What's next for the Apple TV?
Friday, October 8, 2010 at 3:50PM It just doesn't feel right...
The newly released Apple TV just feels empty and yet promises so much.
With the revelation that the Apple TV is built on iOS, has the same A4 processor as in the iPad and has 8GB of local storage, it's obvious that Apple has big plans for the shiny hockey puck device.
The question is not so much what (content delivered via apps), but when?
Why start shipping a device now, when it's so obviously capable of so much more?
Now that one iteration of Google TV has a proper launch date, and a price - Logitech Revue to be launched at the end of October - $299 - (Excuse me? How much?), Apple really need to come clean with the future plans for the Apple TV and stop messing about with this hobby malarky.
My gut feeling is that they'll be in a position to announce something much sooner than people are expecting, even before Christmas.
Here is some wild and unsubstantiated speculation:
September 2010
Apple needed to get the Apple TV launched as soon as possible to establish the supply chain and get the product to market a good three months before Christmas. With the price point, they would be confident that they'd sell a load to existing Apple customers and manage the delivery of the Apple TV as a two stage process - base functionality to early adopters and and an enhanced version for the mass market when the supporting services and additional features were in place.
September 1st - The new iPod range is introduced along with the Apple TV. In an unusual move, they preview iOS 4.1 (for launch a week of two later) but also demonstrate iOS 4.2, bringing multitasking to the iPad and significantly for the Apple TV, Airplay
iOS 4.2 is not scheduled for release until November but the announcement is made well in advance of the release building up anticipation with iOS device users. At this point, it's not fully finished so they can only display a minimal demo. It's enough to demonstrate that the potential of the technology is huge.
iTunes 10 is introduced and AirTunes is rebranded as AirPlay
October 2010
The Apple TV is launched. No apps but the device is received well despite some minor irritations, all of which can be fixed with a firmware upgrade. As expected, the new Apple TV acts as an AirPlay device out of the box but only supporting Audio for now.
October 18th 2010 - Apple's Quarterly Earnings report - Expected to show huge numbers for both iPhone 4 and iPad sales. Stock price will be boosted significantly but Apple will be looking for a double whammy effect, following up the earnings announcement with another big announcement.
W/c October 25th or w/c November 1st - Press are invited to a special Town Hall meeting at Apple Campus when iOS 4.2 will be formally announced and released. This time it's the full AirPlay demo with video streamed from iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads to the Apple TV.
As well as the Apple branded products there are also some announcements of third party enabled AirPlay devices as indicated by the BridgeCo partnership
Steve will put up a keynote slide of the new Sony Remote and have a chuckle.
As well as the AirPlay features, Apple also announce the availability of some bespoke apps for the Apple TV but no Apple TV app store. These bespoke apps are custom made apps made in conjunction with delivery partners, engineered in the same way that NetFlix integration has been customised for the Apple TV. No mention is made of specific future apps but more are in development with strategic partners. No indication of an Apple TV SDK as of yet.
As a long shot, it's possible Apple may announce a couple of games for the Apple TV. Designed as full TV screen games, these may rely on iOS devices to act as a remote control using seamless Home Sharing to connect the iOS devices to the Apple TV.
We may even see some mention of FaceTime but I'm not sure if Apple would go down the route of promoting an external video camera attached via the Micro USB port - that may be stretching things a bit to far!
November 2010
Apple TV is updated with the new version of the firmware enabling the bespoke content delivery apps embedded in the Apple TV menu. The firmware update is a free download. Included is a new Games entry on the main menu allowing you purchase a limited number of games.
As I say, wild and unsubstantiated speculation, but would anyone still fancy that $299 Logitech box if this actually happened?
Reader Comments (7)
I don't think that Apple will be releasing new features to the Apple TV this year. If there is an event in the October/November time frame, then it's certainly going to be Mac-oriented, e.g. MacBooks, iLife, iWork, etc. I guess we will see OFFICIAL support for apps in the next iteration of the iOS, i.e. iOS 5 due to be presented in March/April of 2011. As far as the unofficial support goes, we will see ...
Google TV does not interest me. However, the Boxee box for $199 seems to be the device I want. It plays local files and also internet content.
The only reason I have yet to pre-order it is because I am waiting to see if Plex is going to come out with some type of SetTopBox that runs the Plex 9 client. The idea of a single central library that maintains not just the media files but also the metadata and watched/not watched info is something I would prefer... because with two Boxee boxes all that info is on the Boxee box rather.
At least that is my unserstanding of the Boxee box... if I get two each one will have it's own local metadata and also watched/unwatched info will not be shared. If I am wrong about that, someone let me know and I will order one right away.
BOb
I'll just add one more comment here:
Someone said it well about why they thing Google TV will be fringe while Apple will do well...
Google is shooting for Input 1 on your TV. This is where you watch most of your content day-to-day including TV shows, news, sports, etc. There is ALOT of competition for input 1... but 99% of the time your cable box is going to win... or TiVo if you use that as your cable box.
Apple is shooting for Input 2. This is where you watch occasional stuff like a movie or a PPV concert or sporting event. Most people will be paying to watch stuff here, for example a DVD rental, or on-demand rental etc. This is a good fit for the Apple TV and there is little competition here. Main competition for Input 2 is the DVD/Blu-Ray player... and we know that is BIG. If AppleTV can deliver that experience for less money, device wise and content wise they can do well as an Input 2 device.
BOb
I disagree that AppleTV is for what a poster called Input 2 and I don't think apps on the AppleTV are really necessary if my understanding of AirPlay is correct. Using an iPhone, iPod Touch or an iPad we should be able t stream the content (audio or video) of any iOS app that plays on one of the iOS devices and uses Apple's iOS media controls. It's not something an App has to include, its something the app would have to purposefully exclude. AirPlay is an API used by the iOS media controler.
I would have thought that Safari for example would be able to stream. If so, then for example, the BBC's iPlayer should (if my understanding about the media controls is correct) play through Safari to the AppleTV gen2 (and by the way I heard Mark Thompson say that BBC will soon have a BBC world wide iPlayer).
I'll be interested to see if LoveFilm videos play and if Amazon buys them out as is rumoured than I would guess that Amazon would make sure LoveFilm had an iPad app.
I think the design of AppleTV is such that it was made to be an accessory to the iPad, iPTouch and iPhone. With over 100 million iOS device owners out there and 10s of millions more each quarter, it would be an interesting accessory for £89 (not much more than some iPad stands cost).
As AirPlay is an API in iOS (as i understand it) game makers should be able to access it too. By keeping everything on iOS devices separate from AppleTV they can keep the device lean and cheap. A cheap iPad and AppleTV are only a tad more than GoogleTV in price but of course as a duo they are far more flexible and powerful than GoogleTV as the iPad is not tied to the tellie.
Again, if I'm right, this breaks the lock of iTunes on AppleTV which is the thing that big studios and media companies have been waiting for. They can make an iOS app for a subscription service to their content and a media company like SeeSaw or Turner or CNN, or Channel 4 or Sky can be on your tellie from your iOS device. This should incentivise those companies afraid of Apple's domination in media distribution through the iTunes store. Since Apple principally makes its money on hardware it should be a win-win situation.
BTW, my assumptions about AirPlay are based on info I've heard from Gruber and Jim Dalrymple, reasonably reliable sources. Sure hope so!
Some excellent points!
Not sure that Apple would take the gamble of just relying on Airplay to remove the need for native apps on the Apple TV but that may well be the first way we'll get "extra" content onto the device.
Perhaps they intend to break the traditional mode of watching TV by having the iOS device being the "receiver" for content and the Apple TV being the device to watch in a communal setting.
Fascinating stuff!
The lack of local storage is a killer for me. I have a 160gb Apple TV which soon filled up so I got ATV flash, thanks Don, and put a 750GB disk on it. This is nearly full again. For me to use the new AppleTV I would need to turn on or leave on my MacPro which costs a fortune to run 24x7 - a fact I am sure Don is well aware of having two of them! I just want to sit down at the TV and pick anything from my library. Now if only they would bring out an iTunes server or TimeCapsule with sensible storage and a central iTunes media store the problem would be solved. My son and I have two copies of some of our media, one on his iMac and one on my Mac pro just for convenience, but this takes Gb's of disk space and is inefficient. Backup also becomes more difficult, my iTunes library is nearly 2GB now and my next option for backup will be a drobo costing even more, my son already has one for just this reason.
We need cloud services for media we have licensed and good Internet speeds or a better way to store all this data and back it up. DVD is great for backup, but even this I am now having some discs which will not read after 10-12 years, I suspect early DVDs are just beginning to go rotten.
I do hope one day that apple tv or time capsule evolves into the iTunes server or cloud gateway we need.
J
I think the hardware of the new Apple TV has a number of benefits over the previous version, such as being smaller, running cooler, using less energy, running faster, being cheaper, etc. It's great. However, the software is a step backwards. Features have been removed, such as iTunes Extras, iTunes LP, volume control, and TV Shows are missing. And some features no longer work properly, such as Playlist Folders and iPhoto Albums.
Apple really could do with adding four software features to the Apple TV:
1. TV Show rentals in the UK.
2. LOVEFiLM rentals, because we don't have Netflix over here.
3. BBC iPlayer. You'd expect the iPlayer to be on an Internet TV device. Even basic Blu-ray players have it!
4. Facebook Photos. So many people store and share their photos on Facebook these days.