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Third-Generation Apple TV Lands With a Thud
DeviceGuru writes "Although generally overshadowed by the iPad 3 debut, Apple also introduced the third incarnation of its Apple TV streaming media players this week. Sporting a revamped icon-based UI, the third-generation Apple TV doesn't add much to its predecessor beyond a truly-HD 1080p video output mode. Although Apple TV is still not supported by an Apple Apps Store plug-in apps ecosystem, its new UI (available as a free update for 2nd-generation Apple TVs) does seem to imply that this capability is coming soon. Meanwhile, Roku is gearing up for a $50M IPO, so this cord-cutting story is far from over."
Give it an app store so I can have Plex just like on my iPhone and iPad.
I promise to buy like 3 of them minimum.
It seems like all the headlines since CmdrTaco left have been really negative, misleading headlines. Do negative headlines really bring in that much more traffic? I stopped reading boing boing because of their terrible headlines, and it looks like Slashdot is headed down that route too.
I used to come here for my daily dose of news and interesting topics, now all the headlines are used to cast doubt on company's futures, failed products and missed deadlines.
I don't mind hearing about "Your Rights Online" and the negative aspects of SOPA, etc, but it's gotten to the point where slashdot is no longer that shining beacon of interesting, exciting NEWs. Why would you spin a minor product improvement (720p->1080p) as a negative headline? What do your readers get out of it? Does it really improve traffic that much? Slashdot goes from being interesting and standing out as a good source of news, to just another "me too" BoingBoing style blog. Please don't do that.
moox. for a new generation.
Apple never pushed or stated that the Apple TV was anything revolutionary; Especially compared to their Phone, Tablets, and Laptops, they consider it a hobby.
The iPad now has all the technical bits in place to become the household computing center for most people. It has built in e-mail, web, video consumption, photo and video management, music, basic document creation and, critically, built in always available cheap broadband internet connectivity (via LTE).
The final nail for the iPad is to get decent dependable TV and movie programming. Once that is in place, iPad covers most people's media needs and the Apple TV is an accessory for the iPad like the Camera Connection Kit but for displaying content on a traditional TV.
Assuming Apple gets its programming, the cable (and DSL) companies are going to get wiped out without ever realizing what hit them.
"Gather round the TV, kids; honey, can you dim the lights? It's time for my Keynote about the JCR family vacation!"
Pre orders sold out less than 8 hours after its announcement. Just because a few tech geeks can't twist the hardware to perform all their desires doesn't mean it still isn't a popular consumer good with a much larger buying public. You can't please everyone, and Apple runs a business so they please the largest buying group first.
And yet all they need to do is allow third party development, and in no time there will be 100s of thousands of apps for it. At $99 that would be a hell of a value proposition.
There seems to be no reason that they wouldn't do that. I suspect that they they wanted to get the new icon based interface out first, just in case the blogosphere decided to be critical about it. Let opinions about it die done... in a few months everyone will just accept it as the norm. Then announce 3rd party apps. At that stage, no one can spin it as a bad thing, it would be all good.
Was the smartphone, or tablet, or laptop, or music player revolutionary when apple released it, or was it the device they copied from that was revolutionary.
Take the iPad as an example, yes it was revolutionary. Microsoft and others had been trying tablet concepts since the late 1980s. Sometimes calling them tablets, sometimes slates, sometimes pads. Every last one of them was a flop.
Apple launched their iPad and it was an instant success.
Using the political connotation of revolution, this is the difference between a few people grumbling, and having a revolution that takes over the country, transforming politics from then on.
Apple didn't copy any of the previous tablets, why would they? They were all flops. Since Apple's iPad revolution, every tablet manufacturer now bases their tablet designs on the iPad though.
The intelligent person doesn't deny that a revolution took place, it clearly did. They work out what it was about Apple's design that struck a chord with the public. That made it a phenomenal success where all before had been failures.
Except my smartphone. And my calculator. And my keyboard, mouse, controller, blood pressure meter, AHCHD camera, calibrator, flash drive, remote, headphone amp, and so on. No nothing at all.
These by the way are just devices laying around my house I can think of. There's more, and more at work as well. USB is kinda of used by, well, damn near everything that likes to plug in to a computer which is damn near everything. As I said, even my blood pressure monitor has USB (so you can download the history of your BP).
But hey if you want to add to the cost and complexity of every device, and reduce the battery life, as well as require an AP for them to work, sure let's go all 802.11.
or more simply put:
Asking if Apple is responsible for the "revolutionary" devices like the iPad, iPod, iPhone vs the first devices in the class is like suggesting George Washington wasn't responsible for a good portion of the American revolution but instead it was all some guy in a bar who was bitching about the British before everyone else was.
Well except for people like me... I take the train home from work. I'm watching a movie on my iPhone, and it's all over.. all except for the last 15-20 minutes of it. So I get off the train, put on my headphones so I can listen to music from my iPhone/Pandora while walking to my car. When I get to my car, I take off my head phones half way through a song I like, plug in my iPhone to my car stereo, and listen to it on my way home through my car stereo (Kenwood KDC-BY948HD btw). When I get home, I pull into the driveway. Half way through another song, I unplug my iPhone, hit the airplay button and switch the output to my Pioneer VSX-1121 receiver, and now that song picks up exactly where it was only now it's playing in my house. I make make dinner, then sit down in the living room to eat it. I hit the video button, select the movie I was watching on the train, hit airplay, and select "Living Room Apple TV", the receiver stops playing music and the TV starts playing the last 15-20 minutes of the movie I was watching on the train in 7.2 surround sound. If/when that movie is over, I pick another one using the Apple TV remote to stream one directly from my PC in the office.
Could I do that with a laptop/another vendors tablet? Perhaps, I could come up with some bastardization of hardware/software combo that would come close, but nothing I've ever seen comes even close to the simplicity and ease of use, nor one that has a half way decent UI. The Apple TV UI is the best I've seen for a DNLA type player, and I've looked at quite a few.
Well, a revolution in one place can inspire a revolution in another, as we saw in the Arab Spring.
You make a good point. But Apple's planning in this is even stronger than you state. In fact Apple had the iPad in development before they even started on the development of the iPhone. It appears Jobs realised that they stood a far bigger chance of success with a new touch based device in the established mobile phone category, than starting in the up to then unsuccessful tablet category. So they ended up doing the phone first, knowing full well that the long game was the tablet.
In a way the two are all part of the same revolution. A revolution against the PC monopoly of computing.
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Perhaps this comment will be lost and unread, and I'm too lazy to go find the video now,
but there is an interview with Steve Jobs from the early 90s in which he says (paraphrased): "I can save Apple. I know what to do. I wouldn't mind helping them, but they're not interested in what I have to say." and then when asked what he would do hey says: "Milk the Macintosh for all its worth to keep going while you're working on the products of the future."
And then consider the statement Jobs made when the announcement of Microsoft's investment in Apple was made: "We have to get past the idea that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose."
I think it's pretty clear from interviews and statements by Jobs both before he returned to Apple and immediately after he returned, that he was focused on the post-PC world right from the start. He recognized that he could never break the market power of the Windows PC, but he saw that improvements in technology would ultimately obsolete the PC as a central, all-encompassing computing platform for most people, and so when he returned, he spent a few years getting the Mac in shape so the company didn't die, and then moved on to the post-PC strategy.
I think it's pretty clear from interviews and statements by Jobs both before he returned to Apple and immediately after he returned, that he was focused on the post-PC world right from the start. He recognized that he could never break the market power of the Windows PC, but he saw that improvements in technology would ultimately obsolete the PC as a central, all-encompassing computing platform for most people, and so when he returned, he spent a few years getting the Mac in shape so the company didn't die, and then moved on to the post-PC strategy.
Jobs never saw Apple as a computer company, but as an experience company. This means that the computer is only the means to an end, which is getting specific things done. So it's only natural that when there's another way to get the stuff done people want to do (like surfing the web, checking emails, listening to music, writing, composing, painting, etc), he'd be the first to jump ship. Many other technology companies (like Microsoft) ask themselves "how can this issue be solved on a computer?", when the real question should only be "how can this issue be solved?".
Presently at 1, your post is way undermodded.
Your remarks about Jobs understanding the nature of the PC market as intertwined with but separate from other computing markets makes a lot of sense. Had I mod points, you'd get my +1.
I also really like your contextualization of Jobs' statement that "We have to get past the idea that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose." From everything I can see, this is exactly the case.
Microsoft, while not the uncontested juggernaut of yore, is in no sense of the word "losing". What has become apparent is that Microsoft has to compete and from what I've seen its consumers who are reaping the benefits.
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