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Target to Carry Apple TVs?
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Yup.. I agree.. I went to a Best Buy.. the salesperson said first that it was an "online" only kind of product and they didn't even carry it in the store... I found it on a non-descript shelf (not hooked up to a t.v... and with no price), and had to walk him over to it..
I think the Apple TV has some room to improve, but it's still a great product, and does what it's supposed to do, very well... But I don't expect strong sales from Best Buy either if the Apple TV is just relegated to a tiny shelf with no live demonstration. I don't know who negotiated the deal with Best Buy, but they should have agreed to some more substantial floor space..
Based on the horribly-flawed demos shown at the Apple Stores, perhaps the "no live demonstration" is to Apple's benefit.
I'm not sure why this is so terribly confusing? If you have a video file on apple tv thats set at a low resolution, the it will look like garbage. If you rip a dvd and put it on there it will look wonderful.
Its not the hardwares fault here.
If anything, its because you can't order high quality files from ITMS
Targets okay, but lets just hope that 
TV never goes to Wal-mart. Wal-mart has its place, but it's place isn't selling Apple products IMO!
TV never goes to Wal-mart. Wal-mart has its place, but it's place isn't selling Apple products IMO!
Oh, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying that Apple is not going to win any customers showing
tv demonstrations with crap for resolution. Most average consumers won't know that the quality is an issue with compression. I agree, though, that the iTS is the next link in the chain to be upgraded. If that's what people are downloading from the iTS, I feel sorry for them.-Clive
You can do this with a certain arbitrary limitation, not really sure why the AppleTV is implemented this way, maybe a reason or just a software oversight. The music does stop when you back out all the way to the "main menu" but you can jump around from playlist to playlist, artist to artist, or album to album without stopping the music. But if you enter the menu structure through "Artists," for example, and choose a song, then while listening decide you want to hear that whole album, you do have to back out to the main menu to enter the "Albums" submenu and the music will stop. So as long as you can find your next track within the same submenu "hierarchy" you're OK.
Seems they could have done it like the iPod where a "Now Playing" menu appears at the bottom of the main screen and you are dumped back into it if you stay inactive at the main menu for too long while music is playing.
swingerofbirch
macrumors 68040
Oh, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying that Apple is not going to win any customers showing
-Clive
I agree.. the video demos at the Apple stores aren't very good..and they need to figure out a better demo that really shows the hi-quality video support capabilities of the hardware.
Finally APPLE TVs in every home
I don't think it is necessary to sell the APPLE TV in Target to make money, but I'm sure it will be more visible and people that wouldn't normally be able to visit an apple store will be able to test it out before buying it.
I don't think anybody goes into TARGET and expects one of those high school kids working in the store to give them all the answers they are looking for. I think Apple is making the right move. Target sells much more complex machines than the APPLE TV and they sell.
If I don't live near an Apple Store (which I live by 3 or 4, lucky me), Target may be the best option. Impulse buyers BREED in Target. Seeing the Apple packaging and holding the device in your hand is a pretty good influence. Seeing it online isn't always enough. You can't see how big it is (REALLY), and it seems elite.
I have family that lives in Kankakee, IL. There isn't an Apple Store anywhere near them (2 hour drive to Chicago Michigan Ave. Store). There are Targets and Walmarts all over the place though. I think this is a great way to start becoming a household name like DELL or COMPAQ. Believe it or not, when you start travelling to small cities or large towns, Apple is pretty much known for their iPOD and playing Oregon Trail at school YEARS ago (before they switched to PC). Seeing it and touching it are two completely different experiences.
I have been holding off visiting an Apple store because I know I'll end up purchasing an apple TV once I get it in my hands.
I don't think it is necessary to sell the APPLE TV in Target to make money, but I'm sure it will be more visible and people that wouldn't normally be able to visit an apple store will be able to test it out before buying it.
I don't think anybody goes into TARGET and expects one of those high school kids working in the store to give them all the answers they are looking for. I think Apple is making the right move. Target sells much more complex machines than the APPLE TV and they sell.
If I don't live near an Apple Store (which I live by 3 or 4, lucky me), Target may be the best option. Impulse buyers BREED in Target. Seeing the Apple packaging and holding the device in your hand is a pretty good influence. Seeing it online isn't always enough. You can't see how big it is (REALLY), and it seems elite.
I have family that lives in Kankakee, IL. There isn't an Apple Store anywhere near them (2 hour drive to Chicago Michigan Ave. Store). There are Targets and Walmarts all over the place though. I think this is a great way to start becoming a household name like DELL or COMPAQ. Believe it or not, when you start travelling to small cities or large towns, Apple is pretty much known for their iPOD and playing Oregon Trail at school YEARS ago (before they switched to PC). Seeing it and touching it are two completely different experiences.
I have been holding off visiting an Apple store because I know I'll end up purchasing an apple TV once I get it in my hands.
I can read very well thank you
Sorry, I have an issue with someone who takes debate to a personal level, which you did. Rational debate is excellent, however it seems to be lacking from your end. Thanks for the fun.
ariza910 said:
Um, as someone who has seen the XBOX 360's ability to "download" HD movies, it is PAINFULLY slow. A friend back in NYC upgraded to that system and checked it out, took two days. That wasn't uncommon, as I've heard (and read) issues with bandwidth around that device taking forever.
My comments weren't in regards to the possibility of it happening in the future, just not presently. Sure, the technology MAY expedite the process, but in the end is it worth buying into it now? Most likely not...
Ok, first off I know exactly how much space DVD's and movies take, I've worked in production and my friend Mark Tarbox is a producer for Dreakworks. Most of you are putting waaaay to little emphasis on extra's on DVD's. To make a statement that the 30-50 gig's on a Blu-ray disc is mostly extra's and that the movie itself may be extracted so it is only 5-10 gig's is LUDICROUS. If that were the case, then an HD movie could fit onto a double-layer DVD with no issues (aside from the coding and such required to play the media in an HD player, which it wouldn't). To assume you can use Apple's encoding to compact the movie without losing any further quality is erroneous in HD content. Hell, the trailers that Apple's sight plays in 1080p are alone 200+ meg's for a few minutes.
Further, if you were to digitize your entire DVD collection, even at 5-10 gig's a movie, that is A LOT of physical hard drive space. Most people do not have the funds or ability to have numerous hard drives attached to their systems just to stream them wirelessly through iTunes.
Sure, the future
Further, if you were to digitize your entire DVD collection, even at 5-10 gig's a movie, that is A LOT of physical hard drive space. Most people do not have the funds or ability to have numerous hard drives attached to their systems just to stream them wirelessly through iTunes.
Sure, the future
I wouldn't mind videos ripped into full resolution from regular DVD's. They have good quality for most sets out there, and occupy anywhere between 4-8GB
I realize when I point out that you're wrong that you take it as a personal attack, but sorry, you're wrong. Again. And no amount of production experience or friends "in the biz" are making you right.
Here's some simple math. Let's take your point about 1080p movie trailers on Apple's site. For example, the 1080p trailer for "Let's Go To Prison" is 2.5 minutes long and 191 MB. A two-hour movie is exactly 48 times that (48 x 2.5 = 120). So take 191 MB x 48 = under 10 GB. Do the math. Looks like a two-hour movie in H.264 CAN be under 10 GB, despite your enthusiastic arguments to the contrary. "LUDICROUS?" Apparently not.
Perhaps you're just in the wrong business? Nothing personal...
I think a lot of folks are expecting to see 720p content from the iTS this year.
Bandwidth is a commodity. If your point that Apple's only issue with delivering HD content is that they'll need a lot of bandwidth to do it successfully, I think that'd be probably the EASIEST technological problem that Apple's ever had to deal with. Remember the rumors from way back that Leopard would have built-in torrenting? Perhaps now that rumor has met its business function.
Either way, as a self-proclaimed Apple die-hard, I think you're giving up way too easily on Apple regarding bandwidth being an issue that stops them from doing 720p content. Now that they're doing more and more consumer devices, can you be a nay-sayer on the ones you don't like and still be consider a die-hard Apple fan? Maybe you'll have to start qualifying that as "die-hard Apple Computer fan" to keep everything straight?
not exactly ludicrous - 720P HD movies on the XBOX 360 are between 4-5GB per Microsofts own specs. I don't understand why this is so hard to believe.
HD movies do fit on a regular dual layer DVD - but like you mentioned DVD players can't play them back. You could however save movies downloaded from iTunes on to a DVD as a data disk so it doesnt take up space on your Hard drive.
I do agree with you however that most people will not want to store all of these movies on their computers hard drive and that having to buy additional hard drives just to store downloaded movies doesn't make much sense to regular users.
There's also the fact that with these type of downloads we miss out on all the extras that come with physical media like DVDs, HD-DVDs etc I dont know if I am ready to give all that up. I kinda like watching behind the scenes extras from Tarantino movies or selecting a different language or subtitle if I have family over.
I think that Target is kinda crazy to resell stuff that goes with the iTunes Store.
Didn't Steve make a Target reference in his keynote, implying they were the next company for the iTunes Store to surpass?
And I thought Target freaked out about the iTunes Store selling DVDs, too?
Now they're going to sell the AppleTV, a device that may encourage people to buy even more content from one of their competitors? Oye.
I think that Target is kinda crazy to resell stuff that goes with the iTunes Store.
Didn't Steve make a Target reference in his keynote, implying they were the next company for the iTunes Store to surpass?
And I thought Target freaked out about the iTunes Store selling DVDs, too?
Now they're going to sell the AppleTV, a device that may encourage people to buy even more content from one of their competitors? Oye.
Good point! That, of course, is exactly what I had in mind when I asked if Target was on target.
Sweet. I have a friend who works there who gets a 20% discount coupon every so often. Add that 10% off he normally gets....yumm.
I'll be perfectly honest with you, most of the employees at Best Buy are morons. :/ I would know too, since I work there and deal with a lot of them.
Trust me, you werent missing the price tag that much.
Heres what it says basically in a nutshell :
Apple TV Model - APPLETV
299.99
Thats it. Doesnt mention the lack of cables, anything.
Also, the reason they aren't selling well is because they dont have one on display, set up or anything so customers could take it for a test drive.
Plus then most of the employees know jack-crap because there is no training modules for it. :/