Sales of Revamped Apple TV Pegged at Over 250,000

[kallisti]

I bought one, mostly wanting to see if they were as useful as Apple made them out to be. I now use it daily. Amazing product with tons of potential. I just hope they find a way to make typing easier. Maybe a keyboard or something. It's a pain to type in account information, search YouTube, etc.

That's where an iPhone/iPad come in. They make an awesome remote when used with ATV. Very, very easy to type in information if you are using one.

Netflix works great. With the ATV being so inexpensive, I bought one for the downstairs TV and one for the upstairs TV. Now we can start watching a movie on Netflix downstairs, move up to the bedroom, and resume watching right where we left off.

 

[bbtrinet]

I don't understand many user's obsession with the DVD format. It's 'heck' as far as I'm concerned.

I don't want to put in a DVD, wait for the FBI warnings, the animated main menus, forced to hit the 'next chapter' button on previews, the 'Dolby/Surround Sound' animations, the studio animations, etc. - all things I can't fast forward through. I just want to see the (insert swear word) movie!!!!

Ripping the movie through handbrake allows me to start the movie in like 2-3 seconds instead of the 2-3 minutes of a DVD. When I purchase a DVD, I simply rip it and put it in iTunes. It's so convenient. DVDs are so stone-age!

 

[bergmef]

I'd still like to have the option to buy one with enough memory to store my music and photos. Slideshows or music without firing up the computer. But Steve doesn't like to sync so I'm not holding my breath. We heard how little power this draws ... does that include the computer that has to be on for it to work?

 

[RyanR.]

I'd still like to have the option to buy one with enough memory to store my music and photos. Slideshows or music without firing up the computer. But Steve doesn't like to sync so I'm not holding my breath. We heard how little power this draws ... does that include the computer that has to be on for it to work?

I don't know for sure as I have to wait for Christmas to get my TV, but I would assume the computer could be in sleep mode and still stream to the unit. I have my macbook hooked to my tv now and stream content via iTunes. The iMac appears to be in sleep mode while doing this, but iTunes has to be open in order for it to stream.?.

 

[bergmef]

I don't know for sure as I have to wait for Christmas to get my TV, but I would assume the computer could be in sleep mode and still stream to the unit. I have my macbook hooked to my tv now and stream content via iTunes. The iMac appears to be in sleep mode while doing this, but iTunes has to be open in order for it to stream.?.

Itunes has to be open because it uses home sharing for streaming. I have one of each, the old one and the new. The old one stays in the great room/living room so it always have music and photos and a few movies when I walk out with the laptop.

 

[fxtech]

LOOOL... thank you for the good laught.

Way to take what I said out of context. Enjoy that KOOL-AID!

 

[Truffy]

Isn't that what previous owners of the AppleTV said too? I don't think I'd ever buy tech for it's "potential for the future". More often than not, that future never comes or gets replaced with something better. Enjoy it for what it is now.

Or, more often, future potrential is incompatible with current hardware!

 

[Truffy]

Do we remember the infamous G4 Cube?

I do. It was my first Mac, and I loved it (but only in a manly, platonic way)

 

[fxtech]

Or, more often, future potrential is incompatible with current hardware!

And more often than not, usually for business, instead of technical, reasons.

 

[callme]

I wonder if you could turn that into a really, really cheap server.

With no hard drive inside!

 

[Truffy]

... And it's only available in a few countries. USA, Canada, UK, France and Germany.
Spain, Italy, Scandinavia, India, China, Benelux etc. should help along with Airplay and the app market.
This little device is gonna be another multimillion seller.

iTMS (or whatever it's called these days) will have to get streaming video first before TV really takes off. Without onboard storage, streaming is its only use. And although you could stream from your computer, that's a bit dweeby for the mass market and it seems that Apple's really pushing it as an online streaming device...except the licensing doesn't allow that in all countries. Here in Switzerland, for example, there are no film/show downloads from the music store. And without that, the damned thing's pretty much useless except as a niche product.

 

[Truffy]

And more often than not, usually for business, instead of technical, reasons.

Yep, so your 'future-proof purchase' is a white elephant by the time the functionality that you're looking for becomes reality.

It's called planned obsolescence.

 

[callme]

So can someone that has one of these answer a quick question about it? Do you already have access to some TV Show "rentals" ? It seems like you shouldn't need the new model just to do a rental instead of a purchase (i.e. I can rent movies on my 1st generation Apple TVs and rent/buy changes on the iTunes store pages, not on the software itself.

But seeing as I see absolutely no TV show rentals, I'm guessing that Apple has artificially limited that "feature" to the new models despite the fact it has NOTHING to do with the software differences between the two models. A rental is a rental. I mean I'm not expecting Netflix to work on my older model, but for goodness sake, preventing the rentals from working is just a ploy to force people to buy a new model. Unfortunately, some of us need component out for older TVs, etc. and the new model is HDMI only so it doesn't do much good in that regard. Plus I see little point in going to a model with no real onboard storage when mine has it considering Netflix (which I don't subscribe to anyway) is the only real feature it currently has that the original doesn't have (other than the apparent artificial lack of TV rentals).

I mean seriously, does Apple think they can just screw older users over constantly and think that there will never be repercussions? Apple is really starting to make me think twice about buying future products from them the way these days they just ditch all support for older models as soon as the new model comes out.

Why do you continually expect Apple to upgrade your old Apple TV to have the latest features. It does all it says it would when you bought, plus loads more.

Get over yourself and move on.

 

[callme]

I don't know for sure as I have to wait for Christmas to get my TV, but I would assume the computer could be in sleep mode and still stream to the unit. I have my macbook hooked to my tv now and stream content via iTunes. The iMac appears to be in sleep mode while doing this, but iTunes has to be open in order for it to stream.?.

If the computer that holds the content in iTunes is asleep then you cannot stream from it. Your screen may be off but the computer is still running.

 

[pagansoul]

In my TV room I have my old ATV/160 along with a Pany Blu-ray player. I have Pandora, Amazon Movie, Netflix and my computer all on the system. I have ripped a great many movies (568) and TV series (never counted, way over 1k episodes), Music (over 25k songs) and about 100 music videos. I have the new ATV in my bedroom with my smaller HDTV. The big advantage of the older system is that I have my most watched and favorite music on the HD so my computer doesn't have to be on to work. I have very poor TV reception and dropped cable a couple years ago. All I have is High Speed Internet for my viewing pleasure. It's enough so far.

I just brought season 5 of Dr Who off Amazon for $13 (that's $1 per episode, the same amount to rent) and I have many Star Trek seasons in my library from when iTunes had their $12 sale per season. I go where the sale is and my current set-up lets me do just that.

 

[bbtrinet]

If the computer that holds the content in iTunes is asleep then you cannot stream from it. Your screen may be off but the computer is still running.

Correct - however, the Airport Extreme can wake up a sleeping computer to allow it to stream.

 

[shiseiryu1]

New vs. Old AppleTV

I have both the old and new AppleTV and overall I'm very pleased with the new one. It runs totally silent and cool and is more responsive than my old AppleTV. The Netflix implementation is the best I've seen yet and unlike my PS3, the videos almost always come in crystal-clear.

I think the iTunes TV rental feature is a total loser and I refuse to support it. I don't see why Apple can't negotiate something like Netflix...the iTunes store has a ton of content on it. If I had the option to stream everything from the iTunes store via my AppleTV I'd drop Netflix in a heartbeat...even it if were a little bit more a month (b/c hopefully it'd have more content).

I'd like to see the ability for apps for the AppleTV and I don't think that'll be long. The biggest thing I see holding the AppleTV back though is the media companies. Ever since iTunes became successful it seems they don't really want to cooperate with Apple anymore. If you ask me they're ungrateful...Apple showed them the way to the future and now they're dragging their feet again...resisting letting Apple take them to the next level.

Just a few of my thoughts.

 

[Kenrik]

Do we remember the infamous G4 Cube?

With there is no say for sure. The TV might just get rolled into the MacMini via a physical switch.

The G4 Cube later became the MacMini..

The first Apple TV became Apple TV 2... I still think they should have gone with iTV

 

[Kenrik]

Until Apple releases a version of the ATV that has a DVD player built in (and c'mon... how much more expensive would that make it?) I'm not interested. I'm betting lots of others out there feel the same. I wonder how many more of these Apple could have sold if they had positioned it as a DVD player replacement.

Entertainment hardware has to have a certain degree of backward-compatibility, and Apple never seems interested in that. In most cases, I understand how holding on to old standards and approaches holds technology back, but that's no excuse in this case. I have too many DVDs to make something like this worth buying. I could see picking up one of these to replace my current DVD player but beyond that, the functionality it provides is simply not worth $99.

Just like all of those CDs that you use every day right... Those dam iPods should have a CD player built in!

Get off your butt and convert your DVDs to h.264.

 

[alent1234]

I have both the old and new AppleTV and overall I'm very pleased with the new one. It runs totally silent and cool and is more responsive than my old AppleTV. The Netflix implementation is the best I've seen yet and unlike my PS3, the videos almost always come in crystal-clear.

I think the iTunes TV rental feature is a total loser and I refuse to support it. I don't see why Apple can't negotiate something like Netflix...the iTunes store has a ton of content on it. If I had the option to stream everything from the iTunes store via my AppleTV I'd drop Netflix in a heartbeat...even it if were a little bit more a month (b/c hopefully it'd have more content).

I'd like to see the ability for apps for the AppleTV and I don't think that'll be long. The biggest thing I see holding the AppleTV back though is the media companies. Ever since iTunes became successful it seems they don't really want to cooperate with Apple anymore. If you ask me they're ungrateful...Apple showed them the way to the future and now they're dragging their feet again...resisting letting Apple take them to the next level.

Just a few of my thoughts.

because if apple negotiated unlimited renting for a monthly price you might as well get cable. it's going to be $30 to $50 a month for iTunes plus internet and $5 rentals for new releases

 

[newagemac]

Allot as compared to what? There are around 300,000 million people in the US.

A lot compared to any other comparable media center device like the WD TV Live or Roku. And likely a lot compared to what Logitech's Google TV device will sell although they aren't really comparable. The market for these things aren't the same as the market for iPods and iPhones.

 

[Truffy]

Get off your butt and convert your DVDs to h.264.

Not everyone wants to rip all their DVDs. Besides, there's such a thing as having a life (and not having limitless HDD storage space)

 

[newagemac]

If the computer that holds the content in iTunes is asleep then you cannot stream from it. Your screen may be off but the computer is still running.

That is completely false. I do this all the time. You have to turn on "Wake for Network Access" in System Preferences.

 

[Jack Dangers]

recently got mine and I will say I'm pretty impressed. I doubt I would have paid more than 99.00 dollars for it, but impressed none the less.
I think right now the lack of content is what's holding it back.
Since I've never been one to buy dvds, this works perfectly for me.
Once the airplay function gets released in 4.2, I think this will open up the platform. I can see lots of potential. I wonder if instead of an app store, apple will let airplay have a lot more functions than just audio and video streaming.
Also, I don't think this is in the same league as GoogleTV. Think they're completely different devices and should not be compared.

 

[fiddysent]

Wirelessly posted (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)

What's the advantage of apple tv over just plugging in a MacBook to your tv via hdmi? This is a serious question I want to know. Anyone replace cable tv with it? Can you get channels etc?