…Apple TV Should Be Thrown On The Junk Pile
1. It’s expensive. Starting at $299 for a 40 gigabyte version, and $399 for 160 gigabytes, Apple TV is a glorified iTunes extender - a costly means to link up the home office to the living room. Unless there is a significant change to the hardware offering, maybe the addition of a DVD player, a volume control on its remote and no HDTV requirement, the Apple TV will be relegated to the status of an expensive trinket for people who have run out of Apple products to buy. Go buy yourself a Wii and get everything you need, including a built-in browser and direct Internet connectivity.
2. It’s confusing and complex. While technophiles will understand Apple TV’s purpose and role within the digital home, the average consumer won’t “get it.” Unlike the iPod, whose beautiful simplicity and impeccable design appeals to just about everyone, Apple TV is not a product for the masses. Even its niche appeal is extremely slim, with predictions that total unit sales are well below expectations.
3. Total lack of content. As the system is tied to iTunes, which has a embarrassingly limited selection of TV shows and movies available for download, there is currently limited use for an Apple TV. This has only been exacerbated by the big networks and movie studios moving away from iTunes to their own platforms, such as Hulu.com.
4. While Apple seems to have (strategically) ignored Apply TV hacks, unlike those of the iPhone, Jobs has created a system that is essentially locked down, with limited support for file formats beyond what is available on iTunes. Yet another obstacle for mass appeal.
5. Jobs has referred to the Apple TV as a “hobby,” effectively relegating it to the back burner in Apple’s product line. A recent breakdown of the input costs for the system suggests that Jobs isn’t making the margin that he is accustomed to, which may provide some insight as to why this is happening. That is unless he has something else up this sleeve…
For a dissenting view, Carl Howe thinks the Apple TV is due to become big business.
Update: CNet’s Crave blog follows on our lead with a story on how Apple TV has failed to resonate with consumers.
November 26th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
I’ve always thought apple brought the iTV to market only to break the content vs. player (chicken or egg) paradox. The problem is they have not added content fast enough. If I was steve great indy movies (pre-screened) would find a home. Furthermore, on the movie side rentals make sense. You missed 1080 content, a must in the near future.
November 26th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
The point of the AppleTV is sharing your photos, videos and music with family and friends on your big HD TV in the living room. This beats huddling around the computer screen in the den. You can also surf youtube videos and check out movie previews. Hopefully Apple will beef up their movie selection and allow rentals via the AppleTV.
The whole thing is drop-dead simple. Any video you can watch on your Mac can easily be converted for AppleTV and it’s a one-click procedure with iSquint (free).
It’s really about convenience. I don’t care that it doesn’t have a $49 DVD player included. I have one already. I just want to take someone’s SD card from their camera, import their photos into iPhoto and share them on the big screen. Or watch a video podcast, or watch my own converted videos.
The AppleTV has much potential that isn’t being realized. I’m sure that will change in the near future. I’d love to see Rentals via the iTunes store and higher quality video options as well as more supported formats. A bonus would be if this thing could surf the web as well, perhaps tying into your bookmarked favorites in Safari or Firefox.
November 26th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Thrown out? AppleTV 1.0 is not a TiVo killer– but AppleTV 1.1 may very well be.
It’s better already than anything MSFT has in the TV space, and they’ve been sniffing around the living room for a while.
November 27th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
I totally agree with bugsnw. I bought my apple tv so that I could share home movies of the kids and photo slideshows with the grandparents on the big screen HDTV. It works wonderfully for that. All my iPhoto and iTunes content are automatically at hand and ready.
I even just imported our 16 year old wedding video VHS tape to my mac and put it in iTunes for the kids to watch. We all got a great kick out of it and the quality was much better than I thought for VHS upconverted twice to 720p.