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

[Piggie]

Perhaps this is what they will use all the old (current) iPad parts for next year when they upgrade the iPad.

Better t have a device they will be able to carry on fitting out current iPad parts into, as it's more than enough to do the job.

Perhaps as they have found a home for the current iPad chips, that means they will be more happy to change the chipset and upgrade it next spring in the iPad v2?

 

[BillyBobBongo]

The minute you comtemplate running apps it isn't so fine.

Which it doesn't so no worries. The problem is that Jobs' comment has some people thinking Apps are just around the corner, when more likely it's an idea that will take some time to come to fruition. Chances are that should the current hardware prove insufficient then a new model will be released.

 

[fxtech]

iPad way overpriced

This just goes to show how crazy overpriced the iPad is. The iPad is basically this with a $400 screen. No way.

 

[robotspacer]

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

• StreamToMe, Air Video, Plex, or anything similar. I'd love to be able to stream any video I have on my Mac without converting them. Photo slideshows would be a nice bonus.
• Some sort of RSS app would be interesting. Let me add feeds or log into my Google Reader account, then (ideally) pull out the items that include video and give me direct links to them.
• Crunchyroll, Hulu, or pretty much any other app that would give me access to online video content I don't already have access to on Apple TV.
• TV and DVR? I know this one's asking a lot, but think about the possibilities if Apple allowed access to the USB port. Imagine an add-on with a hard drive and a cable hookup. I know, I'm dreaming…

 

[Mattsasa]

now that we are all pretty sure this thing is getting apps.....

Is there any reason why apple couldn't publish iwork for this? doesn't ios support bluetooth keyboards and devices? I know steve jobs said at the keynote that people don't want a computer but still..... and if it gets apps I assume most of them would be little games, could apple whip out an over priced bluetooth controller possible with gyro? and turn this into a wii-like game console?

Maybe I got a little carried away.....

 

[wizard]

As the owner of a 3G iPhone I have to disagree strongly.

Oh for the love of Jeff...

How many times does this stupid argument have to be refuted?

You failed below so you will have to try again. In the end I think you will come to realize that the lack of memory is PART of the problem. I stressed part because iOS is filled with a pathetic number of bugs.

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.

I hope you aren't trying to convince me that the reloads amd other behaviors I see on my 3G iPhone aren't real. It is inevitable that iOS with Safari running will run into memory issues. There simply isn't enough RAM to keep multiple large documents around so the tab in view takes the RAM.

Now don't get me wrong bugs in iOS are a very serious problem. Fixing them and code size reductions via better compilers will help a lot. Part of that is due to fixing memory leaks.

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.

That is just ignorant and clearly indicates you don't understand how iPhone and iOS work. The fact that there are bugs in iOS has nothing to do with the idea that Safari needs more RAM. There are PDFs out there that are bigger than the free RAM on many of these devices. Not to mention thoose highly cluttered web sites that take for ever to download.

I realy don't understand how you could rationally have your point of view.

256Mb of RAM will be MORE than enough for Apple TV to do what it's supposed to.

Yes exactly! But once we start talking about apps and Safari the question of Free RAM is a very serious one. In any event ask your self why each new iPhone has come out with more RAM?

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?

Struggle? You are painting with words no one else has used.

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.

This should highlight why a little more RAM would have been nice. In any event you seem to mis the issue here, the concern about RAM is directly linked to the desire to run apps. Streaming demands very little in the way of RAM so I doubt that is why people are sending up red flags.

In any event as a RAM stingy 3G owner I call BS on your position. RAM directly impacts the performance of many apps. All the bug fixes in the world won't make that reality go away.

Dave

 

[tripjammer]

"Limited" Geez, 8GB is a lot. But then I guess the author of this pieces is rather young.

The Iphone Touch 4G starts at 8gb...just saying...8Gb is enough for apps. You are not gonna store music, pics and video on the new Apple TV but apps yes...Hulu Plus, and any other kinds of cool app will have space to be installed.

 

[bli625]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A306 Safari/6531.22.7)

8 GB is not much (at all) for apps.

Depends on the type of apps.

 

[tripjammer]

Exactly the responses I was expecting from this thread. Users that are convinced that it needs more RAM, despite the fact that it can do the job just fine....and others that want more storage even though you only currently need to store the OS on the device.

Don't mind me, I'm just bitter that I can't buy the bloody thing in the Netherlands.

The IPAD does just fine with just 256mb of ram. Have any of you seen an ipad running iOS 4.2 beta 2? It rocks!

I don't see anybody complaining about the ram in the itouch 4g? why would the cheapest IOS device have more memory than the most expensive iOS device?

For $99, the Apple TV is gonna sell out once people realize what you get for that price!

 

[tripjammer]

You failed below so you will have to try again. In the end I think you will come to realize that the lack of memory is PART of the problem. I stressed part because iOS is filled with a pathetic number of bugs.

I hope you aren't trying to convince me that the reloads amd other behaviors I see on my 3G iPhone aren't real. It is inevitable that iOS with Safari running will run into memory issues. There simply isn't enough RAM to keep multiple large documents around so the tab in view takes the RAM.

Now don't get me wrong bugs in iOS are a very serious problem. Fixing them and code size reductions via better compilers will help a lot. Part of that is due to fixing memory leaks.

That is just ignorant and clearly indicates you don't understand how iPhone and iOS work. The fact that there are bugs in iOS has nothing to do with the idea that Safari needs more RAM. There are PDFs out there that are bigger than the free RAM on many of these devices. Not to mention thoose highly cluttered web sites that take for ever to download.

I realy don't understand how you could rationally have your point of view.

Yes exactly! But once we start talking about apps and Safari the question of Free RAM is a very serious one. In any event ask your self why each new iPhone has come out with more RAM?

Struggle? You are painting with words no one else has used.

This should highlight why a little more RAM would have been nice. In any event you seem to mis the issue here, the concern about RAM is directly linked to the desire to run apps. Streaming demands very little in the way of RAM so I doubt that is why people are sending up red flags.

In any event as a RAM stingy 3G owner I call BS on your position. RAM directly impacts the performance of many apps. All the bug fixes in the world won't make that reality go away.

Dave

Dude why are you still on a OLD Iphone 3g? Get a Iphone 4 which has 512mb of ram if you are having ram issues on your Iphone 3g?

The Ipad works with 256mb ram
the Itouch works with 256mb ram
The Apple TV works with 256mb ram

The old appleTV only had 256mb of ram.

Sure 512mb of ram would have been nice in the appletv. But the AppleTV is only $99. What do you expect to get with the price? Be happy that we got 8gb of flash and a empty space for an extra.

 

[mojoxp]

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.

They're examples of devices; you'll never expect the AppleTV to run the 3D gaming that the 360 does. And RAM isn't (as) cheap on these devices compared to say off the shelf SODIMM-DDR3 given that its package on package connected to the CPU.

I do agree that the iPad could benefit from more memory especially, but I think too much is being made of the actual numbers vs what the effect on usability is.

 

[jmull]

Just buy a mac mini and hang it off your tv/amp with the hdmi cable. Bluetooth input devices, full itunes store available (plus amazon and all the rest), full computer, problem solved. I don't know who needs a pay per view device that does nothing else for $99. Yawn.

 

[tripjammer]

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

HULU plus

 

[wizard]

It is dinner time but one more thing.

I'm thinking that This is THE device to jailbreak.

I've not done so on my iPhone due to a couple of reasons that don't apply to Apple TV. At $99 though the device would be great for casual hacking, experimentation and ARM programming. Especially if the USB port can be made functional.

Think about it as a network node that can put just about anything onto your home network. Connect a weather station, use it to monitor your solar installation, robotics projects, a simple web server, and a whole bunch of other ideas. There is a whole lot of low energy performance in that littke box. So much so I could see Apple selling millions of these to people that will never stream a single show through the device.

That is as long as the jailbreaks remain easy. Which makes me wonder how long the jailbreaking will go on. In any event this could be the high volume low cost machine that hobbiest have been dreaming about for a long time. Put a little interpeter in there (ruby, python or what ever) and you end up with a very interesting platform.

Dave

 

[MBrod208]

Better

You only need a buffer, you don't need to store the whole movie.

You don't need it but it is much better to just have the whole thing on board. That way if the connection drops it doesn't affect playback.

Guarantee once you start watching the whole movie will get stored if you pause it and come back to watch later.

 

[cvaldes]

8 GB is not much (at all) for apps.

It depends on the apps.

Most of the apps on my iPod touch are pretty small. The biggest exceptions are anything with a built-in map (e.g., GPS apps and some tourist guidebooks) and some games (particularly first-person shooter, role-playing, and racing/flying games). I think I'm using about 9GB of apps on my 64GB iPod touch.

The streaming video and streaming audio apps like Hulu+, Ustream, Pandora, last.fm, Vevo, etc. are all quite small, as are the typical news apps (weather, stock, sports, news apps).

If I removed most of the games, the GPS apps, and any others that are designed to be on the road, I think I'd have less than 2GB of apps appropriate for a set-top TV box.

I think this new Apple TV has enough storage to get started should Apple decide to unveil and AppleTV App Store.

 

[newagemac]

Just buy a mac mini and hang it off your tv/amp with the hdmi cable. Bluetooth input devices, full itunes store available (plus amazon and all the rest), full computer, problem solved. I don't know who needs a pay per view device that does nothing else for $99. Yawn.

Huh? Last time I checked I didn't charge myself for using my own content on my Apple TV. Nor did the other free options for content on the Apple TV. I think you heard something about TV and movie rentals and figured that's all the new Apple TV did.

 

[hchung]

This just goes to show how crazy overpriced the iPad is. The iPad is basically this with a $400 screen. No way.

You forgot $60-80 worth of batteries, and a machined aluminum case. The metal isn't more than $20, but the manufacturing time and equipment to carve out the case is a lot too.

And of course, there needs to be some profit to pay for the engineers who are working on iOS too. Oh, and to pay for the people who run the App Store. And the people who designed the hardware.

An iPad isn't an ATV + a $400 screen. It's probably a $150 touch screen/LCD and whole lot of people working to make it real.

If you think that's overpriced, go buy from somebody else. Like Samsung or Dell.

 

[Bickity]

That's great news I believe.
Hopefully the folks at Firecore can come up with a solution like ATVFlash for the new ATV.
I just want the option to add an external hard drive to ATV USB port. I want my media locally without my Mac on.

So with you!

 

[JGowan]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

And it costs less than the 8 GB iPod Nano but can play video................

Weird.

What's your point? It can't play video on its own. What's the processor for the Nano? What's the screen size of the Nano? What's the aspect ratio of the Nano?

Yes... Apple took away your precious ability to play video... buy the previous model while you still can. The made the screen so small it's really only good for playing music. It was cutting into their iPod Touch money so it's gone. It's still a great little music player that I would be proud to clip to my jacket.

 

[laurim]

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

It could be fun to have your friend in another city watch a show with you and you could see each other in a pip in the corner of the tv. Netflix on XBox has a Party feature where you can invite people to watch an instant show with you.

How about people with babies being able to see a wireless cam image of the baby's room in pip?

Or a pip comes up when someone rings the doorbell or buzzes the front door of your building and you can see who it is

I've already seen people who have caller id come up on their tv so they can see if it's worth answering the phone during a show

Being able to manage lighting/heating/cooling in your house without leaving the show

Option to have extra information show at the bottom of the screen during a movie, like the extras on a blu-ray disc. Always liked when they had the trivia about the movie on that one movie show I can't remember the name of.

Karaoke for iTunes music

Connect to IMDB for more movie info

Order takeout food, lol

All I can think of for now...

 

[darrenbeige]

Roku has 64mb storage for caching. Even if Apple used a gig for their caching system, it still leaves ample space for a greater purpose; apps.

 

[hchung]

Maybe I got a little carried away.....

Yes. Yes you did. And so did a lot of other people.

Is there any reason why apple couldn't publish iwork for this? doesn't ios support bluetooth keyboards and devices? I know steve jobs said at the keynote that people don't want a computer but still..... and if it gets apps I assume most of them would be little games, could apple whip out an over priced bluetooth controller possible with gyro? and turn this into a wii-like game console?

They could.... but why? Okay, games? Maybe. But if you wanted a bluetooth controller with gyros/accelerometers and games, you'd have gotten a Wii by now. Designing/building/shipping a game controller would take a lot of engineers a lot of time. Would enough people care to break even?

And if they published iWork for this... who really wants to use their TV to type? Don't we already have computers for this? Is it worth the hassle? Would they even make back the development costs of writing Pages for ATV?
Heck, I'm not convinced that iWork for iPad has actually broken even yet.

These are all "ooh, wouldn't it be cool if..." ideas. If that's it, yes, it would be pretty cool. Would it make sense? About the same as buying a Wii because of the web browser.

 

[PeterQVenkman]

This is a nice idea. But at a certain point you have to wonder why someone just doesn't use a computer?!

Or a TV with those apps already built in.

And if they published iWork for this... who really wants to use their TV to type?

I wondered who wants to type on a touch screen!

Don't we already have computers for this?

Indeed we do, but apple continues to make a lot of money selling non-computers to people.

Heck, I'm not convinced that iWork for iPad has actually broken even yet.

I'm sure the massive success of the iPad and other products balance out that loss.

 

[hunkaburningluv]

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.

Since when did handbrake upscale resolution? DVD is 480p, not 720p or does apple tv upscale now too?

I can see the difference between 720p and 1080p, let alone 480p and 1080p. It's very noticeable for myself.