New Apple TV Offers 8 GB of Internal Storage, 256 MB RAM

[jclardy]

Really? Do you have like 3 Apps or something?

My iPhone has quite a few Apps on it and uses about 10+ GB of the memory.

Just wondering...how many is quite a few?

I have 172 apps on my iPhone for a grand total of 6GB. And one of those is Navigon which alone takes up 1.68GB. But I doubt anyone needs the entire road map data of the US stored on their stationary Wifi connected Apple TV. So I guess that makes it 171 apps in 4.32GB. But either way I think most people could suffice on the 8GB of RAM. I mean, back in the day some 1st gen iPhone users only had 4GB! (But no apps at the time...)

Most apps are under the 20MB 3G download limit. The exceptions are ones that have a ton of data like the navigation apps or long 3D games like Prince of Persia.

 

[2002cbr600f4i]

Honestly, the whole PS3/360 media playing capability is the one thing holding me back from getting an ATV right now...

I have a PS3, XB360, AND Wii in the livingroom, all Netflix capable, a HTPC/File Server which can stream my entire library to the PS3...

Why do I need an Apple TV?

And WHY to they insist on sticking with 720P? I bought a 1080P display for a REASON!

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

What kinds of apps would you want on an Apple TV anyways? I just can't think of any reason you'd want an app on your TV. Apps either belong on your computer because they require the big specs or on a mobile device because you want them to be convient.

Games on the iPhone are cool because of the combo touch screen / tilt sensor, but I just don't see utilitizing a connected iPhone as being a very good controller. Touch controls are difficult enough as is looking at them, I'd say they're nearly impossible for the casual user to handle if they aren't even looking at them.

Bottom line, apps on the apple tv strike me as useless. They all belong elsewhere.

 

[rwilliams]

What kinds of apps would you want on an Apple TV anyways?

Hulu Plus. I'm sure some people would love to be able to use Twitter and Facebook on their big screen TV as well.

 

[roland.g]

Honestly, the whole PS3/360 media playing capability is the one thing holding me back from getting an ATV right now...

I have a PS3, XB360, AND Wii in the livingroom, all Netflix capable, a HTPC/File Server which can stream my entire library to the PS3...

Why do I need an Apple TV?

And WHY to they insist on sticking with 720P? I bought a 1080P display for a REASON!

I can watch LOTR or IronMan or whatever else ripped from a regular DVD using Handbrake and synced or streamed to my original Apple TV at 720p on a 52" Samsung LCD 1080p screen and it looks fantastic. I've watched a few BluRay movies on my PS3 on that screen but honestly didn't see any real difference. Maybe on a projector with a 8' screen you might see some difference. But I am quite satisfied with the product.

 

[reallynotnick]

Yeah idk why people are complaining about 8GB of storage that is a crap ton. This is streaming media box, the only apps I really want are media apps that go out onto the internet and stream MORE content. All of those apps will be about 20MB. We aren't going to be playing games with our Apple TV remotes any time soon so we won't have big games.

While the Boxee Box does everything I want it to do, it costs 2x as much as the Apple TV. Now if I could buy an Apple TV and hack all of the functionality of a boxee box then we would be in business.

One of these days I am finally going to buy one of these boxes or just build a HTPC, but they need to stop evolving so fast!

 

[steviem]

I am sure they will release a 1080p version when more people can support queuing up such a large file.

After all, it's only $99 bucks...

I am sure they considered people like you. All or nothing... but the Apple TV is like a sedan. It wants to get average person from a to b as smoothly and efficiently as possible. It's not a sports car, it won't be burning rubber and taking names. But it's a hellofa lot cheaper

Apple are more like Porsche (before that ugly ass Cayenne). They do things their way and people still buy their products.

Porsche insisted on putting the engine way behind the rear wheels in their flagship (flagcar?) cars for a longer time than some may have liked.

Even the Carrera GT had less 'features' than the Ferrari Enzo - 'just' a manual gearbox rather than a tiptronic, pshh...

 

[roland.g]

Hulu Plus. I'm sure some people would love to be able to use Twitter and Facebook on their big screen TV as well.

There are TVs now with Apps built in that have FaceBook and Twitter functionality as well as YouTube in the TV out of the box.

 

[smiddlehurst]

We've already seen how 256 MB of RAM can constrict apps in iOS (witness Safari on iPad's terrible cacheing). With the Apple TV it would only be worse, as the resolution of the screen, which almost certainly uses RAM for buffers, is larger. There's about 17% more pixels involved in the Apple TV over the iPad. But yeah, I agree, you certainly don't need 8 GB for video stream buffering purposes at 720p.

Oh for the love of Jeff...

How many times does this stupid argument have to be refuted? The issue with Safari on the iPad was NEVER proved to be linked to the amount of RAM in the system but was always more likely to be a bug with Safari. Why? Because we never saw the same sort of behaviour on other iOS devices including those with 128Mb of RAM. It was always treated as a RAM issue by those who get hung up on spec over all else and used as a club to try and prove a stupid point.

256Mb of RAM will be MORE than enough for Apple TV to do what it's supposed to. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to have their head examined. Just think about it for a minute, it's the same RAM as the iPad and has fewer services running in background, no multitasking (beyond maybe certain core services) and is running close to the same resolution. Why on earth would it struggle? As someone else said elsewhere in the thread the current console generation only have 512Mb available and the Apple TV isn't doing anything like as much work.

 

[newagemac]

"The power supply rating comes in at a minuscule 5.95 watts"

Does that mean that this machines has a max power consumption of 6W?

Well it would be pretty hard to consume more power than your only power source can put out dontcha think?

By the way, someone put a Kill-A-Watt meter on his to test the power draw at idle and it came out to 1.2 watts! My nightlight pulls more power than that?!? This has got to be the most eco friendly set top box ever created.

I would have no problems at all hooking one of these babies up to every screen in the house.

 

[arn]

What kinds of apps would you want on an Apple TV anyways?

Hulu
Vevo
TV Guide
Weather
VLC

some cool slideshow apps perhaps. virtual window. cam-feeds. virtual fireplace.

whiteboard app. to-do list interface that syncs with your iphone. big screen calendar / appointments.

some sort of hybrid video feed + smart data overlays. sports games with lots of stats, etc...

arn

 

[slicecom]

What kinds of apps would you want on an Apple TV anyways? I just can't think of any reason you'd want an app on your TV. Apps either belong on your computer because they require the big specs or on a mobile device because you want them to be convient.

Games on the iPhone are cool because of the combo touch screen / tilt sensor, but I just don't see utilitizing a connected iPhone as being a very good controller. Touch controls are difficult enough as is looking at them, I'd say they're nearly impossible for the casual user to handle if they aren't even looking at them.

Bottom line, apps on the apple tv strike me as useless. They all belong elsewhere.

You have to think outside the box a little. The main reason I'd want apps is to one day possibly be able to watch live sports. If F1 made a $100 app that let me watch all of the races of the season live (similar to the one the offer now for $30 with live timing), I would GLADLY pay it and cancel my cable.

 

[wizard]

You have a point but then you contradict yourself.

To a certain extent I agree, embedded devices don't need a lot of RAM. People really don't understand that. However once you start running random apps the unit is no longer an enbedded device.

People really can't seem to wrap their heads around RAM on integrated devices. The PS3 has 256 system memory, 256 video. The 360 has 512 shared.

Both of these cases demonstrate more RAM than Apple TV so what is yoir point?

You don't need a pile of RAM to drive them; these are well tuned machines, not the bloated world of desktop computing.

For use as an AppleTV the RAM is fine! The minute you comtemplate running apps it isn't so fine. RAM is a relatively cheap feature these days and as seen in iPhone is techincally possible to put into the A4 package. It would be nice if the expectation is to run apps there.

 

[kurosov]

Ok now we need XBMC / BOXEE compiled for ARM .
When I see that, I will pick one of this up immediately.

We already have a plex app available for iOS. One that happens to use the same idea as the apple tv as it streams your whole library from a computer.

What kinds of apps would you want on an Apple TV anyways? I just can't think of any reason you'd want an app on your TV. Apps either belong on your computer because they require the big specs or on a mobile device because you want them to be convient.

Games on the iPhone are cool because of the combo touch screen / tilt sensor, but I just don't see utilitizing a connected iPhone as being a very good controller. Touch controls are difficult enough as is looking at them, I'd say they're nearly impossible for the casual user to handle if they aren't even looking at them.

Bottom line, apps on the apple tv strike me as useless. They all belong elsewhere.

Once again, Plex. The ability to have access to my plex library without having to connect a mac to the TV each time would be extremely useful, especially with 3 apple TVs in the house.

Then add things such as BBC iPlayer, Crunchyroll or other online media services to increase usability.

A much more effective method than having to buy a mac mini or media centre PC just to keep connected to a TV.

 

[blakespot]

Google Earth, X-Plane.



blakespot

 

[jaykk]

Still waiting for more information for the USB port, if we could activate the USB for external storage, apps can be brought from external to included 8gb SSD and run it from there.

 

[mozmac]

So using that extra slot to boost the storage capacity of the box would be awesome. Get an extra 8 GB chip (or higher) and stick in the extra slot.

I wonder if Apple has locked down the slot, since they aren't using it for now.

 

[ThisIsNotMe]

Someone needs to port Plex to the new Apple TV

 

[Cave Man]

Still waiting for more information for the USB port, if we could activate the USB for external storage, apps can be brought from external to included 8gb SSD and run it from there.

Not gonna happen.

Someone needs to port Plex to the new Apple TV

Plex is already ported to iOS. What's needed is an ATV app store. Only then would you see Plex on it.

 

[Cambot]

streamed apps?

Am I crazy to think that apps could also stream? Have just a few content files on the device and stream the media, back and forth to the servers. It's not a stand alone device like the ipod/phone/pad things are... Like Words with Friends for example, needs to send and receive from the server. Seems reasonable to me.

 

[nelmat]

iPad > Apple TV > iPhone > iPod Touch

instead of

iPod Touch = Apple TV = iPad < iPhone

Apple has not Spec'd the RAM to go with the functionality of these devices.....

Yes, they clearly have no idea what they're doing - why don't you go up and head the development team and save them - no wonder everyone is so unhappy withe iOS devices working just fine. Apple is doomed®

 

[anthonymoody]

My head explodes a little bit every time someone questions the need for apps on this thing. Jeez.

 

[BTW]

I'm interested in seeing where Apple goes with this. This "Hobby" could soon be a full blown major business segment (a console niche) competing with the likes of the Wii etc once Apple allows an app store on it.

 

[gugy]

Not gonna happen.

Well it could work for your local media. Firecore did it with ATVFlash. I would like that to happen, if it could play media out a hard drive without the need of a Mac on, I will be all over it.
If not then I guess MacMini will be my next purchase, even though an expensive one for just HTPC.

 

[ThisIsNotMe]

Plex is already ported to iOS. What's needed is an ATV app store. Only then would you see Plex on it.

I don't think you understand what I want.

I don't want to use Apple's GUI. It is worthless for home media sharing.
I want full Plex from device boot.

iOS + Jailbreak + full Plex = Win.

Apple should really buy Plex to replace their frontrow GUI.