Apple Sold 1.4M Apple TVs in Most Recent Quarter vs. 2.8M Sold in All of Fiscal 2011

[henrystar]

Dent?

"the device barely makes a dent in Apple's earnings" Huh? A dent? It loses money? How about "the device makes a barely perceptible blip in Apple's earnings."

 

[cipo]

I also wouldn't say the PS3 is better... the interface leaves LOTS to be desired... and that fan noise...

Exactly. I have a PS3 in the living room, and I would never even consider using it as a media center. Fiddling with a controller when you could simply use your TV's remote or the iPad? Having to turn on the TV just to listen to some music? No AirPlay? Having to endure that fan noise? Come on.

 

[shompa]

A large part of the AppleTV rise is because of they where introduced in many countries in Q4 2011.

 

[starnyc]

a large part of the recent success is iOS 5.0 which really gave apple TV a lot of cool functionality. It's going to be a new billion+ revenue stream in 2012.

 

[davidoloan]

You can download much higher quality recordings than CD from sites like Linn Records. Unlike BD Video the file sizes are not that huge and can be streamed.

Apple Lossless, Flac etc are bit for bit the same as CD.

Even today MP3s and AAC files can't compare in quality to a CD. The difference is much less then what it used to be, but if one wants the best sound quality possible CD still offers the best experience.

If anything discs will become niche products for people who care about quality in the future, but I think BD still has a long life ahead of it.

 

[imola.zhp]

There are two in my house!

Give us Hulu Plus already!

 

[Ubuntu]

The place where I work, we've had many Apple TV competitor products in stock and they sell from time to time. Apple TV has been out of stock for about a month until last week when we got 10 units in. All sold on the same day. It's pretty amazing.

 

[NoIdeasOriginal]

Apple TV + XBMC = heaven.

 

[anthonyg86]

I can't believe no one as posted this yet :

I work at a store where we sold over 250 apple tv's over the holiday season and up to yesterday.

Most of the people purchasing it had the intention of jail braking it in order to put some sort of software and access illegally tons of content.

Apple sure knows about this. And i think they don't care until they just get rid of all their stock of apple tv's in order to make room for the new models. Then send out some update and break the jail break for the time being.

The sales don't speak about people's interest in the apple tv, they just speak about the fact that more and more people out there are finding out about jailbreaks and techsavyness.

 

[jdbr]

Great Little Device

I have had my Apple TV2 from the start and despite the fact that here in the UK it is a little bit more expensive and lacked some of the features, I have found it to be the most useful device in my house. Streams all my music into my HiFi, all the tv programmes and films I have recorded onto my iMac, stream tv programmes from iTunes and films for rent. Stream and convert video using an app via my iPhone or iPad from my iMac. I can look at all my and my friends photos on Flickr and now I can stream from Netflix. Brilliant little device for very little money and I would be more than happy to buy any future device.

 

[JesseFogarty]

Best quote i've heard this morning "Apple sells more phones in a day than people make babies" <- this is where our world has come

 

[threesixty360]

You generally only watch films once or twice and first impressions count. Otherwise why would anyone go to the cinema in the first place? Quality matters a lot more with film than it does with a song, because you typically play songs hundreds of times and its more about the composition, singing etc.. which more than adequately conveyed by mp3.

Admittidely, I've seen some fairly good HD rips of TV shows and films that look ok on an imac etc.. but when it comes to a big screen, you can tell the difference between the blu-ray and the compressed online version. Youtube 1080p looks terrible on a big screen.

For convenience, obviously compressed, 720p online streaming is cool. But I'm happy that blu-rays I have now are near enough reference copies of a film that in 10yrs time will look even better as TV technology grows and average screen size gets bigger. Anything under a 40inch tv is not worthy of blu-ray anyway. You wont notice much difference. 50inch + tv's, if your a film enthusiast, blu-ray is a must.

I just dont see compression getting any better than what it is now. And bandwith for must people in teh world is not there yet to deliver reliably a minimum 4gb file.

Blu-ray meets a need that technology and infrastucture have not fixed yet.

 

[charlesdayton]

the 720p vs 1080p is over stated. its nothing more then tech talk most of the time. You have to be sitting at the proper distance and have the proper size tv to even notice the differences between 720p and 1080p. its nothing more then a bragging right. I have a 58" plasma perfect for 1080p. I still rent movies on the ATV in 720p because its cheaper then buying blurays and the difference isnt all that dramatic.

Agree. In order to notice the difference between 720p and 1080p in an average 32" TV you will have to sit a few feet in front of it.

 

[alent1234]

If Apple would offer a 1080p ATV3 with apps for that TV(like HBO Go, etc), the thing would fly off the shelves. I'm just one of the many waiting patiently for that upgrade of ATV3, but if that upgrade takes the form of an actual TV versus a box, I won't be buying one. If the box is still a box, I'm looking to buy several

i would buy it without 1080p if i had more choices in services. netflix is OK, itunes lacks all you can watch subscriptions.

and i would like amazon and hulu on it so i can cancel cable

 

[uplate]

Roku makes a decent product but it is glitchy. Also, no AirPlay is a deal breaker.

I bought a roku to help me cut the cord, mostly for the hulu integration. Great, until I found out that most of the content I wanted to watch is "web only", so not available on the roku hulu app. It now collects dust in the closet.
I bought a 2nd apple tv for my other TV and i'm very happy with them. The only thing I envy from the roku is a pandora app.

 

[shiseiryu1]

Totally Agree

Exactly. I have a PS3 in the living room, and I would never even consider using it as a media center. Fiddling with a controller when you could simply use your TV's remote or the iPad? Having to turn on the TV just to listen to some music? No AirPlay? Having to endure that fan noise? Come on.

The fan noise is what annoys me most! I don't know how the newer PS3 units are but the original ones get really loud. If you have other Apple products then the AppleTV is a no-brainer.

Apple could make the AppleTV even sweeter by adding screen mirroring for the MacBooks. There is another device on the market that does it already so we know its technically possible. Come'on Apple, bring "feature unity" across your product line: Screen Mirroring for Macbooks!

 

[uplate]

If Apple would offer a 1080p ATV3 with apps for that TV(like HBO Go, etc), the thing would fly off the shelves.

Networks are reluctant to have the content delivered directly to the TV via a device. Where's the airplay for the network apps (nbc,abc,etc)? Why are there different agreements for hulu-delivered content based on watching on the web vs. TV based (roku or embedded)? i don't think it's apple holding back.

see:
http://gigaom.com/video/airplay-is-coming-to-apps-except-the-ones-you-use/

 

[DeathChill]

Exactly. I have a PS3 in the living room, and I would never even consider using it as a media center. Fiddling with a controller when you could simply use your TV's remote or the iPad? Having to turn on the TV just to listen to some music? No AirPlay? Having to endure that fan noise? Come on.

You can buy a remote for the PS3. It makes it 100x better to use as a media center. I can agree about the fan noise on the original! It was ridiculous, thankfully they fixed it on the slim models.

 

[Kaibelf]

Would love to see Hulu Plus and HBO Go added to the Apple TV.

I would like this too, but stupid HBO still hasn't hashed out things with RCN, so I can't even use their iPad app yet.

 

[dXTC]

I'm the owner of two tv 2s here (three counting the one that was stolen). They've forever changed the way we enjoy our movies. I'd get another one for my daughter's room, but I fear we would never see her again. Still, a third one may come in handy in our basement area someday.

Most of our movies are encoded for the iPod touch with only 480 pixel width, with the rare exception of visually grand movies like Avatar, Star Trek: First Contact and WALL-E which I've done at higher resolution. Even so, my family doesn't seem to mind too much, and we can squeeze lots of movies onto my daughter's older iPod touch for road trips without re-encoding.

The only time we use a DVD player now is when one of us is too impatient to wait for the movie to appear on Netflix and makes a Redbox run. My daughter watches movies several times-- her Cars 2 playcount is already in double digits, for example-- and as all of us with kids know, kids tend to be rather rough with physical discs. HandBrake + tv 2 = not having to replace that expensive Pixar disc again.

As I've been an iTunes fan since the intro of iTunes for Windows, all my media is iTunes compatible, so I've never felt the need for jailbreak or XBMC. My Airport Extreme works like a charm at nudging my iMac awake long enough to serve up a file and putting it back to sleep when it's done.

Our family's tv wishlist? OTA network integration (yeah, hang on to that dream, pal) and Vevo (we like music videos; the good YouTube ones are controlled by Vevo and marked web-only).

 

[chirpie]

1080P and 720P cannot be discerned by the human eye 51" and under... it's a fact... look it up.

This sentence is incorrect. You need to have a corresponding viewing distance from the display.

Without viewing distance, you could be 100 feet away from a 20 foot screen and not be able to tell the difference.

Without viewing distance, you could be 1 foot away from a 32 inch screen screen and easily be able to tell the difference.

This is also a fact.

 

[h0mi]

Did Apple ever enable making purchases on the apple tv? I know when it first came out (the new model not the previous one) you couldn't buy videos from itunes, just rent (no storage). Considering Apple themselves noted that consumers were far less likely to rent videos (like tv shows) than buy, that seems like a big miss on this platform.

They need an app store. An app store, along with support for local (external) storage would probably convince me to pick one up. Support for Ultraviolet would be pretty good as well but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

It's so sad to see the same old, tired, "720p is better than 1080p" arguments are still persisting. Most of the rationale will work just as well with SD (480p) vs 720p or VHS (320 x 200) vs. SD. Based on how far you sit from a screen and/or the size of the screen, the human eye might be unable to see the difference between SD or VHS quality and 720p but no one (here) seems to make that argument very hard. SD or less requires less internet bandwidth than 720p and less hard drive storage. It even comes with an added bonus in that it costs less than the 720p version via iTunes.

720pers please note:

• a 1080p video downconverts to 720p in pristine form. You lose nothing with a higher resolution file being squeezed down to a lower resolution screen. It just doesn't work the other way (meaning those who believe they can see a difference- or actually do see a difference- could get what they want too with no loss to you), AND, (perhaps) MORE IMPORTANTLY...
• Apple has finally embraced 1080p over 720p as evidenced by the choice of video camera resolution used in the iPhone 4S. If Apple believed in any of the tired rationale for 720p over 1080p, why did they put in that "overkill" (that will probably also go into the next iPad too)?

Apple has turned this page... maybe not with the TV (yet) but it should now be only a matter of time. People shooting 1080p with iPhones won't be thrilled at seeing it downconverted via TV forever.

Personally, I expect a 1080p TV this year- hopefully sooner than later. And my money awaits it, probably buying 2 or 3 as soon as it is released (I know for certain that I'm not the only one waiting). 720p was pretty good when the original one came out in 2007. It's 2012 now. Just about every other piece of HD video technology has embraced "full HD." Finally, Apple is doing this too.

Those that cling to "720p is good enough" arguments need to be ready to rail against Apple when Apple rolls out a 1080p TV. But why do I think the bulk of the 720per crowd will be gushing ("my credit card is ready", etc) about the quality of 1080p as soon as that TV comes out?

That said, I think it's great news that this little box is selling in those volumes. Maybe it will get a little extra attention from Apple so that it can become a much greater seller. From my perspective, the big 4 are:

• 1080p playback (you 720pers could still enjoy your 720p to it's fullest on hardware capable of playing back better than 720p). Get fully toe-to-toe with the max video output capability of Blu Ray so there are no superiority arguments pro Blu Ray vs. this little box. I perceive that's 1080p 60fps at (BD) max Mbps playback.
• Apps- the stuff that Apple doesn't want to do (or put resources toward doing) could be done by third parties. Look at what the jailbreaking crowd is doing in an unsupported, hidden (from the iTunes store) way. Just imagine how much more could be done.
• Normalize that USB port (or add several normal USB ports) so that those who want local storage can just hook up whatever size of local storage they desire so they can turn off that computer (or take that laptop with them). Building in local storage can't work because no chosen capacity is the right capacity for everyone (and some don't want to pay for local storage). Normal USB port(s) might also open the door for third party hardware + app combinations (for example, for those wanting BD or DVR functionality, maybe companies like Elgato would step up and offer that)
• Embrace the major audio standards- To fully compete with the "bag of hurt" it needs to ALSO match up well on the audio side. That means it needs more than DD 5.1 playback. The lossless and DTS standards common on Blu Ray should work on this as well

There are a few others. Personally, I would love to see analog audio output so that many Zone 2 receivers (that only work with analog audio) could work. And personally, I'd pay a lot more for THAT TV described above (though I completely believe that all that could sell for just about the same price as the existing unit- look no further than the pricing of many other little TV-like boxes that offer such benefits).

 

[belvdr]

I still have my original ATV, but it just collects dust. Not sure what to do with it, since I replaced it with a Roku. Instead of the ATV2, I bought another Roku and I've loved it.

 

[mwulf67]

You can buy a remote for the PS3. It makes it 100x better to use as a media center. I can agree about the fan noise on the original! It was ridiculous, thankfully they fixed it on the slim models.

Been there, done that...used a PS3 (big fatty) for years as a media player in my rec room, bought a 2nd one (slim model) just to serve solely as a media player for the family room....I am not going to bash the setup; its serviceable and gets the job done (more so with movies then with music)...if you are buying it as a game system, first and for most, with the added benefit of a very utilitarian media steamer, I can't find fault with that....however as a stand alone media streamer, the PS3 leaves a lot to be desired...it expensive for what you get, the interface stinks (even with the remote, the experience is only marginal better), and you need multiple 3rd party programs to even make it make it work decent...I really wish Sony would have done more with their PS3 as media streamer, the potential is certainly there...

Recently, the one of my PS3s bit the dust (big fatty)...instead of replace it with a newer model, I went with ATV2...very happy with it; I definitely feel like I've gained more than what I've lost...I still play games and watch BRs on my PS3, but everything else (music, streamed movies, netflix, etc) is done on the ATV2....