Friday
Feb162007
Cringley and the Apple TV
Friday, February 16, 2007 at 8:27AM Here is what I think is happening with the Apple TV hard drive. I think sometime this summer Apple will ship a firmware upgrade for the Apple TV and it will suddenly gain an important new capability. That's when the Apple TV becomes a node on the iTunes peer-to-peer video network.
Bob Cringley has an interesting post from his pulpit today on what he thinks Apples plans for the Apple TV are. He focusses on why the Mac Mini, Airport Express and Apple TV are stackable and why the Apple TV has a 40GB internal drive.
His main conclusion is that the Apple TV will be part of a peer-to-peer distribution system and is a 24/7 mini network node that will allow Apple to pre-populate with content using bitorrent or similar.
While I'm sure we haven't been told the full picture by Apple, I have some issues with Bobs premise:
Unusually, His column is strangely inaccurate. According to the specs, the Apple TV has a larger foot print than the others, so they don't have the same form factor.
He speculates about the purpose of the Hard Disk as if it's some secret, guarded move by Apple but we've known about the disk since macworld and Apple have stated that it's for caching and syncing content making your Apple Tv into effectively a permanent iPod for your TV.
The suggestion is also that Apple are holding back the true purpose of the device until the penetration of the Apple TV reaches 500,000 to 1 million units and will then unleash a firmware upgrade that switches on the functionality. Can you imagine the outcry if that happened? Especially the recent rumblings following on from the need to charge for the 802.11n enabler patch for the Core 2 Duo machines. Imaging releasing a patch that changes the whole function of the machine.
The more I think about it, I'm sure that Apple will include some peer-to-peer functions in either Leopard or the Apple TV but they won't be as stealthy getting it into peoples homes as Bob thinks.
With a peer-to-peer nextwork, you need to have the buy in of the user up front and they need to be in full control of the amount of uplink bandwidth they are prepared to donate to the network. Uplink speeds are still very low and easily flooded having a detrimental effect on your internet experience.
So I'm a little bit on the fence on this one and we'll just have to see how it goes.
One thing he didn't mention which is worthy of note is just what is that USB socket on the back of the Apple TV for?
Now that's a real secret!
Technorati Tags:
Apple, BitTorrent, Apple TV, Leopard, IPTV
Reader Comments (3)
Seems the USB is for printers and Network drives ;-)
http://feeds.tuaw.com/~r/weblogsinc/tuaw/~3/91325869/
Nah, That's on the Airport Extreme not the Apple TV.
The Apple TV also has a USB port on the back and all Apple will say is that it's for servicing which is complete BS!
The Apple TV USB port is for something they haven't told us about yet. It might well be for additional storage, just as they have done for the Airport Extreme but if that was the case, why be so secretative?
PS Just received my Airport Extreme yesterday and it's really nice. Just banged on a 250GB USB drive and bingo - instant NAS drive for all the machines in the house!
Can't wait to get my hands on Airport Extreme - and Apple TV of course - shipping date on my order says March 5th though (and I ordered the night of the keynote)