AppleTV gets past the ‘hobby’ thing
Going by the mantra “silent, cool and small,” Steve Jobs has reintroduced the AppleTV.
No longer merely a company “hobby,” the device looks to be a strong contender in the race to win broad consumer acceptance of streaming video flowing through widescreen TVs.
The price is $99, down from $299 on the much larger original product. The new AppleTV should be available in four weeks.
Speaking at an Apple press conference, Jobs introduced the second-generation AppleTV with a list of the things consumers sought in an entertainment center black box:
“The No. 1, 2 and 3 thing they want: They want Hollywood movies and TV shows whenever they want them. They don’t want amateur hour. They want everything in HD.
And, Jobs said, they want living room boxes to be “”silent, cool and small.”
The movies and TV shows come as HD rentals only, via iTunes. The debut prices are $4.99 for a film and 99 cents for a recent TV episode.
“They get cheaper as time goes on,” Jobs said.
As expected, Apple’s network TV partners are ABC and Fox. “Not all of the studios wanted to take this step with us,” Jobs said. “Maybe they’ll see the light.” ABC was a gimmie as Jobs holds the cards on the board of Walt Disney Co., which owns the alphabet network.
Netflix users get their Watch Instantly, well, instantly. “This is by far the best implementation of Netflix so far,” the Apple chief said.
Demonstrating the AppleTV’s horizontal navigation (with dropdowns), Jobs showed how to import music, pictures and video from a nearby computer — and the iPad.
But, he said in an apparent dig at Google TV, consumers “don’t want a computer on their TV. They have computers. They go to their widescreen TVs for entertainment. This is a hard one for people to understand in the computer industry. Consumers understand. They get it.”
YouTube, MobileMe, Flicker and Internet radio stations are in the mix as well.
The AppleTV reveal came as the “one more thing …” segment of Apple’s product news conference in San Francisco. The news had been widely expected.
The other products were an upgraded iPod Touch, an iPod Shuffle that returns buttons to the device, a smaller Nano with a touch screen (and no buttons) and a social network-driven update to iTunes.
Google TV debuts in the fall, with Android apps. It will run on cable boxes and Sony HDTVs, along with other entertainment hardware TBA.
Apple nearing deals for cheap TV shows
Apple looks like it’s about to cut deals with several Big Four Networks for 99 cent rentals of TV episodes.
The networks previously rejected Apple’s plan to rent the TV programs on iTunes at that price point, but Fox reportedly is now in advanced talks with the computer innovator.
Viewers would be able to rent episodes from News Corp.’s Fox for two days, sources told Bloomberg. They’d be available within 24 hours of first-run broadcasts.
ABC also appears ready to cut a deal, Bloomberg said.
Apple’s Steven Jobs is the major player on the board of Walt Disney Co., which owns the alphabet network. (Jobs, left, is shown with the old AppleTV box.)
There remain sticking points in the iTunes negotiations, the New York Times reports. (Both Bloomberg and the Times quoted anonymous sources close to the talks.)
TV episodes currently sell for $2 to $3 on iTunes. The networks feared that cheap and easily available rentals of their primetime shows would dilute their value for retransmission, and for DVD/Blu-ray. So what changed?
Apple is widely expected to unveil its iTV product on Sept. 7. Speculation has it that the new box would replace the wobbly AppleTV product at a lower price. Reports over the summer said that the simple $99 version iwould be an “iPhone without a screen” — complete with apps and streaming video, some of it in 1080p HD. (The operating system and user interfaces would be similar to those on the iPhone and iPad.)
In early June, Jobs was downbeat on chances for a game-changing set-top box:
“The television industry fundamentally has a subsidized business model that gives everyone a set-top box for free or for $10 a month. That pretty much squashes any opportunity for innovation because nobody’s willing to buy (an expensive) set-top box,” he said.
“I’m sure smarter people than us will figure this out,” Jobs said, referring to the marriage of the Web and television.
Google TV debuts early this fall.
Mac mini gets HDMI, promo push for TV
How about a robust home media center for $699? You got it, sort of.
Apple just revamped its Mac mini line, adding HDMI ports for high definition output. That means Hulu, Netflix Watch Instantly, YouTube, the iTunes store and the rest of the gang appearing nightly on your big-screen TV, without hassles or compromises.
Meanwhile, the old school Apple TV device is doing a disappearing act on the company’s retail site, amid rumors that a $99 version of the set-top box is in the wings — supposedly “an iPhone without a screen.” (Tech Crunch points out that the old Apple TV box is listed as an iPod accessory now …. WTF.)
Steve Jobs addressed the marriage of computers and TVs the other day, giving no hint of the mini plan. He was downbeat on chances for a successful set-top box. “I’m sure smarter people than us will figure this out,” he said. Stay tuned for Apple’s real home-entertainment strategy, a mystery so far.
The new Mac mini should play nicely with the current home entertainment center. The aluminum “unibody” shell (like the checks in at a sleek 1.4 inch height. No dingo balls, just an optical drive in front, for DVDs, CDs. Sorry, it doesn’t play Blu-rays.
In back, in addition to the HDMI plug-in, there’s a mini display port and a SD slot for pictures and home videos. Audio output comes via a minijack, nothing more serious, although audio also flows via the HDMI set-up. The power brick is gone, too, replaced by your standard household plug. (Also Firewire and USB ports, of course.)
The HDMI supports up to 1920×1200 resolution, way more than modern man requires. Apple says there’s “a handy control that lets you easily adjust the output … to fill even the biggest HDTV screen.” The graphic capabilities also benefit from an upgrade targeted at gamers.
The new Mac minis come with 2.4 or 2.66 Intel Core 2 Duo chips, depending on what you spend. Up to 8GB of system memory, with additional cards easily inserted via a round detachable panel on the bottom of the box.
Update: Macworld has a crisp write-up on the pros and cons of using the Mac mini as a media server.
Jobs: Interactive TV a sucker’s play
Apple chieftain Steve Jobs says the marriage of the Internet and television won’t be happening soon because of “the problem with the TV market.”
Talk to TiVo, Vudu, ReplayTV and others about their costly disappointments in interactive TV, he suggests.
Oh, and be sure to “ask Google in a few months,” he added, serving up the snark. (Google TV debuts in the fall.)
Jobs talked about Internet video and television as part of a wide-ranging 90-minute session at Walter Mossberg’s D: All Things Digital conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. (technically, the Wall Street Journal).
A member of the audience asked if Jobs had plans to “blow out television” by making the medium interactive.
No, he said. “It’s not a problem of technology, It’s not a problem with vision.” It’s a matter of market fundamentals:
“The television industry fundamentally has a subsidized business model that gives everyone a set-top box for free or for $10 a month. That pretty much squashes any opportunity for innovation because nobody’s willing to buy (an expensive) set-top box,” Jobs said.
“A lot of people have tried. (But) you just end up with a tableful of remotes and UIs.”
What would it take? “If you can go back to square one and tear up the set-top box and redesign it from scratch with a consistent UI across all these different functions — and give it to the consumer in a way that they’re willing to pay for it. And right now there’s no way to do that.”
Jobs noted that there was no one national cable company, making technical standards a big problem. With international markets, the standards for television hardware is “very balkanized.”
He said Apple made its choice to stay clear of the interactive TV battles a long time ago:
“We decided what problem do we want the most — a better TV or a better phone. And the phone won out — there was no chance to do a better TV because there was no way to get it to the market. … The TV is going to lose until there’s a viable go-to-market strategy, otherwise you’re just making another TiVo.
“I’m sure smarter people than us will figure this out,” he concluded.
Jobs’ company has the underwhelming Apple TV, which he usually refers to as a hobby.
Reports last week said a simple $99 version is coming that would be an “iPhone without a screen” — complete with apps and streaming video, some of it in 1080p HD. Presumably, for example, that means Netflix’s Watch Instantly app would be aboard.
Jobs apparently was not asked about the new Apple TV during the conference session.
Mark Cuban, another All Things Digital speaker, had similarly downbeat things to say about the online video business.
Apple TV vs. Google TV: main event
Apple isn’t talking, but some deep throats are, confirming Engadget’s report that the new Apple TV will be an “iPhone without a screen.”
That means iPhone/iPad apps on your TV screen of choice. With the iPhone 4′s new operating system routing video streams from the cloud, some in 1080p HD.
It gets better: The price for the new Apple TV will be $99, according to Engadget.
If true, this means the death of Apple TV as we know it … and don’t love it. The unveiling of Google’s TV effort at roughly the same time as this Apple news leak appears to be a coincidence, however.
The old Apple TV (pictured) — old meaning it was never updated — never caught on and was subsequently excused as “a hobby” by Steve Jobs.
Google TV debuts in the fall, with Android apps. It will run on cable boxes and Sony HDTVs, along with other entertainment hardware TBA.
The Apple TV box would be right in line with the Jobs aesthetic — power in and video out, Engadget says. The Apple Time Machine feature allows for external hard drive storage, if you like. There’s a mere 16GB of flash memory on the TV box, meaning it’s all about the cloud.
Apps, among many other functions, provide a world of addictive games, as TechCrunch points out. Assuming they look snazzy in living room resolutions, we’re looking at an industry shake-up on the casual games front. (One possible victim of the dueling TV systems: Microsoft’s Xbox Live.)
The Apple TV streaming also will allow for easy access to your iTunes treasures — not all that difficult to achieve now via AirPort, but a bother nonetheless.
The price difference might be the first front: Google TV’s devices (inside Sony HDTVs, for example) would run on the expensive Intel Atom chips. Apple TV would rely on the company’s new A4 chips, already showing their economy on the iPad.
Meanwhile, the Fire Horse Trail blog has a somewhat creepy post about the privacy implications of the Google TV ad model.
Know how targeted ads follow you around on the Web? Coming soon to a TV near you, eventually.
Soon the TV ads will be greeting you by name, meaning the world of “Minority Report” is not so far away.