They are here! Apple TV, the oddball iTunes add on is shipping. I am hopeful for the success of Apple TV but am still puzzled by some of its features.
Apple TV plusses:
1) Stream video to a high definition TV.
2) With new Quicktime, can convert DVD's and other content to Apple TV format for streaming to TV.
3) Music and Photos too.
4) Watch downloaded TV shows in iTunes on your TV.
Problems with these features:
1) Requires high definition TV yet the content does not utilize this to its fullest. No 1080i support or even 720i support. Just an almost 720i quality but currently iTunes only downloads shows at 640x480 quality which is even lower resolution than 720i. Apple could change this soon, and will probably do that.
2) New Quicktime Pro conversion is all good, but will have to see how quickly the conversion takes place. I saw a post where someone said that people will be getting movies from Netflix, ripping them into iTunes with the new Quicktime, and then returning them immediately. The movie industry must be nervous.
3) Yes, yes music and photos. I would call these bonus features. The music could be good since you could hook Apple TV to your stereo system. But then you need your TV on to control it. Awkward. It reminds me of how cable TV has music stations. Like 30+ stations. But using your TV to control your music is not right.
4) TV shows. Once again, I think the pay per show model is destined to fail. I think that is a nitch market. I will put up with a few commercials so I don't have to pay. I would hate to pay $1.99 for 1/2hr show which ends up being a dud. If it turns out to be a bad show, you can't channel surf.
In the end, I am sure Apple will fix many of these problems. I just think for now the market for what they currently have is limited. One upbeat assesement by an analyst said that iTunes is already in about 50-60 million homes, while Window media center is in about 4 million. And many of those were just because it was bundled. As with any bundled software, a lot of it is never used. So this does give Apple a Trojan horse for pushing Apple TV.
2 comments:
I very much concur with much of your assessment, Stitch. However, I do thing that the "bonus" feature fo music and photos may well end up being more important than we think. The photos are in fact in high definition, and with a high def television the results could be magnificent.
What I wonder about is the people who have already downloaded movies from iTunes in the lower resulotion - we know that Apple will be offering high resolution in the future. Do the people who bought the lower resulution movies have to pay again? I assume that Apple will offer movies in both lower res and high resolution, and charge more for the higher resolution. What do you think?
Good point about the high res photos. With cameras in 6M pixel range, even high def is not high enough to show all its pixels.
I don't believe that Apple would allow past downloaders to upgrade their downloads to hi-res. I base this on Apple not having any way to recover from losing your music files. I would have thought that Apple would allow you to redownload your music if you accidentally lose it before backing it up. At least for a about 1 year or so. Apple has said, "after you download it, you are on your own".
I bet there are many people out there that don't have their music backed up. Relying on the stability of their hard drives. My son Phillip lost a bunch of his music because his laptop got fried due to moisture. He was able to recover most of it with 3rd party software which allow uploading from your iPod. I think iTunes does that now too.
Don't get me wrong. Apple TV has a lot of potential, but there are going to be a lot of bumps in the road before Apple finds the right combination. But with software, the devices features can be modified regularly to keep it fresh. I will not be an early adopter though.
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