Wall Street views new Apple TV as small step, not living room revolution

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 86
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Shaun, UK View Post


    ... Apple is a hardware company not a content company. ...



    While that's sort of true, in a limited fashion, it's a misleading view of what Apple is and has been. Yes, they've always sold hardware, but it's always been hardware with tremendous value added via sofware. One could argue that they are primarily a software company that subsidizes its development costs with hardware sales, but that would be an inaccurate picture as well. They are what they are and what that is increasingly does not fit into simple categories.
  • Reply 42 of 86
    These analysts' rant isn't my cup of tea.
  • Reply 43 of 86
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Joe hs View Post


    Not to mention it costs 52% more than it should here and dosnt even have iPlayer



    The BBC have already announced that iPlayer will be available for iPhone/iPad later this year. I assume you will be able to download iPlayer content directly to your iPhone/iPad then stream it using Airplay & AppleTV to your TV.
  • Reply 44 of 86
    nkhmnkhm Posts: 928member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Shaun, UK View Post


    ...Apple is a hardware company not a content company...



    Apple make their big profit through sales of software, media and phones. Computer hardware accounts for very little of their revenue overall, as can be see in quarterly sales figures.
  • Reply 45 of 86
    Apple TV will be a living room revolution when we connect a USB video cam and apple lets us use FaceTime. Imagine FaceTime from couch, Remote Home Monitoring, and possible games in the next version.



    Bottom line FaceTime from living room revolutionizes Apple TV. I bet people will buy an new USB based video cam from Apple from just another $79.99



    Goutham
  • Reply 46 of 86
    nkhmnkhm Posts: 928member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Shaun, UK View Post


    The BBC have already announced that iPlayer will be available for iPhone/iPad later this year. I assume you will be able to download iPlayer content directly to your iPhone/iPad then stream it using Airplay & AppleTV to your TV.



    I think it won't take very long before the software updates start. Support for a blue-tooth (or iPad) keyboard input (especially useful when trying to input search text in youtube), BBC iPlayer and other apps streaming directly to the box. Not forgetting the companies out there who provide great alternative operating systems for this thing.
  • Reply 47 of 86
    nkhmnkhm Posts: 928member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gouthams View Post


    Apple TV will be a living room revolution when we connect a USB video cam and apple lets us use FaceTime. Imagine FaceTime from couch, Remote Home Monitoring, and possible games in the next version.



    Bottom line FaceTime from living room revolutionizes Apple TV. I bet people will buy an new USB based video cam from Apple from just another $79.99



    Goutham



    I mentioned this a while back - I reckon a return of the external isight camera, but fully wireless this time, no need for the USB cable.
  • Reply 48 of 86
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nkhm View Post


    Apple make their big profit through sales of software, media and phones. Computer hardware accounts for very little of their revenue overall, as can be see in quarterly sales figures.



    According to the article above..... "He also believes that 70 percent of the company's gross profits in calendar year 2011 will come from two products: the iPhone and the iPad".



    That's the hardware I was referring to, not computers.
  • Reply 49 of 86
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nkhm View Post


    Why does it?



    Add sales tax and import duty to the US prices, then do a commercial rate conversion (not tourist rate you buy your dollars for down at the high street) and you'll see it's about right.



    It still comes to nowhere near $152
  • Reply 50 of 86
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    Analyst Shaw Wu called the Apple TV announcement "underwhelming," and said that the new product will remain a "hobby" for the Cupertino, Calif., company. He said the product feels like a "work in progress" due to its limited features.



    "The main capability we were hoping for was the ability to run apps from the iTunes App Store and it looks like AAPL decided to leave this out for now," he wrote.



    So Wu wants to see 1024-by-768-pixel apps on a 50 inch screen? Maybe he should go back to college. The ATV is a revolution to me because I just bought one! As a result I'm dumping Time Warner's DVR service and subscribing to Netflix. All because of a black $99 hunk of plastic called Apple TV.
  • Reply 51 of 86
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nkhm View Post


    Why does it?



    Add sales tax and import duty to the US prices, then do a commercial rate conversion (not tourist rate you buy your dollars for down at the high street) and you'll see it's about right.



    It still comes nowhere near $152
  • Reply 52 of 86
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Shaun, UK View Post


    According to the article above..... "He also believes that 70 percent of the company's gross profits in calendar year 2011 will come from two products: the iPhone and the iPad".



    That's the hardware I was referring to, not computers.



    It's still incorrect to think of them as (primarily) a hardware company. It's as much the software and services that make that hardware desirable as it is the hardware itself.
  • Reply 53 of 86
    mactelmactel Posts: 1,275member
    It has an A4 chipset and I'd suspect a chopped-up version of iOS. My thoughts are that this device is a few steps away from being a gaming console or at the very least able to stream a game to the TV from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. How much RAM do these devices have?
  • Reply 54 of 86
    gugygugy Posts: 794member
    AppleTV is a huge disappointment to me for few reasons:



    ? no 1080p (i understand the streaming bandwidth issues, but for folks that have in their libraries 1080p content (home movies/blu-ray rips))



    ? no external drive support via USB ( I don't want my Mac on at all times and if I leave the house with my laptop my family cannot watch anything)



    ? Ability to play few more codecs. Specially VideoTS so I don't have to go through the huge hassle of transcoding everything (DVDs) on handbrake to play on AppleTV



    Now either I go to a much more expensive and overkill route (MacMini) or will consider boxes like WDTV, Roku or Boxee. The problem with those boxes is the lack of integration between iTunes and iDevices.



    Lame Apple. \
  • Reply 55 of 86
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gugy View Post


    ... and if I leave the house with my laptop my family cannot watch anything



    With AirPlay you can watch any video from an iDevice on TV.
  • Reply 56 of 86
    gugygugy Posts: 794member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Joe hs View Post


    With AirPlay you can watch any video from an iDevice on TV.



    What if they don't have any iDevice?

    I just feel is silly Apple does not allow the USB port to connect to a external drive and have the media stored locally or have a drive connect to Airport Extreme so it can grab content that way.
  • Reply 57 of 86
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anonymouse View Post


    It's still incorrect to think of them as (primarily) a hardware company. It's as much the software and services that make that hardware desirable as it is the hardware itself.



    Fair point. Technically Apple makes most of it's profits from hardware but we wouldn't buy the hardware if there wasn't great software to use on it. I only wish Apple made more software products to buy. I use iWork, iLife, Safari and plan to upgrade to Aperture and FinalCut next year. Apart Filemaker and Logic there isn't much else. For example I would love to see a professional web design and publishing application from Apple to compete with Adobe and Quark.
  • Reply 58 of 86
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gugy View Post


    AppleTV is a huge disappointment to me for few reasons:



    ? no 1080p (i understand the streaming bandwidth issues, but for folks that have in their libraries 1080p content (home movies/blu-ray rips))



    ? no external drive support via USB ( I don't want my Mac on at all times and if I leave the house with my laptop my family cannot watch anything)



    ? Ability to play few more codecs. Specially VideoTS so I don't have to go through the huge hassle of transcoding everything (DVDs) on handbrake to play on AppleTV



    Now either I go to a much more expensive and overkill route (MacMini) or will consider boxes like WDTV, Roku or Boxee. The problem with those boxes is the lack of integration between iTunes and iDevices.



    Lame Apple. \



    VideoTS isn't a codec. It's just the layout structure of a DVD. I'm guessing you just flatly copied .VOB files from the DVD to your computer? The problem then is the container, not the codec. The codec is actually perfectly compatible, just the only systems intended to ever read .VOB files are DVD players. Converting the container into, say, .mp4 should be relatively quick through Handbrake if the data is already on the harddrive, since it won't be limited by drive read speeds and there's no transcoding to be done.



    Also, Apple is lame because they didn't make a device that caters to your exact needs? If you want an always-available media server, TV isn't it. It's just a device meant to stream media from other machines to your TV. I recommend getting something like a D-Link DNS-323 NAS (awesome little machine) for always-on storage and media sharing (don't know if it'll share to TV, but does to iTunes, Xbox 360, and PS3).
  • Reply 59 of 86
    cmf2cmf2 Posts: 1,427member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gugy View Post


    What if they don't have any iDevice?

    I just feel is silly Apple does not allow the USB port to connect to a external drive and have the media stored locally or have a drive connect to Airport Extreme so it can grab content that way.



    How many homes will have Apple TV and not an iDevice?



    Apple TV probably isn't for you if you aren't waist deep in the Apple/iTunes ecosystem already. However, that doesn't make it a bad product for those who it is targeted at, those people who are waistdeep in the Apple/iTunes ecosystem.



    Jobs specifically said that people didn't want to deal with storage, and believe it or not, he is right about that for a large portion of the population. That's why it has no local storage or offer the ability to hook up a usb drive. If it did, those people would use that storage and be frustrated when it ran out.



    I would agree that you should be able to access drives attached to an airport extreme (or NAS in general) instead of your computer though.
  • Reply 60 of 86
    Don't need Apps for the Apple TV it's all about AirPlay (emphasis on "Play"). Once developers have access to AirPlay we'll be beaming games from our iPhone or iPads to our Apple TV using the iOS devises as the controllers.
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