AppleTV Survey

[Manic Mouse]

Apple TV is designed to provide on demand movies and TV shows. It does that really well. Plus movie rentals is great.

Additionally it provides YouTube, Podcasts, Photos and Music. Plus it'll play any file you encode to MPEG4 (not ideal I agree).

But the market Apple was targetting was on demand. And they are doing well with it.

And this "on-demand" market barely even exists, which is why even Apple themselves admit that the Apple TV is a failure.

Like I said, a solution looking for a problem. "On-demand" services are auxiliary to the bread and butter of the TV experience. Apple are trying to sell us the cup-holder of a car, not the rest of it that gets us from A to B. The Apple TV does absolutely nothing useful for 99% of customers, which is not how you design a successful product!

 

[Tilpots]

Apple TV is designed to provide on demand movies and TV shows. It does that really well. Plus movie rentals is great.

Additionally it provides YouTube, Podcasts, Photos and Music. Plus it'll play any file you encode to MPEG4 (not ideal I agree).

But the market Apple was targetting was on demand. And they are doing well with it.

It's too niche of a market. And they are not doing as well as they would like. More features = more sales.

 

[kolax]

Well I can't back up my argument with on demand TV. I simply don't buy anything off the iTunes Movie or TV store.

I have a heap of DVD's that I've ripped, and about 30 TV shows, with episodes that I add each week. I'm not going to debate the legit ways or not of getting those episodes, but I encode them, for a 20min episode in 720p format, takes around an hour. Then, when it comes to night time, instead of having to hook up my Mac to my TV, it is all on the Apple TV waiting to be watched. Same applies to TV shows or stuff I've recorded via EyeTV on my Mac.

To me, that was a solution to my problem - how do I watch downloaded things on my TV without having to burn a DVD or hook up my Mac. The bonus things with the Apple TV is playing music, YouTube and photos.

Not saying that solution is for everyone - but it met what I need and that's why I love the Apple TV.

 

[Manic Mouse]

Well I can't back up my argument with on demand TV. I simply don't buy anything off the iTunes Movie or TV store.

I have a heap of DVD's that I've ripped, and about 30 TV shows, with episodes that I add each week. I'm not going to debate the legit ways or not of getting those episodes, but I encode them, for a 20min episode in 720p format, takes around an hour. Then, when it comes to night time, instead of having to hook up my Mac to my TV, it is all on the Apple TV waiting to be watched. Same applies to TV shows or stuff I've recorded via EyeTV on my Mac.

To me, that was a solution to my problem - how do I watch downloaded things on my TV without having to burn a DVD or hook up my Mac. The bonus things with the Apple TV is playing music, YouTube and photos.

Not saying that solution is for everyone - but it met what I need and that's why I love the Apple TV.

And that's fair enough that it suits your needs. But how you're using it, burning your own DVDs and using EYE TV, isn't how it's designed to be used. The majority of people will not have the expertise, nor the will (like me), to go through all that hassle just to get their media on the Apple TV.

Your example actually highlights the failures of the Apple TV. You have to hack it (eg: Boxee) or work around it (eg: rip your DVDs, EYE TV) to get it to do anything useful. The product, as is, is useless.

 

[kolax]

Your example actually highlights the failures of the Apple TV. You have to hack it (eg: Boxee) or work around it (eg: rip your DVDs, EYE TV) to get it to do anything useful. The product, as is, is useless.

That's why it's a hobby to Apple

What we need is a really easy, 1 2 3 type of ripping application. It'll do DVD's in max groups of 10. It'll rip the first DVD, then you put in the 2nd etc. Ripping doesn't take long. Once ripped (best to do this overnight) it'll do the encoding process using quality similar to HandBrake's Apple TV preset. Then it'll tag the films with metadata automatically.

Rather than having to encode the DVD as you rip it, then having to tag it with another application. Simply putting in the DVD, typing in the name of the film and clicking go would be ideal and anyone could do that.

Course Apple couldn't provide such an application officially..

 

[nevermind50]

A product that does nothing useful for the majority of people.

Apple TV is a flawed concept because it's a solution looking for a problem.

I think you're wrong. On-demand TV is the future and the Apple TV does this in a very intuitive way. ALL other distribution methods are DEAD. Get used to it. Apple need to offer the option of either pay per view or subscription and they're sorted.

A product that does nothing useful for the majority of people.

I think the "majority of people" have difficulty programming their own video recorder. From my experience, the "majority of people" get how the Apple TV works within a few minutes. That's very important and will drive the take up of on-demand programming. Simplicity and usability is IMO the most important advantage that this device has. To complicate it by adding pointless "features" [from the point of view of Apple's distribution model] will make it more expensive and more difficult to use.

 

[Manic Mouse]

I think you're wrong. On-demand TV is the future and the Apple TV does this in a very intuitive way. ALL other distribution methods are DEAD. Get used to it. Apple need to offer the option of either pay per view or subscription and they're sorted.

If all other distribution methods are dead then why are they flourishing and Apple TV floundering? I think you're mixing up ideals and what you want to be true with reality. The reality is that on-demand is nothing more than a tiny niche market currently, and looks at best to augment rather than replace current optical and broadcast media for the foreseeable future.

I can imagine Steve screaming something similar to Apple employees when they suggested that maybe the Apple TV needed a few more ways to get content onto it. Steve was wrong, and so are you. Hence Apple TV being an utter failure.

I think the "majority of people" have difficulty programming their own video recorder. From my experience, the "majority of people" get how the Apple TV works within a few minutes. That's very important and will drive the take up of on-demand programming. Simplicity and usability is IMO the most important advantage that this device has. To complicate it by adding pointless "features" [from the point of view of Apple's distribution model] will make it more expensive and more difficult to use.

I'm as technologically savvy as it gets and I'm also a huge Apple fanboy. Yet even I can't find the point in owning an Apple TV. How do you expect the average consumer to?

The fact that you describe features that people would actually use as "pointless" shows how you, like Apple, just don't get why the Apple TV is the failure it is.

I'll tell you what's useless, having no way of getting TV or film content onto a set-top-box aside from a download service that 90% of people don't use and have no intention of using due to expense, quality, technicality or the fact they already own the freaking DVD and don't want to buy the same movie again!

At the end of the day, the fact the Apple TV is a failed product (even according to Apple), shows that you're wrong. You can't argue with empirical facts. Nobody wants an Apple TV, very very few people have any use for one. If Apple want the product to be a success they have to change it so that it offers more than it currently does. Otherwise it's simply their "hobby", as they've described it. For example Play TV-esque functionality and an optical drive.

The best thing Apple could do, IMO, is merge the Mini and Apple TV and add in a tuner (maybe base it off ION). Then you have ultimate set-top-box. I know I'd buy one!

 

[nevermind50]

The fact that you describe features that people would actually use as "pointless" shows how you, like Apple, just don't get why the Apple TV is the failure it is.

Features that they already have in their DVR and DVD / BD player. I don't think there is a case for duplicating these functions.

If all other distribution methods are dead then why are they flourishing and Apple TV floundering?

I overstated the case to make my point. I think to jury is out, but tell me this, if all content is available to watch on demand, what is the point of having DVD, DVR? Especially if Apple introduce and "all you can eat" service.

 

[The Phazer]

I overstated the case to make my point. I think to jury is out, but tell me this, if all content is available to watch on demand, what is the point of having DVD, DVR? Especially if Apple introduce and "all you can eat" service.

Because *all* content isn't going to be available on demand anytime in the next twenty years.

Phazer

 

[nevermind50]

Because *all* content isn't going to be available on demand anytime in the next twenty years.

Phazer

What I meant to say was all new content.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Do you even own an Apple TV? This thing only lets you buy TV? YouTube is free, as are Podcasts. What about all my DVDs that I own? I rip them.

Out of the box, it was designed solely as an iTunes Store front. That was the point behind Take 2 - to allow people who don't have a computer to use it. But it is far more than that.

Heard of EyeTV for the Mac? Set that to record, then automatically export to your Apple TV.

I was going to mention EyeTV, but that would only help on the server side of things. You typically want a DVR in the same room that you watch TV so EyeTV would be fine for a Mini, but only good for archiving shows for AppleTV. If Apple were smart, they would team up with EyeTV to add the ability to plug it in to the USB port and automatically turn AppleTV into a DVR/Tuner. That way they could sell it as it is and those that want it to be a tuner/DVR could easily add it by simply plugging it in. But Apple has a history of going it alone and not wanting to cooperate with ANYONE about ANYTHING. They want propriety when the standard is already BETTER just so they can milk you for more money. I mean as much as I like some of Apple's products, they ALWAYS have a scheme going on to push more crap at you whether you want to see it or not. So OS X doesn't come with 3rd party advertisements all over the place like most OEM dealers of computer have for Windows. They don't need them. They're already pushing their own sales with iTunes and the Apple Store online. Why would they need to include anyone else? That would mean less profits for them. Screw everyone else. Let's replace all 3rd party software with Apple equivalents. We already control 100% of the hardware (save those freaks who use Hackintoshes or those soundrels that dare buy a Psystar) Who needs Office, when there's iWork? Who needs Adobe when there's Aperture? Who needs Firefox or Internet Explorer when there's Safari? Logic Pro 9....Final Cut Studio...on and on. I'm honestly shocked they didn't want to control the whole Parallels/Fusion market segment as well, but give them a year or two and they will kick them off their store and have iWindows or something. I wouldn't be shocked if Snow Leopard requires ALL software to be installed through a new Mac App store (where they'll take 30% right off the top from all developers). That's just the way Apple is. GREED personified. And I thought Microsoft was bad.... Geeze. Apple is the king of greed.

So no, I wouldn't ever expect anything new for AppleTV that Steve Jobs or one of his cronies didn't think up themselves or at least claim as their own idea. Steve doesn't want a tuner or Hulu support in AppleTV because he wants you to buy NBC shows from the iTunes store! That's it in a nutshell and it's why you'll NEVER EVER see features like that or a pairing with an EyeTV unit with AppleTV or anything else the CONSUMER MIGHT WANT. Because Apple is not about what the consumer wants, but about what STEVE WANTS TO SELL YOU.

Yeah, I like AppleTV, but the dude is right. It COULD do SO MUCH MORE but Apple won't let it because they might lose a few iTunes sales of TV shows or something. What Apple is BLIND to is that those decisions are costing them FAR FAR FAR more sales of hardware than iTunes sales (which they won't get anyway from such consumers because it's not what they want to buy). How many more Macs could Apple sell if they'd offer Windows switchers what they want/are used to, namely comparable quality hardware in a mini-tower that isn't 2x as expensive as the Dell hardware it's supposed to be competing with but isn't because Dell isn't allowed to offer OS X. But the iFans all sing Jobs praises and think it's only right that Apple be allowed to monopolize all the hardware for their operating system. After all, you can always go back to Windows if you don't like it.... (the same broken record all the time)

And that's fair enough that it suits your needs. But how you're using it, burning your own DVDs and using EYE TV, isn't how it's designed to be used. The majority of people will not have the expertise, nor the will (like me), to go through all that hassle just to get their media on the Apple TV.

Your example actually highlights the failures of the Apple TV. You have to hack it (eg: Boxee) or work around it (eg: rip your DVDs, EYE TV) to get it to do anything useful. The product, as is, is useless.

I disagree about it being useless. Even if you think ripping/encoding DVDs or even TV Shows through EyeTV or whatever are not "legitimate" uses for the device, it certainly at the VERY least is the equivalent of a Squeezebox or Sonus type system that allows you to stream music around your house with the added bonus of being able to rent HD movies and stream your photos, iTunes movies, tv shows and music videos around the house. It IS designed to do THAT right out of the box. Go tell Sonus or Logitech there is "no market" for their products. They cost AT LEAST as much (Sonus costs more) for those basic music streaming abilities. They do not stream any kind of video and they both require either a server or NAS (which is just a server in a headless box) to operate so yes they are the same without the video options. Use "Remote" with your iPhone or iPod Touch to control the entire system and AppleTV is MUCH more useful than either Squeeze Center or Sonus.

Rip/Encode your own DVDs with Handbrake (BD discs can be ripped in Windows as well and then encoded to 720P) and you can stream all your purchased disc based movies around the house as well plus rent HD movies straight off the Internet. That's not USEFUL? That's my ENTIRE MEDIA COLLECTION available in any room in the house I have an AppleTV! How is that not useful? Maybe YOU live in a one room apartment and don't have any use to stream everything around the house and maybe you cannot be bothered to rip/encode your DVDs, but I did my entire 10+ year DVD collection in less than a month and my entire 400+ CD collection in two weeks. They're now backed up on a 2nd hard drive and available to stream anywhere in the house or even to my iPod Touch. My music can also be easily copied onto a USB stick via iTunes list drag to Finder to use in my new car stereo which has a USB port. In other words, between iTunes and AppleTV and my cable company's HD STB/DVR combo, I have a whole house media solution. The ONLY thing missing for me is the ability to use 1080P in the future.

 

[nevermind50]

I'm as technologically savvy as it gets and I'm also a huge Apple fanboy. Yet even I can't find the point in owning an Apple TV. How do you expect the average consumer to?

Do you even read what I post? Let me say it again... the Apple TV is the average consumers dream, easy to use and able to rent / buy content right out of the box. The average consumer is not going to set up a media centre using a computer or console... never in a million years! So for you to argue that tech savvy people have no use for the apple TV misses my point. I'm saying that using PS3 as a media centre is niche. Apple TV is mainstream.

What Apple need to focus on is getting the content available and then start telling people about it.

 

[diamond.g]

I think you're wrong. On-demand TV is the future and the Apple TV does this in a very intuitive way. ALL other distribution methods are DEAD. Get used to it. Apple need to offer the option of either pay per view or subscription and they're sorted.

When AppleTV starts offering the local weather, news and sports (NASCAR anyone?) then you can start talking about broadcast TV as a distribution method being dead.


Until then AppleTV is only good for Prime Time TV and not every show at that. (Still waiting on the latest season of the IT Crowd).

 

[WCLPeter]

If it quacks like a duck, it's a duck...

See this is what I'm talking about when I say people are getting stuck on the 'buy' concept. Don't think of it as buying, in fact feel free to delete the show after you 'buy' it on AppleTV. Seriously. YOU WILL STILL SPEND LESS MONEY THEN CABLE.

I'm getting stuck on the 'buy' concept because, with AppleTV, I'm paying nearly *full* purchase price.

If I were paying a rental price, I would fully agree with your logic. I'm not, I'm paying nearly full purchase price. The whole idea of a rental is that I'm paying a small fraction of the price it would normally be if I had just purchased it outright.

To illustrate let's point to colinmack's comment about the Canadian TV show "Corner Gas":

- offer a better TV subscription model (monthly by network? better/more season passes?) - downloads are the future, but give me a reason to get them from iTunes (for example, in Canada there's no reduced season pass for Corner Gas, it's simply $1.99/episode...come on)

I checked on the iTunes store and the Canadian price of a Corner Gas Season 1 Season pass is 19.99.

Now let's go over to FutureShop.ca, a large Canadian retailer that sells electronics and DVDs, for a comparative price check:

Corner Gas Season 1 at FutureShop.ca

If you follow the link, it's currently showing... 19.99. Only this one comes in a box, with multiple DVDs and it cost the same as the iTunes download. In effect the physical product costs more for the company to produce than the iTunes purchase, yet they are charging the same as the iTunes cost. Call it what you will, and factor in all the math you want. You have purchased the show when you buy it on iTunes but you do not, in any way, receive the same level of autonomy that you'd receive had you purchased it in the store.

You loose your right of first sale; if your computer crashes, you loose your purchases; you can't loan it to friends; if you have one too many computers / devices, you have to unauthorize one before you can authorize an other, etc...

In every way the iTunes purchase is the inferior choice and it would simply be much better to wait for the show to come out on DVD and purchase it outright. With iTunes you are paying nearly full price, and in the example above you are paying full price, to make what is essentially a rental. Now since I am paying the full purchase price, I don't think it is at all unreasonable to expect that if I buy the Seasons Pass for a show from the iTunes movie store, that I also get the nice shiny box in the mail to reflect my purchase.

If cost of bandwidth is the issue, then I would even pay a few dollars more, just like the DVD movies that come with the "digital copy" for an extra couple of bucks. I usually get those when offered because it saves me having to rip it later, and that time savings is worth a few extra bucks.

Yes, I could just pay full retail and consider it a rental. But let us consider the absurdity of that for a second and remember that a rental, by it's definition is a short term ownership. Rental costs should always be a small fraction of the items purchase cost to represent the reduced time the item is in your possession. I wouldn't pay the full 50,000 purchase price to rent a car for a few days, but I would pay 100-150. Likewise I'm not going to pay the full 19.99 purchase price to rent a season of a TV show for a few days, but I would pay 5-7.

Now as to your comments in regards to Cable:

My cable, which included HBO and Showtime, used to cost $97 a month.
Let's say I have 8 primetime shows I watch regularly. The best possible deal is that all 8 shows have all new episodes this month. That's 8 * 4 = 32 hours of programming in that billing month. Let's say on top of this I watch 10hours a month of other random shows. So I'm paying $97 a month for 42 hours of programming (including commercials, and deleting the show after I watch it), and that's on the best possible month when all the shows are new.

Cable is like an all you can eat buffet. Just because you might only eat three or four items off the menu, the fact that the other items are there for your perusal doesn't mean you pay less if you only eat those items you like.

When you pay the $97 per month, or whatever your cable bill is, you are in effect renting all of the shows available to you. Sure you might only regularly watch 8-10 shows per month, but the buffet of shows is still available to you. See a cool documentary on the Discovery Channel, or something on the Natural Geographic channel? Perhaps you might want to check out some oddball sporting event like pro-BMXing?

The point of cable is you get a one stop shop of content that would cost you a small fortune to rent singly and a large fortune to purchase outright. Perhaps iTunes would work better with a multi level content model:

• Tier 1: Cable Style - Unlimited download of content, that will remain accessible by you, until your subscription is canceled.
• Tier 2: Rentals - A cheap rental based on a fraction of the full retail price, expires a month after first play.
• Tier 3: Purchase - Pay full purchase price for a show and when sold in season format, you not only can download the episodes now but and at the end of the season the DVD (or Blu-Ray for an extra charge) box set will be mailed to you.

It would make tons of money all around, and I could imagine myself using a mix of all three options. If Tier 1 was modestly cheap enough, I could see myself signing up and using Tier 2 to rent movies while using Tier 3 to purchase the shows and films I like enough to want to buy.

 

[orsfan21]

When AppleTV starts offering the local weather, news and sports (NASCAR anyone?) then you can start talking about broadcast TV as a distribution method being dead.

I doubt AppleTV can match broadcast's infrastructure and preexisting user-base.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

In every way the iTunes purchase is the inferior choice and it would simply be much better to wait for the show to come out on DVD and purchase it outright. With iTunes you are paying nearly full price, and in the example

While I agree a rental option should be available, you are forgetting a couple of things in your little example there. One is that if you want it on DVD, you are going to have to WAIT for it (possibly a year or more). The iTunes episodes are typically available within a week (usually more like a day) and many are also available in HD as well. If you feel like watching Smallville's newest episodes next year, I guess you might as well wait for HDNet to carry it since the DVDs won't be for sale until a few months before then at best. If you want to own it NOW, you can buy it from iTunes. If you missed an episode on cable, you can buy it on iTunes for $1.99 ($2.99 in HD) instead of waiting weeks, maybe MONTHS for it to be shown again on TV. So the question is whether time means anything to you or not.

The other issue is how do you want your TV shows? If you want them to stream around the house and carry a copy on your iPod and you get them on DVD, you are going to have a job ahead of you. That also assumes one knows HOW to rip/encode movies (ATV is designed to be EASY for a lay person to use as in, push BUY and you're done). If you don't care about streaming around the house, having the ease of just selecting any episode from any TV show from a menu without having to go look for the disc for that episode, that's fine. But I just spent the past month ripping/encoding all my DVDs BECAUSE I want that convenience in the long term. Discs are dead in the long haul. They hold squat compared to modern hard drives, even BD discs. When ONE single 3.5" hard drive enclosure can hold the equivalent of FORTY 2-layer BD discs, you might as well give it up. You can expect 4TB hard drives next year and 8TB drives the year after that, if not sooner and a small array inside or outside your computer could hold 4x that or 160 -> 640 BD discs within 2 years. Just storing the HD movie itself (instead of extras and wasted/unused disc space) would result in 2-4x that number of movies or over 2000 BD discs worth of movies in comparative storage. Discs are a good archive material. They are not a great playback medium in the 21st century. It is currently a PITA to rip/encode BD discs and you need Windows to do it at all. If Apple starts offering HD movies for sale, it's a simple download as you watch and you can store as much as your hard drive server array can hold. A SD/iPod version could be included at no charge for mobile use. Have fun converting BD discs to use on your iPod Touch or iPhone.

So while you may feel you are entitled to a piece of plastic in a metal tin can for $20, the question is whether you NEED a piece of plastic or a metal tin can and whether the environment NEEDS all that plastic and metal in the landfills in the future for that matter. If the studios would simply get over their obsession with overly strict DRM or at least make the license transferable for sale to another user, a lot of waste could be avoided in the future.

 

[dirty digital]

My media-centre is my PS3, and it blows the Apple TV out of the water. In my opinion Apple really missed the boat with the TV.

Apple should have looked at what consumers use their TVs for, and based the TV on that, rather than try and force what Apple thinks they should be using their TVs for down consumers throats.

The TV can be used to stream media, a very select and DRM'd portion of media at that, to your TV. Do people, by and large, use their TVs for this? Nope. Not at all.

People do a few things with their TVs. They watch over the air broadcasts. They watch DVDs/Blu-Rays. They play games. These are three things the TV does not do! Why would the average Joe spend money on a "set-top-box" that doesn't really do anything you use your TV for?

The usually astute company that makes products people actually want to use have, for the first time, completely missed the point with the TV. And this is why it's a dismal failure of a product. They saw it as a portal to shove iTunes down our throat, they didn't design it with the consumer in mind.

If I was designing the TV I would have made it what the consumer would want. My PS3 is fantastic. With Play TV hooked into it I can watch and record shows like a TiVO. I can play DVDs and Blu-Rays on it. I can browse the internet, listen to music and look at photographs on it. Heck, it even has an application to tell me the weather and local news. THAT is what the TV should have been.

It should have a dual tuner, allowing users to watch digital TV and record shows. It should have an optical drive so you can watch DVDs/Blu-Rays and rip CDs. It should have a light-weight browser so you can check the net from the comfort of your couch. Add in the iTunes streaming aspect of TV and you have the perfect set-top box. But the streaming is an extra, not an essential and that's where Apple have gone wrong.

EDIT:

And this illustrates my point exactly. You, good sir, have pinpointed exactly why the Apple TV is such a failure. And why 99.9999999% of people ARE adopting other solutions.

Apple aren't forcing anyone to adopt their solution. The problem is, however, that they also aren't providing any compelling reason for anyone to adopt their solution. It sucks. If Apple's solution was any good then the Apple TV would be a success. So obviously they need to rethink their solution.

How well would the iPod have sold if you could only put iTunes tracks on it, and not your own CDs? Hmmm. iTunes content is a very small portion of what the average consumer owns. All their movies are on DVD, most their music on CD or ripped from CD. Apple may want us to get all our media from iTunes, however it doesn't work like that in reality and designing products around that is going to result in things like the Apple TV that are useless for 99.99% of the population.

You hit the nail on the head! I was seriously looking at the ps3 but wanted to see if Apple as going to update the tv. To all the other people saying I should buy something else: The whole point of me wanting an tv and not some other product is that I want the apple interface! duh

 

[PCMacUser]

You hit the nail on the head! I was seriously looking at the ps3 but wanted to see if Apple as going to update the tv. To all the other people saying I should buy something else: The whole point of me wanting an tv and not some other product is that I want the apple interface! duh

At some point you have to ask yourself if the interface is worth sacrificing functionality over. And hey, the PS3 interface doesn't seem to be too bad - kiddies all over the world seem to be using it without too many problems...