Let's do a little exercise.
Why does the Apple TV need an App store?
How would you control those apps? With the existing remote? No, too limited. Probably you'll suggest that Apple include a touch screen remote, but then the price would skyrocket from $99 to at least double that (more like triple).
So ok, people should just use their iPods and iPhones and iPads to control the Apps on your TV. Exactly, but then why does the app need to run on the AppleTV when there's more processing power on the handheld device and an already established App Store?
I've been suggesting this for quite some time and Apple has been consistently following steps on a path to realizing this vision: Apps run on your touch screen devices and stream appropriate content to the TV.
The new AirPlay Mirroring brings this vision nearly to fruition. Apple just needs to release more developer tools to make this easier to implement. Give developers the ability to specify a separate UI for a second screen.
For example, a news app would display the news story on the handheld screen (i.e. iPhone or iPad) where its more comfortable to read while pictures and video of the story show on your big screen where that content can best be enjoyed. The Mail app would let you read the email in your hands while attachments show on the TV. Video games would give each player a private screen and the TV would serve as an overview of the full game. The YouTube app would play videos on the AppleTV while you could control the video on the touch screen and read and post comments. There's already a Pandora App for iOS and it works great with the AppleTV.
We don't need a 3rd App Store and yet another copy of an app. The "AppleTV App store" already exists and we'll see more of it with the release of iOS5 and AirPlay mirroring.
For me, what has been limitingtv is the difficulty and work involved in storing massive files for your TV Shows and Movies on a computer and/or external drives then requiring iTunes to be running to play them.
iCloud is bringing us a step closer to the model that I prefer: you buy a movie or tv show which gives you the rights to that content. You never have to download the file, just stream it to your AppleTV, Mac or iPhone/iPad/iPod whenever you want to watch it.
There are workarounds, though: iOS devices all have HD video cameras, and it sounds like iOS 5 can mirror a FaceTime call. So, just get three iPhones instead of one: play the content on one, capture it with the camera of the second, and broadcast via FaceTime to the third, which then streams to your AppleTV. Easy! Lots of families have three iPhones anyway.
Isn't that like saying that a Retina Display is not a large enough difference to warrant a whole new iPhone? 1080p (2.1mp) has over twice as many pixels as 720p (0.9mp).
On close-out? Oh, you mean the price drop to $99 thing, the second factor that's making me consider it. I'd never pay $250 for one, but since they're lowering the price to $99, that changes things.
i'm actually glad that the hardware cannot do 1080p as it keeps the costs down. I wouldn't spend twice as much to have a 1080p model.
May I ask if/how you are backing up all that data?
I am just using Time Machine to back up one external hard drive full of media (a few DVDs and a lot of home movies) to another external hard drive. I'm wondering if there is a better way to do that, though, in terms of prevention of data loss.
Ripping DVDs takes a long time, and I wouldn't want to have to do it again. And if you actually get rid of the DVDs after you rip them, a hard drive failure could mean a huge loss.
I purchased ATV for one reason - to watch baseball games. When the set up works its fabulous and worth every penny of the 99 bucks for this limited use. The funny thing is that I purchased the ATV2 from the Apple Store in May and I am on my third unit as they just break. At the Genius Bar they run a test and give me a new one. Clearly, I love the thing despite my problems but feel there must be a thousand other reasons for it's use.
People - stop apologizing for Apple. They are *so* close with this one, and it's within their grasp to give everyone what they want:
- Stronger HW for 1080p and other items (A5)
- Freed from a computer running iTunes
- A USB (or other) port that can actually be used for data access
- 3rd Party Apps
It should all happen... and happen NOW. (I'm getting so tired of waiting.)
jailbreak + PLEX = win.
You can....I do it every single day. If you couldn't stream to the apple tv from your mac this device would be a failure.
It's still a failure no matter what the price. Also, consider that more Logitech Revue boxes were returned than bought in Q1, this says something. If they were bought for the $250 price tag, their customers were expecting them to at least work right. Them returning the Revue wasn't, I doubt, because of the price. Yes?
http://thisismynext.com/2011/07/28/...vue-boxes-returned-sold-q1-price-dropping-99/
actually it's a perfect product.
it's 99 USD (68 for europeans that by in the US) ... that's less than one tank of fuel.
jailbreak + PLEX = win.
i'm actually glad that the hardware cannot do 1080p as it keeps the costs down. I wouldn't spend twice as much to have a 1080p model. but, then again, I also wish that I could have a 299-399 low-spec MacMini.
I love my ATV2.
One thing that would make me love it more is if it were able to access networked hard drives. Having to always have a computer on with iTunes open is the one thing I dislike.
Not true...it only streams video content that can be PLAYED on appletv. Unless you want to spend hours converting a majority of your videos, the appletv has a long way to go.
How if they're on close-out?