I call it a temple because the architecture conveys a nearly religious aesthetic, a place to worship Apple, beyond any other Apple store you’ve ever been to. The top floor’s a vast open space, enclosed by spartan stone walls which support a massive glass ceiling. The rows of tables in the main room feel like pews.
I can’t tell you – and the pictures can’t show you – how utterly open and expansive the room feels. Apple says it has more demo units than any other store in the world. To give you an idea of the space, the walls are 45 feet tall, and could fit 11 Apple 5th Avenue Cubes inside. It’s the spareness that’s breathtaking. It’s cold. Not literally, but the stone walls, the glass, the sheer space rob it of any sense of warmth or feeling. The only sense of life in room is the products. It’s a temple to them, really.
As anticipated, Apple has updated the Apple TV software to 3.0, which brings a new interface and home screen with quick access to favorite content. Instead of drilling down to get to a recently-rented movie, it’s now accessible right off the home screen, as are favorite TV Shows, podcasts and YouTube movies.
The update also adds support for iTunes LPs and iTunes Extras, as well as Genius Mixes and internet radio.
The update likely breaks Boxee, the unsanctioned internet media player that actually makes the Apple TV useful, but internet radio is a welcome addition.
To support the new Apple TV software, Apple has also updated iTunes to 9.0.2. As well as being compatible with the Apple TV 3.0 software, the update adds a new “dark” viewing option in Grid View. The iTunes update also once again breaks Palm Pre syncing.
One of these things is not like the other. I’ll give you one guess which one I’m talking about.
Since its inception, Apple TV has been little more than a half-baked idea that appeals only to a niche market. Even Steve Jobs says Apple TV is only “a hobby.”
For a company known for pumping out game-changing products, this is very out of character. Apple TV is great at what it does, but it could be so much more.
A major update of the Apple TV may be in the works.
Apple has slashed the price of the 160GB Apple TV to $229 (from $329) and discontinued the 40GB model. Meanwhile, it looks like Apple’s new iTunes LP — a new format for multimedia music bundles — is designed for high-resolution output on the AppleTV.
The iTunes LP content is output at 1,280-by-720, the native resolution of an Apple TV when hooked to a high-definition TV. Apple’s new iTunes Extras (bonus movie material usually included on bonus DVDs and now available for download on iTunes) is also designed to be output at the same high resolution. While this is natural for movie content, it’s a curious choice for music content, albeit multimedia music content, which might naturally be formatted for playing on computers and laptops.
Which all points to a major update for the Apple TV in the near future. The AppleTV hardware has remained essentially unchanged since its introduction, although it has received a couple of software upgrades.
The 160GB model is the only configuration of the Apple TV now on offer. The 40GB Apple TV was previously priced at $229.
Steve Jobs usually refers to the AppleTV as a “hobby,” and not a real business. The choice of movies for the device on the iTunes store remains relatively limited.
If the TV industry doesn’t invent a digital business that customers want, it risks an “iTunes moment,” when Apple took hold of the online music business, a Microsoft exec said.
“Realistically. I think the industry has about two to three years to adapt or face its iTunes moment. And it will take at least that long for media brands to build credible, truly digital brands,” Ashley Highfield, managing director of consumer and online at Microsoft UK, told the Guardian.
Answering the inevitable question of how to make money from these new ventures, he said “media companies need to embrace controversial targeted advertising techniques, such as behavioral targeting based on users’ web viewing habits, with the ad inventory going into an auction-style model similar to the system Google operates.”
Interesting he didn’t name Apple TV — speculated “dead” as Sony and Microsoft entered the market last year — as a specific threat, but spoke of the success of iTunes.
In 2007, a Forrester analyst said both iTunes and Apple TV were “dead ends” that would be “eclipsed by television and cable networks will quickly shift their content to free ad-supported streaming.”
Ha. I tried out Apple TV for about a week while house sitting this summer. The interface was nice, the remote control cool. I’d still rather keep the cheapo PVR with a slightly wheezy fan a friend rigged up — because, while it’s an ugly little box and the remote control works about 40% of the time, there’s no DRM.
UPDATE: The WSJ has corrected its story to say it is “not clear” Apple will attend CES in 2010. However, we were told in January that Apple will attend. “It’s a done deal,” our source said.
“Apple plans to attend the show’s 2010 version, marking the first time in memory the Cupertino, Calif., consumer-electronics giant will be there,” said the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
The WSJ says that Steve Jobs has been invited to be a CES keynote speaker but hasn’t returned calls. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Intel CEO Paul Otellini are on tap to deliver the speeches at the show.
Neither Apple nor CES has made any official announcements. Apple last year said it would no longer attend trade shows, saying it could better reach its customers through its retail stores.
CES is held in January in Las Vegas, often conflicting with Macworld. It’s a giant zoo, but nonetheless attracts most of the world’s consumer electronics makers, who show off their wares for the upcoming year.
Apple is now more of a consumer electronics company now than a computer company, making CES a much better fit than MacWorld, the source told CoM back in January.
The popular Boxee media center software is the rare app that starts on the Mac before going to Windows. CC-licensed pic by Matt Grimm.
Here’s some good news for Mac users of Boxee, the popular media platform for Macs and Apple TV: The software is going Windows.
At a developer event on Tuesday night in San Francisco, Boxee released its first version for Windows PCs.
This is good news for Mac users because the Boxee platform will have a much larger user base for developers to create plug-ins for. Significantly, the software will run on Windows Media Center PCs, which is by far the biggest installed base of computers connected to TVs.
Hulu’s newly released Desktop application may or may not put Boxee on the ropes, but it could end up being the best thing that ever happened to the Mac mini.
Released Thursday by the popular television content aggregator whose major partners also happen to be some of the biggest Hollywood content producers, Hulu Desktop signals a major move away from the “online only” model that once served as a thin veneer of protection against the ire of cable companies that pay good money to get content from Hulu’s partners.
Still trying to have it both ways, Hulu issued comical Terms of Service with the desktop product that purport to prevent users from using the software on “Prohibited Devices,” to whit:
“You may not download, install or use the Hulu Software on any device other than a Personal Computer including without limitation digital media receiver devices (such as Apple TV), mobile devices (such as a cell phone device, mobile handheld device or a PDA), network devices or CE devices (collectively “Prohibited Devices”).”
In the real world, however, don’t be surprised to see news of an AppleTV hack by this weekend (if not before); and Mac mini users who employ that device’s excellent media server capabilities with a connection to plasma screens in their living rooms should be sitting pretty, too.
Will you use Hulu Desktop or stick with your web browser? Will you keep the content on your computer screen or take it into the living room? Let us know in comments below.
Nearly 900 people RSVPd for the boxee meetup Tuesday at Webster Hall in NYC, where the “bleeding edge” media center platform is announcing brand new partnerships with Pandora, Radio Time and PBS, as well as a more robust API and a new XUL-based framework for the boxee browser that will enable easier interaction with any web-based video (translation: Hulu web pages).
With the new Pandora station, boxee users can listen to their personal quickmix and favorite stations, as well as create new stations, making music in the living room more accessible than ever.
BoxeeHQ is also releasing a new PBS app today, and the company promises its new API will allow developers to build apps using XML pages and Python scripts, giving them control over everything they want from a UI perspective.
They offer as an example the new implementation of Radio Time, an application built using the new API that will allow users to stream over 100k terrestrial radio stations from around the world.
By adding new access to more music and continuing to add to and refine access to video content, boxee is definitely pressing its case as a force to be reckoned with in the breaking down of barriers between internet and traditional media content.
Apple has filed a patent for a wireless “remote wand” with the idea of adding it to future versions of Apple TV. The wand would give users with control over a cursor on the Apple TV screen, sort of like a mouse controls a cursor on a computer. The wand would also give Apple TV three-dimensional controls similar to those offered by Nintendo’s Wii controller.
According to Apple Insider, unlike the current 5-button remote on the current version of Apple TV, the wand can control a number of functions and can be used to zoom, as a keyboard application, an image application, an illustration application and a media application.
The Z-bar, from Zillion TV is a compact set-top box that pulls HDTV signals from your broadband connection to offer you ad-supported HDTV shows and pay on demand.
The service is currently in beta, but when it’s available later in the year, you will be able to view shows for free with advertising attached, or buy them to watch ad-free shows.
Some big names are attached, too, such as NBC Universal, Disney, 20th Century Fox Television, Sony Pictures, and Warner Bros. Digital Distribution.
Zillion TV claims 15,000 titles in the current library and by launch they say they’ll have more. Is this the future of TV in your home?
AppleTV is dead, it just hasn’t stopped moving yet. With fewer than 2 million units sold, it hasn’t achieved the commercial success of its rivals, and continues as a failed effort on the part of Apple to extend the digital hub into the living room.
The final nail in AppleTV’s coffin comes yesterday as Netflix announces a digital only subscription option, but the fatal shot was fired back in November. Follow me after the jump, as we discuss how Netflix strategy not only killed AppleTV but also threatens more than just longtime rival Blockbuster, and what (if anything) Apple can do about it.
Apple released an Apple TV update Tuesday evening that, not surprisingly, removes third-party add-ons, such as the popular media center application Boxee.
Apple TV users who are willing to hack their device to extend its functionality are likely to be savvy enough to have disabled auto-update on their machines, but it’s also likely some may wake to an unpleasant surprise on Wednesday morning.
The Apple TV support page had not been updated at press time with fixes and improvements in software version 2.3.1. Readers are invited to let us know in comments what amazements, if any, come with the update.
Apple may be putting the finishing touches on a new streaming video service that would allow iTunes users to access purchased video content without the need to download and store it on a local machine, according to a report Wednesday at AppleInsider.
iTunes Replay would let users stream content such as movies and TV shows directly from Apple-owned servers in a manner similar to Amazon’s Video on Demand (formerly known as UnBox) and the Instant Watch service from Netflix, and may also improve the experience of the company’s Apple TV set top box, allowing users to stream purchased media directly from Apple’s servers without syncing or copying files between Apple TV and a computer running iTunes.
The report is unclear whether Apple intends to move toward a “streaming only” distribution model for the typically large files created by video content, or if iTunes Replay would merely represent an option for consumers with fewer concerns about retaining physical control of their purchased media content (and less storage in which to keep it).
To the extent that media distributors such as Apple, Amazon and Netflix embrace the streaming distribution model, consumers may find relief from the need to maintain ever greater storage capacity for growing media libraries. Though the trade-off – and guaranteed consumer dissatisfaction – will arise over bandwidth limitations that already make even a YouTube-watching experience sub-optimal at peak demand times in some places in the US.
Boxee released a new version of its free, open source social media software for Mac Thusday that includes support for ABC. Included, of course, in ABC support is access to one of the most popular network TV shows, “Lost,” which serendipitously had its season premier,…wait for it, Wednesday.
The Boxee peeps are duly excited because ABC also produces two other ragingly popular TV shows, “Desperate Housewives,” and “Gray’s Anatomy.”
News from torrentfreak indicating “Lost” was the most downloaded TV Show on Bittorrent in 2008 dovetails with Boxee’s plan, according to a spokesperson, who told Cult of Mac, ” we strongly believe that given the option, most users will opt for streaming a TV Show (with a reasonable amount of ads) rather than using a file-sharing service.”
Online streaming offered by ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, etc. has made progress over the past 12 months in terms of quality, breadth of selection and release windows (i.e. the time it takes for the show to be available online after it originally aired). In this respect, a service such as Boxee is a great alternative to the file-sharing networks.
Boxee hopes to release an Apple TV version within the next few days and is still working on making it available for Windows and Ubuntu.
