Next Gen Apple TV - Sounds great!

AlanD

http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/28/the-next-apple-tv-revealed-cloud-storage-and-iphone-os-on-tap/

Home Entertainment, HD Set Tops
The next Apple TV revealed: cloud storage and iPhone OS on tap... and a $99 price tag
By Joshua Topolsky posted May 28th 2010 10:19AM
Breaking News
Exclusive
53diggsdiggIf you thought that Apple's foray into the world of home entertainment died with the last iteration of the Apple TV, you're quite wrong. A tip we've received -- which has been confirmed by a source very close to Apple -- details the outlook for the next version of the Apple TV, and it's a doozy. According to our sources, this project has been in the works long before Google announced its TV solution, and it ties much more closely into Apple's mobile offerings. The new architecture of the device will be based directly on the iPhone 4, meaning it will get the same internals, down to that A4 CPU and a limited amount of flash storage -- 16GB to be exact -- though it will be capable of full 1080p HD (!). The device is said to be quite small with a scarce amount of ports (only the power socket and video out), and has been described to some as "an iPhone without a screen." Are you ready for the real shocker? According to our sources, the price-point for the device will be $99. One more time -- a hundred bucks.

Not only will this be priced to sell (like hotcakes), it seems that Apple is moving away from the model of local storage, and will be focusing the new ATV on cloud-based storage (not unlike Amazon's streaming scheme, though we're talking instant-on 1080p, a la Microsoft). For those still interested in keeping their content close, there will be an option to utilize a Time Capsule as an external storage component, but the main course will be all about streaming. The new ATV will do away with its current OS X-lite variation as a operating system, and will instead adopt the iPhone OS for the underlying experience. There's no word at this point on whether apps and the App Store will be coming along for the ride, but it makes sense given the shared platform. Of course, scaling iPhone apps to that 52-inch plasma in your living room isn't exactly a no-brainer. Perhaps not surprisingly, Apple won't deliver the ATV news at the upcoming WWDC -- that event will be focused on the capabilities of the new iPhone -- but development on the product is most definitely full steam ahead. Is your TV screen the next battleground in the platform wars? Survey says: hell yes.

J-blk

TBH, doesn't sound great at all - tied to cloud storage and Apple media, which is almost never available to the rest of the world to the degree it is in the US makes this a less desirable device than the current Apple TV even (which at least you can install Boxee on and so something useful with it outside the US).

Meh.

banquo

I'm in two minds about it. It'll be either awesome or else make the former model suddenly look awesome.

/Waits

savemejebus

there will be an option to utilize a Time Capsule as an external storage component

This makes it interesting imho

aidan_walsh

I don't see the point to it since that would just be doing that iTunes does now with the current Apple TV.

Dman001

Sounds great. I think the big selling point here is the $99 price point, and the fact it may run iPhone OS4, which will hopefully mean the App Store too. Just imagine all the great Apps you'll be able to run on it. Could it also be a possible gaming device? ATV+App Store+iPhone/iPod Touch Controller=Possible Wii contender?

Only 16GB which is a shame, but needed to keep price and size to a minimal. The focus will be streaming content, rather than storing content. There's talk that iTunes Cloud will be launched at WWDC.

Hopefully Apple will have some subscription based plans for Movies and TV Shows. I think it's time to top up my American iTunes Account.

At $99 I can imagine Apple having another success on their hands, and will be a serious contender too Google TV. But of course this all speculation for now.

docentore

Streaming and cloud is not good idea in Ireland. HD film weights around 3-6gb, so average Eircom user can watch 2-3 films a month. Wow.

Ridiculous caps, I think Ireland is the last country in EU which has that.

turly

I remember thinking when I first saw the iPhone that with only a few slight tweaks it would make a pretty good ten-foot UI for a telly.
Mind you I still haven't figured out how to do the tactile bit from ten feet away

Inspector Gadget

I don't know if I'm keen at all on the new generation Apple TV if we're getting a crippled overgrown iPhone. It might be useful if it's hacked so that it's not tied to iTunes, the "cloud", etc., and it has USB ports to facilitate external drives (since heavy use of the soldered-in flash will probably not be good for its longevity) and hopefully a wired Gigabit ethernet port.

Though I'm sorely tempted to get ATV Flash and a current-gen one, with a trusty old rotational drive, and see what I can do with that instead

banquo

Streaming is definitely the way to go, it just sucks (for this purpose) that we live in Ireland. I think we need more things like this to become mainstream - like when we get Netflix, Hulu etc - before the broadband development climate will change. Demand before supply.

Personally I think it's great - there's so much less of a need for native storage if you've a decent* broadband connection and you get a lot of your content through iTunes. Where iTunes cloud services would fall down is in that lots of people just rip their CDs. But that might change in the future with cloud OSs, etc. We'll just have to see how it all pans out. But it's becoming clear where Apple are betting their money.


*Join the Boycott Eircom fb group

Inspector Gadget

banquo wrote: »

Streaming is definitely the way to go, it just sucks (for this purpose) that we live in Ireland. I think we need more things like this to become mainstream - like when we get Netflix, Hulu etc - before the broadband development climate will change. Demand before supply.

Personally I think it's great - there's so much less of a need for native storage if you've a decent* broadband connection and you get a lot of your content through iTunes. Where iTunes cloud services would fall down is in that lots of people just rip their CDs. But that might change in the future with cloud OSs, etc. We'll just have to see how it all pans out. But it's becoming clear where Apple are betting their money.

*Join the Boycott Eircom fb group

Meh, Frankly, I don't buy that. Streaming is, for one thing, a comparative waste of bandwidth, and for another, means that the owners of the actual recordings have the right to "take their ball and go home" if they don't feel they're getting what they want (be that profits, or whatever).

Anyway, because the ISPs aren't the content providers, they're not going to idly sit there and allow people to pull as much data as they can eat (not for the foreseeable future, anyway, without a dramatic increase in the available bandwidth globally) - they'll want a piece of the pie for "delivering" the content, in the same way as you pay extra for home-delivery on pizza, say, and that'll get messy. This argument has already been used in FCC filings in the US a couple of years back; I'm not imagining this.

On the other hand, if the ISPs were one with the content providers, that'd almost certainly be anti-competitive. Alternatively, if certain content providers hook up with certain ISPs, you'd start getting segregation, meaning you could only get content from provider A if you've got an internet connection from ISP B, and so on. AOL all over again. Or, perhaps, the iTunes Music Store, at some point in the future?

Add to this the fact that none of this will be possible without figuring out the problems with broadcast rights, distribution rights, copyrights, and jebus knows what else in terms of legal mumbo-jumbo, and implementing the market-appropriate advertising that would almost certainly be used to subsidise any such venture (say, Hulu), which in itself is a legal minefield and if it ever does get resolved, it's unlikely to be soon, or to everyone's satisfaction.

This whole thing isn't nearly as simple or utopian as you suggest, I'm afraid.
Gadget.

[edit]
P.S.> Facebook? Not on your nellie. That's another can of worms. Diluted and all as my privacy is these days due to whatever information other people put online about me with my knowledge or consent, let alone what (out of necessity, largely) I put up, I'm damned if I'm going to help make that worse... you don't think that even the fact that someone signs up for such a group isn't (or won't be in the future) interesting to someone, somewhere? It sounds tin foil hat, but it's not provably wrong...
[/edit]

AlanD

I like the idea of this type of Apple TV a lot.

If you do like the idea of buying/renting movies on iTunes then this is a great idea I think. 16GB is probably enough functional space to allow the whole thing to work, i.e. download the 1080p movies for rental which will get deleted anyway, or use time capsule for the ones you purchase. Apple are all about completing your system the Apple way, which is ok if you like that sort of thing. And I do. I like it when my Macbook and iPhone sync without fail using MobileMe. I like hassle free technology that just works.

I currently use a WD TV Live for watching movies I've ripped from my DVD's. It works, has great quality and I can't see Apple TV replace it, but I can see myself jumping on the Apple TV bandwagon cos I think it will work and with a decent enough broadband line, I think it will work just fine.

Gregor Samsa

There's no word at this point on whether apps and the App Store will be coming along for the ride, but it makes sense given the shared platform.

Apps will have to be specifically written for it, as it won't be able to support the multi touch interface of the iPhone OS that current apps use. Even a dedicated multi-touch remote wouldn't work, as it would have to display the screen image on it to be useful, meaning you'd be looking at the remote, not the TV when using it, so you might as well be using an iPhone/Touch. A cursor controling remote would work, but it wouldn't be multi-touch, so your'e back to dedicated apps. Not a big deal at all, but I wouldn't get my hopes up that I'll be playing FlightControl (as it currently stands), or pinching to zoom on my TV.

Also, I don't believe the $99 price. Take a look at the Apple store, and see the (Apple) products they currently have below 100 dollars. Basically just peripherals (headphones, cables, keyboards, mice, etc). The only standalone device they have under this price point is the iPod shuffle - the most stripped down music player there is.

Apple's current business model is to break even on the iTunes store (apps, music, video), to draw people to the hardware, where they make their profits. A $99 Apple TV would be turning that on it's head (content prices would have to go up to compensate).

That said, I do hope that Apple revitalise the Apple TV, and the iPhone OS does seem like a natural fit for it.

Dman001

phutyle wrote: »

Also, I don't believe the $99 price. Take a look at the Apple store, and see the (Apple) products they currently have below 100 dollars. Basically just peripherals (headphones, cables, keyboards, mice, etc). The only standalone device they have under this price point is the iPod shuffle - the most stripped down music player there is.

Apple's current business model is to break even on the iTunes store (apps, music, video), to draw people to the hardware, where they make their profits. A $99 Apple TV would be turning that on it's head (content prices would have to go up to compensate)..

If the specs are right (16GB, only a TV Out Socket) then the $99 price point sounds right. Nobody in their right mind would pay over 100 quid for a Media player with only 16GB of memory. Plus Apple make a nice sum from selling Apps so if it does have the App Store they will be making another nice tidy profit from selling more Apps.

AlanD

iPhone OS based Apple TV doesn't necessarily mean apps though.

Gregor Samsa

Dman001 wrote: »

Plus Apple make a nice sum from selling Apps so if it does have the App Store they will be making another nice tidy profit from selling more Apps.

No they don't

Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, January 2010 wrote:

Regarding the App Store and the iTunes Store, we're running those a bit over break-even, and that hasn't changed.

(Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/26/app_store/)

Like I said in my earlier post, in Apple's business model, Apps, music and video are a lure to drive hardware sales, which they make good margins on. Which means a shift in how Apple charge for that (Subscriptions? They bought LaLa, then closed it down. They must be doing something with that technology. They've also spending a billion dollars on a data center in North Carolina.)

If the new Apple TV is going to cost $99, then this signals a shift in that business model - selling the hardware cheap to generate revenue in content.

Dman001 wrote: »

Nobody in their right mind would pay over 100 quid for a Media player with only 16GB of memory.

They pay 4 times that for the 16 GB iPad. Sure, it has more hardware (screen, etc), but with Apple, you're never paying for the sum of the parts. And if streaming is the way Apple sees this thing going, then storage isn't an issue (anyway, they can get people to shell out more for a Time Capsule if they do need storage)

Dman001

phutyle wrote: »

No they don't



(Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/26/app_store/)

Like I said in my earlier post, in Apple's business model, Apps, music and video are a lure to drive hardware sales, which they make good margins on. Which means a shift in how Apple charge for that (Subscriptions? They bought LaLa, then closed it down. They must be doing something with that technology. They've also spending a billion dollars on a data center in North Carolina.)

I agree that they provide the content to increase Hardware sales. Personally I thought that they would be making more of a profit with the App Store seeing as they take 30% of the price of each App plus the $99 Developers fee.

phutyle wrote: »

If the new Apple TV is going to cost $99, then this signals a shift in that business model - selling the hardware cheap to generate revenue in content.

Im not sure they are changing their business model. This could just be a move to keep people in the Apple ecosystem from the growing competition of Google and their Android OS.

phutyle wrote: »

They pay 4 times that for the 16 GB iPad. Sure, it has more hardware (screen, etc), but with Apple, you're never paying for the sum of the parts. And if streaming is the way Apple sees this thing going, then storage isn't an issue (anyway, they can get people to shell out more for a Time Capsule if they do need storage)

You can't compare the two, they are two totally different devices. The iPad is targeted for people who want to enjoy their media and the internet on the go and anywhere, where as the ATV is for those who want to simply watch their media on their TV with ease. The iPad has no real competition as of yet, whereas the ATV has to compete with the likes of Western Digital, Popcorn Hour etc.

docentore

there is a good thing about news - old mode l will dirt cheap

I'd say AppleTV will be made into 2 versions. The current one and the "NextGen Cloud one". The cloud one will have storage for 2 SD Movies or 1 HD Movie and 6 SD TV Show episodes or 2 HD episodes. Basically lets say 5GB of cloud space. Otherwise you can only rent movies after the space is taken up where the renting is done netflix stream style Or if you can buy movie but everytime you need to stream it. I think it will run Apple TV OS

Knasher

Obviously Apple hasn't told us much so its hard to know exactly what the device will be like. I suspect, however, that it will have some very serious limitations that would prevent me from ever considering it.

Firstly it will almost definitely have poor video codec support, it will have baseline h264 and hopefully the higher profiles as well in the mp4 container. It will also, hopefully have MPEG4/avi support, although I wouldn't guarantee it. But definitely no more than that. So if you watch any anime/foreign films you will have to hardcode the subtitles and re-encode to the correct codec. I know the ps3/360 have the same problem, but they aren't dedicated media players. An atom/ion based system running xbmc defeats this hands down.

Secondly, although I'm sure that the whole video renting part will work very elegantly, I have a lot less faith in the buying part. I don't use iTunes all that much but as I understand it you are still can't re-download purchases from the store, no doubt due to licensing concerns from the record/movie industry. This means that you will absolutely have to have some sort of network storage to store the files on, hopefully they won't force this to be a time capsule, but it wouldn't surprise me if they do. Primarily this isn't really Apples fault but it will affect their products and counts as a black mark against it.

Thirdly I don't know why they don't have an ethernet port in this device. I'd imagine that they definitely will have an N wireless card, which should be fast enough. But the fact is that most people are still using G (which really isn't fast enough for HD streaming) and I'd imagine that its the default speed in the routers sold by ISPs across the world. So the average customer will also have to buy a new router before they can really use the device.

So while the device itself may only cost $100 (which is damn appealing to be sure and no doubt they will sell quite well at that price). The average customer will have to then spend quite a bit more to get any really use out of them.

There are somethings that Apple can do to make the whole package more appealing. For example they are currently building that huge datacenter in America. It would be very nice if they were to give each customer virtually unlimited space for iTunes purchases (which really wouldn't take all that much space as each file would only need to be stored once, which they have to do anyway and then linked for each customer). Then allow streaming from the cloud across all Apples devices. I'd imagine this is definitely something they would like to do, although the question is if its something that their deals with the record companies allow. They should also definitely include an ethernet port. Finally if they included robust codec support and network protocol support, although I'd probably be happy enough with just mkv and proper subtitle support, then I'd consider it a serious product. Until that happens then I'd have a hard time recommending it to anyone.

banquo

With the original iPod, Apple tried to get the licence for .avi and .wma, but didn't like the terms of the licence so said ''**** it''. And since they've had success with these limits on other platforms, I don't imagine they'll bother with extra formats.

AlanD

Jobs had some interesting things to say about Apple TV when interviewed at D8 last night. Says it all really. So a next gen Apple TV could be a tester

Here's the link: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/02/jobs_apple_tv_a_hobby_because_theres_no_market.html