Apple TV Rebooted

Apple was one of the first major tech companies to realize the potential of bringing online video into the living room. Unfortunately, its first attempt at providing the hardware to make this possible didn’t really take off in a big way, eventually leading to Apple CEO Steve Jobs reclassifying Apple TV as “a hobby.”

However, after going back to the drawing board Apple saw fit to try again, and Apple TV 2.0 was born.

The new Apple TV is smaller, cheaper, and built along different lines. Gone is the hard drive, replaced by a flash memory drive designed to deliver streaming content from the cloud. So, very different, but better? And more importantly, more appealing to mainstream consumers?

Impressive Sales Figures

Early reviews for the Apple TV were mostly positive, although many still don’t seem to get the device. And yet, according to Barron’s, the Apple TV is doing rather well at this stage of proceedings.

JMP Research analyst Alex Gauna states that the new Apple TV has sold out in stores across the U.S. He believes the $99 price tag “is resonating with consumers.” Consequently, the Apple TV is estimated to be selling at a rate of around 1 million units per quarter.

While that doesn’t compare to Apple’s other big launch of 2010, the iPad, which is selling around 4.5 million units per quarter, it’s impressive nonetheless. That is if it continues beyond the first couple of months.

All Apple products sell well initially because of the number of fans the company has. Apple also aids this demand by running supplies short. So I’d reserve judgment for a couple more months.

Conclusions

Having said that, Apple TV has probably moved beyond the realms of ‘hobby’ and is now a legitimate Apple product that the company will invest in heavily moving forward. Which sets up what could potentially be the mother of all battles with Google TV, launching in the coming months.

Apple vs. Google for control of the Internet-enabled living room? Yes please.

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Apple Revolution

Apple is ultra-keen to bring online video into the living room in a mainstream way. With Apple TV providing the hardware to make this happen, all that’s now needed is content; lots of it, and at the right price.

Apple has already done this for music in a big way, with iTunes bringing the reality of albums and tracks available to purchase in a simple way to bear. And Apple has managed to persuade the music industry and major record labels that pricing is the key.

Unfortunately, the company appears to be having a tougher time persuading the television industry and major networks and channels that this is also the case for video.

Affordable On-Demand Video

Apple has been pushing to secure individual episodes of TV shows for 99-cents, with viewers able to rent the shows for 24 or 48 hours. Disney and News Corps. signed on the dotted line, but other big players are simply not interested.

Last month, Warner Bros. CEO Barry Meyer indicated this was a no-go for his company, although his wording that “we’d rather not” suggested there was some wiggle room and that things could change in the future. Others are being more resolute in their dismissal.

Time Warner Not Impressed

Step forward Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes who, according to The Hollywood Reporter, stated last week during the Royal Television Conference in London:

“How can you justify renting your first-run TV shows individually for 99 cents an episode and thereby jeopardize the sale of the same shows as a series to branded networks that pay hundreds of millions of dollars and make those shows available to loyal viewers for free?”

“These new entrants must meet a few criteria: They must provide consumers with a superior TV experience, and they must either support or improve the overall economics that funds and creates the programming in the first place.”

There seems to be one important element missing from this diatribe, and that is viewers. There was I thinking viewers were the most important thing in the whole TV/advertising/programming equation, but I must be wrong.

Conclusions

In Bewkes’ world viewers are bottom of the heap when it comes to what part of the industry to nurture. So what if Apple is trying to offer viewers a chance to see individual episodes at a reasonable price? They can watch it on conventional television when we tell them they can. Or they can go without.

Unfortunately for Bewkes, and fortunately for viewers, this is a view looking to the past rather than the future. Video on demand is the future, and the sooner some of these companies realize this fact the more secure their long-term futures will become.

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Apple TV

As with every new Apple product, the Apple TV received a lot of buzz in its early days. But the world both consumers and content owners) just didn’t seem ready for an online video set-top box to become mainstream.

Steve Jobs and co. soon wrote the whole thing off as nothing more than a hobby, while at the same time heading back to the drawing board and creating Apple TV 2.0. Which has now arrived.

The All-New Apple TV Arrives

The all-new Apple TV has started landing on doorsteps this week, and there have already been a healthy sprinkling of reviews around the Web. Most of them are mainly positive, but it doesn’t appear as if this Apple product will change the world in the way others have.

Fox News isn’t who I would normally turn to for a technology review, but as it posted its one before anyone else it deserves coverage. The review is very much from a mainstream perspective, with the reviewer referring to his mom and how she’d get on with it. The overall verdict is that while the new Apple TV is very promising, it’ll need some heavy marketing to actually achieve anything.

CNET gives the new Apple TV a good going over, as it does with all products it reviews. The bottom line of, “The Apple TV’s new low $99 price makes it an easy impulse buy for Apple fans looking to bring Netflix into the living room, but you may want to wait until more content–or Apple’s forthcoming AirPlay update–becomes available,” pretty much says it all. In essence, the review states that while the Apple TV is nice but a lack of content is costing it dear at this stage.

Engadget gives the new Apple TV the most thorough review of all. The image and sound quality tests are particularly interesting because they find that while the sound is strong, the image quality isn’t as good as Amazon content streaming on a Roku box. The comparisons with other set-top boxes continues, with the Boxee Box also getting a mention. Its conclusion is that Apple TV is a good simple option but not the be all and end all. In fact, it still feels a lot like a hobby.

Conclusions

It’s probably too early to truly tell exactly what the new Apple TV is going to bring to the table. Until the competition (Google TV and others) arrives then no one is going to truly know whether any service is going to be the magic pill which bring online video into the living room in a big way. Until then the Apple TV at least looks good.

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Apple TV

It’s fair to say the Apple TV didn’t exactly fly off the shelves when it was first launched. After some good early buzz, as there is with any new Apple product, the Apple TV was designated nothing more than a hobby. Which implied Jobs had accepted defeat.

It’s hard to put a finger on why the original Apple TV failed. It was definitely too expensive, and maybe the mainstream market just wasn’t ready for a set-top box able to stream and download video content.

Apple is hoping things have changed now, however, and that the new Apple TV will take off in a big way.

The New Apple TV

We’ve known Apple TV was getting rebooted for months now. Be it by design or not, Apple seems to have sprung a leak when it comes to forthcoming products. Steve Jobs finally revealed the new Apple TV on Wednesday, and there were no real surprises.

The new Apple TV is a small black box which has been likened to a hockey puck. It will cost just $99 to buy and will start to ship(initially in just six countries) in four weeks time.

The new Apple TV has no hard drive and is instead designed for direct streaming from the cloud. To make this possible, Apple is committed to offering HD rentals of TV episodes for just $0.99, but only ABC and Fox have agreed to the new pricing so far. Jobs insisted others will follow “once they see the light.”

New HD movies will cost $4.99, but for that you’ll get to watch a feature the same day it’s released on DVD and Blu-ray.

YouTube, Netflix, and others are also included on the device, and a new feature called AirPlay will allow the Apple TV to stream content to other Apple devices – such as the iPad tablet – around the house.

The only real surprise was the lack of renaming, suggesting the idea to call it iTV was either not real or halted by the threat of legal action.

Conclusions

Apple has gone back to the drawing board and produced something much more relevant to the way we now consume digital content. Will this be enough to take the Apple TV from being a hobby back to a core product in Apple’s line-up? Time will tell.

[Via Business Insider]

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iTV, iPad, iPhone

Apple is one of the companies best positioned to take advantage of the move to online and streaming video. Not only does it lead the way with its iTunes service, it also has a range of products on the market, or about to hit the market, able to deliver video.

Apple’s three mobile devices, the iPad, the iPhone, and the iPod Touch are all capable of streaming high quality video. The iPad in particular is a device designed with the delivery of content in mind.

Meanwhile, the Apple TV is all but dead, with the iTV set to replace it. This will be cheap, cheerful, and designed for the mainstream. Giving it a good chance of succeeding.

99 Cent Shows

According to sources speaking to Bloomberg, Apple is in negotiations with media companies, including CBS and Disney, in order to secure episodes of TV shows for just 99-cents. Talks with News Corp., owner of Fox, have so far come the furthest.

For 99-cents, customers would be able to rent an episode for 48-hours within 24-hours of it being aired on broadcast television. What’s more, there will be no commercials included. This was first rumored to be in the works in January on the eve of the iPad being unveiled.

As part of the deal, Apple is letting go of its plans for a monthly subscription service, with sources insisting, “the a la carte rental plan follows an abandoned effort to create a subscription television service.”

The plans for that subscription service were leaked last November. If it had come to fruition, customers would have paid a flat rate of $30-per-month for as much programming as they wanted. But it appears this was one step too far for the networks.

Conclusions

This will only work if the majority of networks and media companies agree to the plan. Which they should do if they know what’s good for them.

Sure, they’re still tied to the cable companies but the future is looking a lot different than the present. And keeping all their eggs in one basket would be madness.

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Apple TV

Apple is unused to having failures on its hands these days, but that is, sadly, what the Apple TV has turned out to be. After the initial buzz in 2006/2007, the Apple TV never quite managed to take off, meaning Apple’s mission to control the living room has so far failed.

Apple has since started referring to the Apple TV as nothing more than “a hobby,” which is just a way of writing off its failure. But Apple doesn’t give up easily, and is highly likely to be about to reboot the product in order to try and find its place in the market.

$99 iTV?

The last few months have seen the rumor mill working overtime in regards to the new Apple TV. And the fact that several different sites, citing several different sources, are all saying pretty much the same thing suggests there is some truth to it all.

The first rumors suggested a device capable of pushing out 1080p HD video, built on the same architecture as the iPhone 4, using Flash storage rather than a hard drive, and priced at just $99.

All those details have remained the same through the latest batch of rumors, with the exception of the 1080p HD video. The new Apple TV will instead be capable of 720p video, which is good but not as good as it could have been.

Added to the mix is the supposed change of name, with iTV chosen as the new moniker in order to bring the Apple TV in line with Apple’s other products which all begin with a lowercase ‘i’. That may not please British TV broadcaster ITV, however, which could sue Apple if it goes with that name change.

The latest caveat to all this Apple TV talk is a rumor that Apple is thinking very big for the future, with plans to use the iTV hardware as a springboard for a $2,000 Apple-connected television set capable of being an all-in-one home entertainment unit.

Conclusions

There’s no smoke without fire, so I think it’s now safe to assume Apple will soon be unveiling its new version of the Apple TV hardware. But that $99 price tag doesn’t ring true seeing as Apple is renowned for its premium pricing strategy.

I can only assume Steve Jobs has realized $99 is the only price at which this fledgling technology is going to sell to the mainstream. And the imminent arrival of Google TV may have played a part as well.

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If true, this is setting up an almighty battle with Google TV. Which should be fun to watch.

Apple TV

Steve Jobs first announced Apple TV back in September 2006, and at that point in time the company supposed it was going to have another huge hit on its hands. But it hasn’t turned out that way, with Apple’s success in computing and mobile devices not seeping through to the living room.

By 2008 Apple was publicly referring to Apple TV as nothing more than a hobby, and the device has remained that way ever since.

However, the last month or so has seen new rumors surfacing that Apple is about the reboot the project, and with so much speculation, and from so many sources, floating around, this would seem to have some weight.

A Major Rebooting On Way

At the end of May, Engadget claimed the new Apple TV was incoming. It would be built on the same architecture as the iPhone 4, move to Flash storage, be capable of 1080p HD video, and be priced at just $99.

Now, the New York Times is restating this story from its own sources. They claim Apple has recently hired a team to work on the Apple TV interface, and that the very nature of the device will be changing.

Out will go the cut-down OS X kernel, and in will come iOS. This will mean all those video apps which work on the iPhone and iPad will also work on the new Apple TV. And rather than the downloading of shows from iTunes, content will be in the cloud and streamed to the device on demand.

Conclusions

If these rumors are true, and I have no doubts they are, then Apple TV could be in with a chance. But Google TV is looming large on the horizon, and it all makes for a mouthwatering battle to see which of the tech giants will gain control of the living room.

At this stage, I wouldn’t know which to back.

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The Internet Option

The Internet as a destination for viewing video content, be it a short, user-generated clip on YouTube, a full-length television episode on Hulu, or a movie purchased from Netflix, has never been more popular.

But, while the amount of people watching on their computers is increasing rapidly, not many of those are taking up the option of purchasing and installing an Internet-enabled set-top box to move content from the Web to their TVs.

Set Top Box Choices

This is despite there now being more options than ever in this department, with Apple TV being joined by the Roku box, Vudu, the Xbox 360 and PS3, and even certain Blu-ray players as being Web connected methods of watching Internet programming.

The recognised leader of this field is undoubtedly Apple TV, mainly due to the size and brand recognition of the company itself, but even that is failing to sell in the numbers required to make Apple any money.

In a recent Apple earnings call, Steve Jobs even referred to Apple TV as “a hobby”, a term he used to describe the whole business of set-top boxes.

Apple TV Is A Hobby

Silicon Alley Insider reports him as saying:

“I think the whole category is still a hobby right now. I don’t think anybody has succeeded at it and actually the experimentation has slowed down.”

“A lot of the early companies that were trying things have faded away, so I’d have to say that given the economic conditions, given the venture capital outlooks and stuff, I continue to believe it will be a hobby in 2009.”

So, with the CEO of the manufacturer of the largest selling Internet-enabled set-top box dismissing the current market, what chance have the rest of them got to get even a foothold?

A Long Way To Go

The problem is that the technology has yet to go mainstream. Most consumers will be happy to have their cable services on their TVs and watch the odd video on their computer. But that could change as Web content becomes more varied and more mainstream itself.

As the Web video market grows, the set-top box market should grow with it. But there’ll also be a need for lower price points for the average consumer to want in to the revolution.

For Internet set-top boxes to become the future of television, great content, the right price, and an opportunity to watch programming not available elsewhere are all musts. And while those things are improving, we’re probably still a way off.

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In addition, pricing on the AppleTV has been lowered, with systems set to be released in two weeks with the new software available for $229 (40GB) and $329 (160GB).

The Apple TV set-top box was originally intended to make it easier for anyone to transfer media files from their PC to their television.

This is an idea that seems to have been wholly accepted by consumers, although some users still experience problems due to the interface.

Current owners of an Apple TV need not worry about purchasing new hardware, as the company has mentioned that it will provide the new software free of charge to existing owners. 

Steve Jobs Explains The Strategy

Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO said:

“With the new Apple TV and iTunes Movie Rentals, movie lovers can rent DVD-quality or stunning HD movies from their couch with just a click of a button.”

“No more driving to the video store or waiting for DVDs to arrive in the mail.” 

Should Netflix be worried or does Apple stand a change against the internet movie rental king that ended Blockbuster’s reign on the market?

Although iTunes has proved very successful in the sales of video and music, its new rental division may have more trouble becoming as popular.

Not only because Apple has sold millions more iPods than Apple TV devices, but also due to the static pricing rates Apple is set to implement for the new service. 

Pricing Issues?

DVD-quality movie rental on iTunes will reportedly sell at $2.99 for library titles and $3.99 for new releases, while the high-definition versions will be priced slightly higher at $3.99 for library titles and new releases at $4.99.

According to the press release:

“Customers have up to 30 days to start watching it, and once a movie has been started customers have 24 hours to finish it — or watch it multiple times.”

In Comparison To Netflix

This pricing strategy is reminiscent of the overpriced fees that Blockbuster charges per rental, when, nowadays, I am much more fond of the monthly rates introduced by Netflix, and now mimicked by Blockbuster’s online service. 

With the new iTunes service you could get 4 new releases for $16, whereas for a monthly fee of $16.99, Netflix offers not only unlimited rentals for the month, but also an unlimited viewing period. 

Even though the new iTunes rental services benefits from completely digital download and no need for DVDs, Netflix’s plan also includes access to more than 90,000 titles that are viewable on an PC (or TV through the use a simple, inexpensive cable which is my method).

As far as how big Apple’s rental library will be, expect at least 1,000 titles (100 of those in HD) from all major studios by the end of February. From there it will continue to grow of course, with new releases expected to be available via the service within 30 days of their release on DVD.

Conclusions

The way I see it, Apple may have the “convenience” factor, but Netflix has the “value” factor and will also have new titles earlier than iTunes Movie Rentals. 

It will just depend which is more important to each specific consumer. Given time though, its anyone’s guess where iTunes rentals will be in a year. Apple should at least consider a monthly pricing scheme though, right?

Michael Garrett is a contributing author discussing the social networking world, his work can be found on Profy.com

A slip up by Apple in the latest version of iTunes indicates a movie rental service on the horizon. Mac developer David Watanabe was quick to notice this Freudian Slip and uploaded a screenshot of an iTunes System Error which requests a refund for non-delivery of rental movies.

Other errors which point out to an Apple Movie Rental service include; accidental purchase, poor content quality, duplicate purchase, wrong version and bad metadata. As expected Apple for now is staying mum on the whole issue.

After the recent loss of NBC TV Show downloads to Amazon Unbox it will be interesting to see the impact iTunes rentals will have on the Unbox online video rental service. With iTunes being such a dominant leader in paid video downloads this can’t spell good times for Amazon Unbox, or for other competitors including Movielink and CinemaNow.

Cheaper iTunes TV Shows

In other Apple news, it has come to light that Apple has been pushing the owners of much of the content that appears on its iTunes service to allow the TV show price to be dropped to 99 cents per show.

That is definitely a different direction in pricing than NBC wanted to go!

[Via Flickr]

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