Slashdot Mirror
Apple TV To Be Revamped
An anonymous reader writes: This Wednesday, Apple is hosting an event in San Francisco to announce updated versions of some of its products. One device getting a lot of the attention will be the Apple TV, which has languished for several years without significant changes. Apple is making a renewed push for the living room. The company has expanded its partnerships with TV studios over the past few years, launched its own streaming music service, and also made inroads on gaming. The new Apple TV will try to do all these things, including support for apps. It will also reportedly feature universal search: "Essentially, you'll be able to search for a show or movie once, and see results from all sorts of different sources." A side effect of this ambitious goal is that the device will more than double in cost, going from $70 to $150.
Hum. Apple TV has existed for years. They just never marketed it.
This new one is just a a 3rd gen.
It's always been an internet device. And it can access content off your networked Macs. I use RipIt to rip my DVDs into iTunes for access off all my devices (iOS, Apple TV & other Macs).
The Apple TV is simply a purpose- specialized screen-less iPhone, essentially.
The App Store on the Apple TV should be just as revolutionary as it was on the iPhone 3 when it came out. Instead of making a deal with Apple or Comcast or Roku to get your content on TV, you'll just write an app. This should open up TV to a whole new universe of niche providers and accelerate the trend of shrinking audiences for cable and broadcast shows.
I'm looking forward to all the new choices.
Why? Because it's all about integration with the Apple eco-system. The current Apple TV is a useful companion device to the iPhone, iPad and Mac and the new one will add to that. If you're not invested in their eco-system then buying would not be useful to you.
Seriously, you can't see why anyone would, then Apple must be wrong, I mean they were wrong about their smartphone, it barely sold any at all before they quit making it.
We have a Apple TV and are extremely happy with it, like most Apple products is it not very customizable, so instead of customizing it, we watch TV on it. My wife and I are retired, and we enjoy things that just work and don't require fiddling with. We have also tried Plex, and FireTV and find the Apple to be more to our liking. It may also have to do with being able to watch our 300+ movie library stored on my MacOSX and served up via iTune family sharing.
The new TV (assuming there even is one) providing App support could be cool, and iPhones and iPads are already used for more gaming by casual gamers (only a couple hundred million - barely any market at all). So, if the TV could play those same iPad games from the App store, we will certain play a few - also, since games bought on the App Store are mostly family sharing enabled, I expect we will be able to play all those games we already have on the new TV - yup, I expect you are right though, Apple has blown it again.
I have a laptop and a TV. I watch content on the TV because it's BIGGER and has better sound. I read slashdot on the laptop because the TV doesn't have a keyboard or browser. Sure, I could use the TV as a monitor, but then I wouldn't be able to watch TV!
Right now I'm watching a college football game. Who in their right mind would choose to watch something like that on a tiny laptop screen when there's a huge TV right here in the living room?
They are two separate tools. Each can do something the other one can't do.
And at what point is that? You mean at a point where most people don't have 4k TVs and most content is barely 1080p and most people don't have connections that support 4k streaming?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.