The future of Apple TV
The future of Apple TV is the subject of much debate and controversy around the Internet. Yet, it seems to be a relatively simple, straightforward question.
While Apple calls Apple TV a “hobby product,” this is clearly not an accurate description. No company in their right mind would ever invest the kind of money, time and energy that Apple has invested in Apple TV if it truly were a simple sideline. Apple does have hobby products, certainly, but that category merely comprises offerings like iPod socks and the sorely missed iCards.
Apple TV is more of an “experiment.” Clearly, Apple thinks that digital delivery is the way forward, and attempted to do with the device what they did to iMac years ago or, more recently, iPod Shuffle: remove a component that is deemed essential by the industry, such as a floppy drive or a screen, and offer instead something that is new, daring and, in their eyes, just right.
In many ways, I share their feelings. Digital delivery today is far from perfect, and is not about to enter everybody’s living room. However, these limitations are essentially twofold and easy to lift.
The first limitation is the speed at which such deliveries can be performed.
With today’s high-speed connections, a movie can be downloaded in thirty minutes or less, which is approximately the time it would take to drive to the nearest Blockbuster to procure the required slice of plastic entertainment.
As subscribers invest more in high-speed access, and as ISPs start offering better deals, this restriction will simply fade away, meaning movies will be available near instantaneously. I place the optimal full delivery delay at around the time required to walk to the kitchen, microwave the pop-corn and plump back in the couch.
Admittedly, this is still a little while away for the majority of users, but it is coming pretty fast. Here, Apple’s success in the music business is a tremendous boon. By making users realize how slow their access is as they download their music, they push them towards progressively fatter pipes and, silently, prepare them to receive video content. For most people, iTunes is the only application that requires true broadband — with, maybe, the exception of YouTube —, and that is an investment enthusiastic iPod owners will only be too willing to make.
The second limitation is the Vista of DVDs, or, in other words, the introduction of Blu-Ray.
A great many families, the bulk of families that take a technology from “successful” to “mainstream,” still vividly remember the transition from VHS to DVD, and are in no hurry to go through a format change all over again. With enough time and peer pressure, most will switch to Blu-Ray, and even to its successor, but such things take time.
Digital delivery, however, is widely perceived as an escape from the tyranny of physical media. That perception is only partially true, of course, because digital delivery comes with DRM, that can be “turned off” at any time, but most users have not yet experienced these joys first hand. For this reason, I am ready to bet many users will progressively abandon DVDs and favor digital files, that have so far kept their virginal glow.
There are more DVDs on the market than there are films and TV shows on iTunes. That’s a painful given, especially for international users who can order a foreign DVD on Amazon and watch it at home, but cannot do the same on iTunes. Yet, the situation is improving every day, and I am sure Apple can pull whatever stops are required to acquire content by the metric ton, whenever they truly decide to go for it.
Therefore, taking Apple TV to the next level merely seems to require the adjunction of a DVD player, ideally one that understands both Blu-Ray and regular DVDs, to bridge the gap between what families have and what they dream about. By effectively replacing today’s cumbersome DVD players, the device can comfortably settle into the living room and help users “migrate” to digital video.
The iMac, if you remember, offered iDisk, a free online storage space, to compensate for its lack of a floppy drive. This eased the transition to a floppy-less office, by giving users the impression that they would not be stuck, that an alternative was available — even if many of them never got to use their iDisk.
Apple TV, so far, does not offer anything to compensate for the lack of films on iTunes and give potential users the feeling that the transition can be managed. Certainly, the device is easy to pair with a DVD player, but the solution is not part of the Apple package.
Apple TV is a brilliant product, that has all the potential in the world. Sure, it could be fitted with Pandora integration, a Last.fm module and even a TV tuner. I, for one, would just love a TV tuner.
Apple, however, has repeatedly shown and said that they’re not interested in radio or television. They are into music and movies, which is quite a different market, and one they are well-placed to control, provided of course that they want to. (Maybe, after all, they have other ambitions in store.)
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Meanwhile, back at the ranch... about those sorely missed iCards...
There are two petitions clamoring for Apple to bring back iCards. Feel free to join the chorus!
http://www.petitiononline.com/ic110608/petition.html
and
http://www.petitiononline.com/06291970/petition.html
Also, Apple's Discussion moderators deleted this comment from an iCards thread, so I'm plastering it all over the Web:
"Everyone, call Apple Customer Relations at this number to complain (I found it was the best # to call after trying several). They say number of complaints matters.:
800-767-2775 "
— k2graphics
Agreed - love my Apple TV - one of the early ones so not much storage, but works flawlessly, has updated flawlessly and is superb for showing people photos on the 43" screen it is hooked up to.
Need to check out the renting properly - not long available in the UK.
@ patrick:
yep, 720p is sufficient for anything less than theatre-sized displays.
but latency (at any resolution - 720p or 1024p) isnt really the key issue ...
as u say, it is the artificial bandwidth caps that are the killer!
it is not the *specific level* of the quota that is really the significant issue ... videotron's cap at 20GB in montreal is ludicrious, and roger's cap of 100GB in toronto ($60) is not really that much better (when you consider a household of 4 or 5 people) ...
the key aspect of the caps is the anti-competitive effect that these artificial restrictions by ISP's have on the ability of the video services (like iTunes) on public internet to compete with the private video IP networks (conspicuously, the nascent microsoft 'iptv platform) operetade by the telcos and the cableco's.
the vpn-ish inbcumbent ISP's are prepared to offer TERABYTES of uncaped bandwidth for their own digital video brands, when they put on their common carrier hat - but they are hellbent on making sure that customers will pay a huge premium to recieve digital video over the public internetworks.
if a household with 5 persons tries to get digital video via the public internet, then the result of the ISP caps is that each person is limited to 1 or 2 hours of HD per day ... compared to the 4 or 5 hours of HD that these cableco incumbents want to monetize when viewers are funelled into their private video IP network.
this imbalance is clearly an unfair playing field.
it is shocking that the regulators (crtc, fcc, etc etc) are completely indifferent to the anti-competitive effect that obtains when the carriers are allowed to price discriminate against public IP video networks, in favour over their own private video IP networks.
shocking ... but not surprising.
its an excellent observation that in a way its Apples ongoing public experiment. They've got a box that they know is connected to an HDTV, it just runs a stripped down version of the Mac OS, so it isn't a giant drag on the company. As long as it pays the bills its a foot in the door, that can continue to advance as the content providers slowly loosen the strings.
Note that the AppleTV can now be hacked and most of the features you're asking for can be installed on it. It can be done for free with some skillz, or purchased for $50 or so from somewhere (I forgot). Anyway that gives you all formats, a file server and an external drive, its great...
I'd have an Apple TV for sure if it only wasn't tethered so tightly to iTunes. I've got lots of AVI and Divx video files and FLAC audio files that I can't access with the Apple TV natively, my current network media player can play all of these but not much Apple stuff ... urgh.
Yes, AppleTV COULD be a great product. Except for one important thing. The content providers don't want Apple to be successful. They will do everything in their power to make sure of this. Things like making Apple 'sell' a movie for the same or more money than the same movie on DVD, but without any of the extra's on the DVD. Like forcing Apple to charge more for a 'rental', but also with a shorter viewing period.
But this has happened EVERY SINGLE TIME there has been a format transition for both the audio and video industries. They both desperately try to protect their existing distribution methods and screw the new methods until the new method totally crushes the old, then they go 'see, we knew it all along'.
Gavin,
The speed of delivery will indubitably vary depending on your location.
There is no doubt that the experience is already optimal for some users — like you —, or Apple would not have introduced the device. It is now only a matter of time until it gets to be the same for everybody.
As a user, I consider my movie to be "here" when it is fully downloaded because only then do I get full scrubbing capabilities, even though it is indeed true that one can start watching quickly.
I hope this clears up any confusion!
FJ
the speed of appleTV is only a few minutes at most! (streaming)
works great!
do you own appleTV ?
Have you seen how fast this is?
try one out before you write about it....
Cheers
I don't know what broadband speeds are like in the U.S, but where I live (Montreal, Canada) i can rent an HD movie on my Apple TV and it's ready to watch in less than two minutes. SD is available well within 1 minute. And this is for movies that are at least two hours long. I think the potential is amazing.
While the catalog can't equate Blockbuster, it's way beyond what cable provider Videotron offers us with their video-on-demand. Especially in light of the fact that this is a "fixed" library, not a catalog where movies disappear after a few months - the silliest implementation of VOD I've ever seen (forgot to watch in time? oops, sorry, we don't want your money anymore.)
I own a PS3, so I have Blu-Ray. 2001 A Space Odyssey looks amazing in Blu-Ray. But ATV's HD version of National Treasure 2 (dont laugh!) was pretty darn close and well above the quality threshold of most home users. Good enough? I think so. Purist will talk about 720p versus 1080p. I work in television, I'm a quality nut. I see little difference on any screen below 50in. And we know 1080p will come in time. As for the SD content, we rented Juno in widescreen and it looked better than standard cable content.
The only problem right now, is that you can't buy HD content from Apple. So if you want to own HD, the only answer is Blu-Ray. I'm guessing this is a studio thing that will hopefully get resolved eventually.
Anyway, I'm rambling. Let's just say that I've owned an Apple TV since version 1 and it keeps getting harder to imagine my living room without it. It streams my music to the entire house, my photos look spectacular and now we get our movies from it.
The only gotcha - something that's going to become increasingly important - is our data cap. 20gb/month can go pretty quickly with all these digital files flying around!
I love my AppleTV. I ordered one as soon as they were available. It's hooked up to my LCD TV and home stereo, so I play music through it like a big jukebox, plus listen to audio and watch video podcasts, and I look at my digital photo library (which is beautiful!).
My wife and I also purchase a lot of TV shows from iTunes, and as well now rent movies in HD (haven't been to a video rental store since).
We've actually found that we are watching less and less live TV now with the AppleTV. We watch shows and movies when we want, plus with podcats, we listen to the news that we want to hear.
It's a great device and I can't wait to see where the technology goes!