the California firm also announced a 160GB hard disk option for the device, which raises the overall price to $400.
The revision is expected to appear tomorrow through the company's online store.
All Things Digital conference stage with surprise news that his company's media hub would soon grab YouTube clips -- and unveiled a hard drive upgrade behind the scenes.During his interview with the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg at the fifth annual D event, Jobs revealed that a software upgrade to the Apple TV would give access to YouTube videos through its Internet connection, demonstrating the function through a segment of "America's Got Talent."
Unlike the computer experience, however, owners wouldn't access the clips directly; instead, clips would be added manually by a team that hosts the videos in an Apple TV-ready form. YouTube account holders could then login to their accounts from the hub and either browse individual categories or search for themselves using only the Apple Remote.
Image quality, however, wasn't set to be one of the changes. Jobs noted that the conversion would be an as-is method rather than employ upscaling or other enhancements. "You get what you get," he said.
"Thousands" of videos will go live when the update appears in mid-June, but continuing work will see the entire YouTube catalog in Apple TV form sometime during the fall.
And addressing concerns that the stock Apple TV's 40GB hard drive was inadequate for avid media collectors, the California firm also announced a 160GB hard disk option for the device, which raises the overall price to $400.
The revision is expected to appear tomorrow through the company's online store.
Comments
Eeek. $399 for this box. This really does make me wonder what they are planning on doing with the Mac Mini.
Anyone else wish the Mac Mini and Apple TV would converge?
That would seem to be a pretty nice product.
.
Anyone else wish the Mac Mini and Apple TV would converge?
That would seem to be a pretty nice product.
.
I don't know about combining them, but a standard DVD slot in the Apple TV would be sweet. Maybe in the next iteration we'll see that. So then people could get rid of the their old DVD players and clear up some space under their TV's. Maybe that would be worth the $399 price tag. Then as I and Rolo predicted, they'll announce the real Apple Television, and keep the little Apple TV as a side product. If you already have a new TV you can buy the little box, if you don't, you can buy the big box
Anyone else wish the Mac Mini and Apple TV would converge?
That would seem to be a pretty nice product.
If it had DVR capabilities, then yes... but it won't because that would compete with the iTS.
So I'd rather have a Mini.
-Clive
If the 399 version allowed 1080 then I think that would be cool. That is the one thing holding me back from buying one.
I thought it does? Isn't it just a limitation of iTunes content? If I encode my own DVDs, couldn't it reach that resolution?
As soon as the 1 TB drives come out, I found a nice inexpensive 12 bay FireWire RAID for under 600 bucks. Plan on getting one of thise, a mini and the low end AppleTV and creating a beautiful media server for all my music, movies and TV on DVD
I thought it does?
It does up to 1080i or 720p. No 1080p.
They should be selling it for $349. Would make an attractive "up-sell". But hey, what do I know. I already think $299 is too expensive, considering the Nintendo Wii only costs $249.
The Nintendo Wii is a video game console, Apple TV is a media hub.. how do they compete? How are they even related in the same sentence?
Anyone else wish the Mac Mini and Apple TV would converge?
That would seem to be a pretty nice product.
.
No. It would just be an Apple TV and there would be no Mini.
I don't know about combining them, but a standard DVD slot in the Apple TV would be sweet. Maybe in the next iteration we'll see that. So then people could get rid of the their old DVD players and clear up some space under their TV's. Maybe that would be worth the $399 price tag. Then as I and Rolo predicted, they'll announce the real Apple Television, and keep the little Apple TV as a side product. If you already have a new TV you can buy the little box, if you don't, you can buy the big box
If Steve is pushing this as the DVD of the 21st century, then it would make much sense to add the DVD of the 20th century.
Sebastian
No. It would just be an Apple TV and there would be no Mini.
Must it be so?
.
While welcome it is not as flashy.
Must it be so?
.
Yeah. They are completely different and barely resemble each other in their feature sets. The Mac Mini is a desktop computer that people liked to play around with. The Apple TV is a media hub for content on your computer that people like to hack.
The Apple TV is what people said what the Mac Mini should have been. It would make very little sense to actually fuse the two.
Sebastian
And I keep hearing people and news about Steve Jobs saying "Its what I want, not the customers, and the customers will see that I'm right."
Yay for YouTube on aTV (hopefully FrontRow soon? Possibly any Flash player online through FrontRow?) but not so yay for having the paying customers do the work for them.
Feel free to argue, as I'd like to hear other opinions.
This is the second time in the past year and a half that Apple seems to have come out with features for its hardware AFTER hackers and users made the functionality possible. We have BootCamp after hackers successfully got WindowsXP on a MacBook Pro, and we now have YouTube after hackers got AkwardTV working on the aTV. I'm just noticing a trend, and wondering if Apple is using its users to do some of its RnD for them.
And I keep hearing people and news about Steve Jobs saying "Its what I want, not the customers, and the customers will see that I'm right."
Yay for YouTube on aTV (hopefully FrontRow soon? Possibly any Flash player online through FrontRow?) but not so yay for having the paying customers do the work for them.
Feel free to argue, as I'd like to hear other opinions.
I don't think that's really the case. I haven't kept up much with the ATV YouTube scene, but Boot Camp came out within a week of the hackers getting Windows XP booted and stable. Boot Camp also included all the drivers, whereas the hackers never got working video card drivers. In addition, Boot Camp has a far cleaner and safer installation process than the hacker version did. Apple clearly could not have done all that the week after the the hacker version went live. It seems to me that getting a Mac to boot Windows was both a good and fairly obvious idea once Macs had switched to Intel, so both Apple and some hackers decided to pursue it independently. The hackers finished their solution first, but Apple took the extra time to get a superior solution in place.
They should be selling it for $349. Would make an attractive "up-sell". But hey, what do I know. I already think $299 is too expensive, considering the Nintendo Wii only costs $249.
I forget, what size HDD and type of WiFi does the Wii have? Also, how do I get it to stream my HD media from my PC to my TV?
This is the second time in the past year and a half that Apple seems to have come out with features for its hardware AFTER hackers and users made the functionality possible. We have BootCamp after hackers successfully got WindowsXP on a MacBook Pro, and we now have YouTube after hackers got AkwardTV working on the aTV. I'm just noticing a trend, and wondering if Apple is using its users to do some of its RnD for them.
And I keep hearing people and news about Steve Jobs saying "Its what I want, not the customers, and the customers will see that I'm right."
Yay for YouTube on aTV (hopefully FrontRow soon? Possibly any Flash player online through FrontRow?) but not so yay for having the paying customers do the work for them.
Feel free to argue, as I'd like to hear other opinions.
And (to add to the comment above me) the YouTube on AppleTV that Apple is touting is (except for the actual content) not much like the hacked YouTube. It seems the videos will be manually selected and uploaded in categories and such by YouTube employees, presumably to make it easy to navigate the videos using the simple AppleTV interface.
I don't think that's really the case. I haven't kept up much with the ATV YouTube scene, but Boot Camp came out within a week of the hackers getting Windows XP booted and stable. Boot Camp also included all the drivers, whereas the hackers never got working video card drivers. In addition, Boot Camp has a far cleaner and safer installation process than the hacker version did. Apple clearly could not have done all that the week after the the hacker version went live. It seems to me that getting a Mac to boot Windows was both a good and fairly obvious idea once Macs had switched to Intel, so both Apple and some hackers decided to pursue it independently. The hackers finished their solution first, but Apple took the extra time to get a superior solution in place.
It's clear that Apple is following the old mantra "When in Rome..." The larger HDD and YouTube support are two things people have been complaining about since day one. I'm glad they are watching and listening to what their community?albeit the hackor community?wants.
I'm under the impression that BootCamp support was going to be a feature of Leopard until the onmac.net trumped Apple. I wonder if they saw it coming?
I forget, what size HDD and type of WiFi does the Wii have? Also, how do I get it to stream my HD media from my PC to my TV?
512 MB Flash memory, SD Cards are supported, and while they don't outright say it on their site I think it uses either b or g, but definitely not n.
Sebastian