Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Last November I finally caved in and replaced my 1984 25" Mitsubishi tube TV with a Samsung 52" LCD from Best Buy along with all the other goodies (receiver, 5.1 speakers, etc.).

The one thing I didn't get that I wanted...an AppleTV. My Plan was to buy something like this for myself as a holiday present this December hoping they'd do a product refresh by then. What's the possibility?

Wait until the rumored iPod Keynote on 9/9/09. This is the 1st time that the Apple TV really may get an update. We shall see.
 
You obviously don't own an AppleTV.
You can begin playing any downloaded movies within a minute of purchasing.

I have my own problems with ATV. There's been a known bug since day one wherein a newly downloaded movie shows up as silent whitescreen with just a progress bar, and the only work-around is to pull the plug on the box and restart. Absolutely stupid. The inability of Apple to fix this is mind-numbing.
(aside... if anyone has any more recent info on a fix to this bug, please let me know.)

But its a sign of how much I love ATV that I ignore this stupidity and just work the bounce into my process. Life goes on.

I can't say I have ever had that issue with my ATV with the white screen, although it loves to freak out when I switch from HDMI source to HDMI source. I'm guessing it may be an issue with HDMI and how you have your system setup perhaps. Either way their is room for improvement in the overall operation of the TV, but that said each update has been an improvement.
 
I would gladly pay for the shows I want from premium networks (HBO, showtime, etc) rather than wait for netflix.

I would probably cancel cable.
 
Duh is right....I could have predicted this.

As soon as all the US Wireless Carriers are ready to adequately support 4G, the iPhone will be supported on all of them. Good news for consumers....good news for the carriers (yes even AT&T....it will now share the network capacity burden with all the other carriers....and all of them are equally slow and overpriced) and good news for Apple (if they can sell more iPhones to make up for the reduced "kickback" rate from AT&T).
 
Not sure this would be a very viable price. I mean there is alot of competition out there already. Huly, Netflix, and others offering Movies, and New TV Shows for free or cheaper 8.99 for Netlfix.

Also I dont pay $85.00 like they stated hell I pay 30.00 for Satelitte TV and I get instant access to thousands of shows in HD.

I know I have stopped buying tv shows from iTunes because I personally feel 1.99 is to much for a 1 episode in SD. I feel Tv shows and Music should be .99 an episode maybe 1.99 for HD. In fact I think it would be a much better value to buy a show at .99 and a Song at 1.99 seeing as I will watch the show once and listen to music probably for a few years at least.

I think apple is not taking the e-media serious. Apple TV gets almost no support and maybe yearly basic upgrades. there is a TON of things they could do to make the apple TV a staple of the household, but they havent.

Although I think we will see a new apple TV is the future here that does movies, music, and games sooner than we think.. 2010..

I don't know where that $85 comes from unless you get EVERYTHING. My dad does, but he's retired. I'm in the same boat with you, looking at Dish Network deals around $30 to start with, maybe going up to $40 for HD.

I'm all with you on the show prices. I used to use iTunes when I missed a TV show before everybody started streaming them. Now, I rarely buy TV shows, and they're only heavily discounted or very cheap to begin with. Comparing iTunes HD shows to Blu-ray Disc versions of them on Amazon, iTunes rarely wins by a lot. Amazon actually wins the price war most of the time, and sometimes by a long shot because they do this thing called a sale. iTunes sales are weak compared to those of other retailers. However, I'm betting a lot of this has to do with the studios and not just Apple.

If Apple wants ATV to be a worthwhile product, it needs a Blu-ray and DVD option. Most people aren't going to add another box that kinda sorta does a few things. I didn't buy a Roku Netflix streamer, I waited and got a Blu-ray player that had it built in. Also, this new ATV needs some sort of app store for Netflix, Hulu, etc. to provide players for people to use on their TVs. Add a non-sucky remote and you might have me on a new ATV.
 
It is obvious to me that the iPhone will lose the ATT exclusivity at the end of the contract in 2010 or maybe 2011 after a one year extension at most. But that's it.

To the idiots claiming it would just be too much hassle to add a CDMA chip to the phone should ask why every other manufacturer has multiple phone versions with different chips and Blackberry manages to have a world phone for verizon that works with GSM too, yet this is just too burdensome for Apple?
Careful who you call an idiot. As we "idiots" have mentioned countless times, the only major CDMA provider that will be left in North America by 2011 will be Sprint. Verizon, and Metro PCS in the US and Telus, Bell and Virgin Mobile in Canada are all migrating to LTE (4G GSM Standard) along with all of the GSM carriers around 2011. Telus and Virgin (which use Bell and Telus towers) will offer 3G GSM roaming later this month with according to rumours.
 
”By way of example, for various reasons the company moved from an exclusive relationship with French wireless carrier Orange to a multi-carrier model. In France, the company now enjoys dramatically higher market share (in the 40 percent range vs. about 15 percent in ROW) than in countries with exclusive carrier agreements (such as AT&T in the U.S. where the iPhone has market share in the mid-teens).”


DUH!!!???
 
Time for multiple carriers!

First, a vote casting - if I could get an iphone with verizon, I'd absolutely have one.

Second, I think the phenomanon they named, of imitators to the iphone establishing iphoneness as the ultimate, to be imitated phone, works towards multiple carriers. Imitators say (implicitly) that the iphone is the best, but also that it is now a category of phones, with second and third bests that you can settle for. When the iphone first came out, this wasn't the case - it was a category unto itself.

As it's own category, the single carrier model makes sense. If you buy into the new category, then it holds enormous power for you, because there is no substitute. Switching carriers, then, is clearly worthwhile. For ATT, the value of new customers, who will likely not switch long term for another phone, is immense, so apple can get more money out of them, and get nearly the market share.

But now, that isn't quite the same. There are imitators - sure, the iphone is the penultimate non-business smart phone, but there are other options. Now you must decide between compromising on phone or on carrier, and who knows how that will end up. It used to be that you had to compromise on the carrier (if ATT wasn't what you wanted), but that was dwarfed by the phone decision, between having it all with an iphone, or having a normal phone, AKA nothing.

So I say, multiple carriers! Plus, I want an iphone but live where I would never get a signal for it, anyway. So for me it is actually the inverse choice of the origional iphone - I must compromise on the phone, because otherwise I don't have the experience of having a functional cell phone.
 
Careful who you call an idiot. As we "idiots" have mentioned countless times, the only major CDMA provider that will be left in North America by 2011 will be Sprint. Verizon, and Metro PCS in the US and Telus, Bell and Virgin Mobile in Canada are all migrating to LTE (4G GSM Standard) along with all of the GSM carriers around 2011.

Not sure where you get those dates. They're way off.

Verizon has said they won't be fully rolled out with LTE until late 2013 or early 2014. And even then, that's mostly for data only.

The first Verizon LTE smartphones won't go on sale until 2011, and CDMA phones will continue to be sold through the end of the next decade.

As for ATT and LTE, that's a long way down the line. They're fine with just building out their current 3G structure and increasing its speed.

So no, CDMA's not going away soon. Why should it? Why build millions of LTE voice dumbphones that cost more and clog up the lucrative LTE high speed lines for no reason whatsoever.
 
It's just common sense really, if you have availability from multiple carriers you are bound to sell more.

I doubt if anyone has bought an iPhone just because it is exclusive to AT&T or O2, but there are a lot of people who haven't purchased because they can't get it on their carrier of choice.

The issue becomes whether or not you can sell enough units to offset the money being paid as part of the exclusivity agreements.

I imagine the carriers will bid HEAVILY for the next generation of iPhone -- such that it might remain more lucrative for Apple to remain a single-carrier operation.

I'm also somewhat curious how an Apple-Verizon marriage would work, given Verizon's desire to control all media on their handsets via the V-Cast network.
 
Why do so many, the news report included, say 'Apple will move to multiple carriers'? This isn't solely about Apple, the USA wireless market demands these exclusive contracts, and Apple has to cope with that. It's not like "if you build it, they will come".

The iPhone is not the only cell phone that is exclusive to one carrier, not by a long shot. It's about wireless company greed as much as anything else.
 
”By way of example, for various reasons the company moved from an exclusive relationship with French wireless carrier Orange to a multi-carrier model. In France, the company now enjoys dramatically higher market share (in the 40 percent range vs. about 15 percent in ROW) than in countries with exclusive carrier agreements (such as AT&T in the U.S. where the iPhone has market share in the mid-teens).”

Munster is talking out of his ass.

There are other countries where the iphone is basically sold by every carrier in the country --- like Australia and Italy. For sure, if the iphone was capturing 40% of the Australian smartphone market --- we would have heard and read about it (especially because Australians are English speaking).

Secondly, in every single news report about the iphone sales in France --- they are on par with UK and Germany sales (since they have about the same population size). Even if Munster is right that the iphone is capturing 40% in France's smartphone market --- it only means ONE thing, the French smartphone market is vastly smaller than every single industrial country in the world.

It is very simple math --- for example, if both UK and France both sell 2 million iphones and they both have the approx the same population size ---- and the iphone has only a 15% market share in smartphone in UK but 40% market share in smartphone in France. Then there is only ONE math solution --- the French smartphone market is much smaller than UK and the rest of the industrial world.
 
FREE THE US iPHONE!!! :D

And I would LOVE an Apple TV update! I have been waiting for a while now! :cool:

I agree - I think the Apple TV has a lot of potential, but just hasn't hit its stride yet. The subscription model described would be very tempting for a lot of people! It would definitely be a way to move a lot of Apple TV units, and put a good fright into the cable companies too. I just hope they can roll something like that out in more than just a select few countries.
 
I would probably get a Verizon iphone depending on the price and the amount of crap they put on it. I already only get 7.2GB out of my 8GB 3G. Also it better not have a Verzon logo across the top or bottom either. Either way I'd probably still JB and remove all the stuff they install. Better have Wifi too. Unlike the BB's

A ATV update would be welcome, i've been wanting to get one but after the hulu boxee fiasco havn't had much of a reason.
 
I always find it humorous that only on Apple forums do I find people who either: A) pay less than $50 a month for cable already or B) don't watch tv at all and could care less if Apple brought out this service.

I pay $110 a month for Directv and that is without HBO or any other tier. How many channels do I watch? Maybe 10. I don't know anyone else who is paying less than $100 no matter what service they use. Sure I could buy an HD antenna and get the majors, but my wife always wants that one cooking channel or whatever, and I have to have ESPN and that is the sucky thing about tv providers. You can never pick and choose, you have to buy whatever package has that one channel you need and it always in the top tier. I would gladly buy Apple's model if it was up to date, meaning the shows were available the same time they came on on the networks. As it is now, I just finished watching Flight of the Conchords Season 2 from Netflix about 6 months after it was on HBO. I have Directv because Time Warner sucks and because I like the NFL package during season, but basically, if I could have the 4 major networks, and ESPN, I would be sold.
 
Not sure where you get those dates. They're way off.

Verizon has said they won't be fully rolled out with LTE until late 2013 or early 2014. And even then, that's mostly for data only.

The first Verizon LTE smartphones won't go on sale until 2011, and CDMA phones will continue to be sold through the end of the next decade.

As for ATT and LTE, that's a long way down the line. They're fine with just building out their current 3G structure and increasing its speed.

So no, CDMA's not going away soon. Why should it? Why build millions of LTE voice dumbphones that cost more and clog up the lucrative LTE high speed lines for no reason whatsoever.
I really could not care less about Verizon. I don't care. The dates are from wikipedia. Those other carriers have made announcements concerning a 2011 launch and the CDMA carriers in Canada have announced that they will have 3G GSM service available by 2010 (October 2009 for Telus) in preparation.

Verizon means nothing to me as a Canadian. As for problems with CDMA, do a google search. There are a lot of people who hate Bell service.
 
I always find it humorous that only on Apple forums do I find people who either: A) pay less than $50 a month for cable already or B) don't watch tv at all and could care less if Apple brought out this service.

I pay $110 a month for Directv and that is without HBO or any other tier. How many channels do I watch? Maybe 10. I don't know anyone else who is paying less than $100 no matter what service they use. Sure I could buy an HD antenna and get the majors, but my wife always wants that one cooking channel or whatever, and I have to have ESPN and that is the sucky thing about tv providers. You can never pick and choose, you have to buy whatever package has that one channel you need and it always in the top tier. I would gladly buy Apple's model if it was up to date, meaning the shows were available the same time they came on on the networks. As it is now, I just finished watching Flight of the Conchords Season 2 from Netflix about 6 months after it was on HBO. I have Directv because Time Warner sucks and because I like the NFL package during season, but basically, if I could have the 4 major networks, and ESPN, I would be sold.

Only a matter of time . . .

http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/22254/

http://www.appleinsider.com/article...iphone_on_new_u_s_carriers_within_a_year.html
 
I pay $110 a month for Directv and that is without HBO or any other tier. How many channels do I watch? Maybe 10. I don't know anyone else who is paying less than $100 no matter what service they use.
I pay under $90 for DirecTV without any extra tier, a full package otherwise, 3 DVRs, and HD, with no discounts currently running, not even the $5 one I could get if I paid them through Qwest. I guess HD is now a tier, actually. What are you paying for? 12 receivers?
 
i would love to replace comcast with apple, but what about live sports?

That's why it is really quite silly to see Apple tv or any download service (netflix, etc.) as a REPLACEMENT for satellite or cable tv (or antenna tv for that matter). A sport is really only compelling when it's watched live, and channels like ESPN, Fox Sports Net, and the major broadcast networks have them covered. Meanwhile, the satellite and cable companies are using the iPhone to sell more subs themselves.

I just saw a commercial tonight with Dennis Leary pitching Directv's NFL Sunday Ticket package. The main selling point? This season you can now watch LIVE GAMES anywhere on your iPhone (he never says you can watch the on the iPhone, he just holds an iPhone up to the screen and says you can watch games live on "one of these", so now you can go to a baby shower and not miss the game...
 
A sport is really only compelling when it's watched live, and channels like ESPN, Fox Sports Net, and the major broadcast networks have them covered.

How "live" is live? Is 1 minute delay live enough?
The new standards for streaming allow for some good quality streaming with a slight delay.

only way i watch movies is renting HD from apple tv. and i must say..it kind of stinks waiting 2-3 hours for a download to play. I always have to think before hand which movie I want to see at night. any improvement to this...i would like.

2-3 hour wait, for a 5Mbps film... you must be on about 2Mbps download speed? My parents are on 4Mbps, so 30mins wait. I'm on just under 5Mbps depending on the weather...

What I'd like to see is the option to start watching in SD (which is about 1.6Mbps), then switch to HD when the box works out it's far enough ahead to show you the last half in HD. I wouldn't use it often, but it'd be good for those times we didn't want to wait.

Not sure this would be a very viable price. I mean there is alot of competition out there already. Huly, Netflix, and others offering Movies, and New TV Shows for free or cheaper 8.99 for Netlfix.

Hulu is ad supported. Why can't iTunes do that too?
ie: NBC shows Battlestar on iTunes, with NBC ads inserted
(or Apple could run their own ad network)
Have ads customised just for us. No tampon ads for me, for example. This allows fewer ads but higher returns per ad.

True innovation would be for Apple to merge what it has with what Interactive TV promised 10 years ago.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.