back to article Apple TV said to enter the heavens at $99

Steve Jobs' "hobby" — the Apple TV — is slated for a radical revamp, an extreme price slice, and a future in the cloud, according to "a source very close to Apple." Engadget reports that the next version of the Apple TV will run iPhone OS 4.0, have only enough on-board RAM to function as a conduit to the cloud, and will cost a …

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  1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    There you have it!

    Laydeez and chennelmen.

    Hi giv yoo the one, the main, the ony reezon that ....

    (wait for it)

    there is such a kerfuffle about online video (rights protected or not) between major players.

    There is a goal worth pursuing and I'd also guess that the goal has been analysed, predicted and growth/profit margins anticipated.

    The shame is that all the main players somehow do better when working closer together than they do when fragmented and fractionalised (as in fractious) and I'd also speculate that evolution will evolve swifter, sooner and more coherently (unlike this post :-) ) were it to be so now and then.

  3. Nuno
    Megaphone

    introducing: the i

    "the new Apple TV will essentially be a next-gen iPhone without the phone — or an iPad without the pad"

  4. The Hollywood Geek

    Welcome to the party

    Don't forget Apple and Google are entering a battle that's already in progress. I was amused how much of the Google TV talk was about what it means for Apple TV, but outside of tech circles no one has been talking about Apple TV for a long time. There's a lot of buzz here, but the connected TV segment is already established and the leaders are Yahoo, Adobe, Roku, Vudu and (one could argue) Microsoft through both Xbox and the media server.

    Apple certainly has the potential to enter the fight, but don't assume they will win or that Google is the only other player.

    More...

    http://thehollywoodgeek.com/2010/05/28/will-google-tv-destroy-tv/

  5. Alan Denman

    $50 profit

    There is still room for $50 profit in this item yet it makes me wonder if the A4 SOC has a HD chip in it too considering standard desings are cheaper and the HD chip addition is about 99c worth these days.

    I guess 16GB is the minimum to cope with HD.

    1. ml100
      WTF?

      16 GB? I dont think so

      What would you need any storage for? If you are watching streamed media rather than downloading 128MB of RAM would be more than enough - works fine for all the Realtek based streaming devices currently on the market that can do 1080p...

      The point of a cloud based device is not to store content hence no option to 'pirate' content, no opportunity to skip adverts.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    More iTunes Pumped Dribble

    TV - Apple style? "Rose tinted" crap from the masters of lock-in. No thanks!

  7. RichyS
    Jobs Halo

    How about

    Adding iAd into the mix?

    And remember, the current Apple TV is subsidised in the States (which is where I got mine).

    If this rumour turns out to be true, then it sounds pretty exciting. Google's search on top of web video and your current TV doesn't really do it for me...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      @RichyS

      Subsidised? By whom? It's not subsidised in the states or anywhere else.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    USB

    Just make the damn thing able to play from a standard USB drive - some of us don't have access to "the cloud" for video purposes (O2's mobile broadband is unreliable enough for web browsing...)

    I've tried one of those media players which do work from a USB drive (from Creative or someone) and although a good idea it was awful to use and buggy - make it "just work" and I'd happily pay $99 (or the at least £99 it would cost here).

    1. Richard 74
      Thumb Up

      RE: USB - Try this

      http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/7977460/Western-Digital-WD-TV-HD-Media-Player/Product.html?_$ja=tsid:11518|cc:|prd:7977460|cat:Hard+Drives

  9. Adam T

    iTunes profit

    Could it be that the new data center alone will centralise and reduce the costs associated with hosting iTunes content, especially if that business is expected to be done on a much larger scale, turning from an (almost) at-cost operation to a highly profitable one?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Ain't no doubt about it

    Were the Apple capable of doing an iPad on Apple TV it sorta seems a winner.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      re: "Ain't no doubt about it"

      "Were the Apple capable of doing an iPad on Apple TV it sorta seems a winner." - excuse me?

      Is someone testing out a commentard Markov chain parser?

  11. jonathanb Silver badge

    One unanswered question

    Will you be able to use the new Apple TV to watch television? That seems to be one major ommission from the current line-up.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @jonathanb

      Huh? By watch TV I assume you mean does it have some sort of tuner in it? The answer to that is no - it's not a device that tunes in television, it's a media consumption device. I have one, and I watch television every day, but they are programmes downloaded from the internet.

      Do I want it to have a tuner? The answer to that is no - first off, which tuner should it support? It does perfectly what it was designed to do, and that is play media on my big screen that is stored on my computer (NAS).

  12. David Kelly 2

    Murphy's Law

    Knew something like this would happen the day my network-enabled BD player arrived. :-)

  13. Nick Pettefar

    Useful but Odd

    I use mine all the time to watch downloaded videos on the telly. I have to convert all the files to MP4 or M4A format though which is a bind - I would love to get around that limitation! We only use it for streaming from Macs, the built-in HD is unemployed. Why can't they make it work with avi!!!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Nick

      Try ATVFlash - they have an automated way to enable AVI capabilities on your ATV. I used to hack mine by hand (open the case, remove the hard drive, that sort) but theirs is automated - you just a USB memory stick, and it takes care of everything.

    2. Kebabster
      Happy

      Other codecs...

      You CAN make it work with other formats. I do similar to you but unlocked it first with a USB patchstick (simple turn off / turn-on unlock), install Perian tools and Sapphire Media Browser and you're done. If you want elaborate throw on XBMC for good measure.

  14. Steve Todd
    FAIL

    That's not the reason

    "On the other hand, Jobs' vendetta against Adobe Flash is causing him to be rebuffed by Time Warner and NBC Universal, according to Friday's New York Post, because those media giants aren't keen on going through the time and expense of converting their massive Flash-based video libraries"

    Flash video has been encoded using h.264 since late 2007. Converting from .flv to .mp4 is mostly a case of re-multiplexing the data so it's pretty trivial to do.

    The companies in question don't want to move to HTM5 for a number of possible reasons, the most likely of which is that they won't be able to use DRM. The next most likely reason is they couldn't be a*sed to re-write their site.

    Whatever the reason, the customer is king. If there's enough demand for non-flash content then they'll see the light. Since Adobe have yet to demonstrate a version of flash that (1) runs normal desktop flash code, (2) runs reliably on mobile hardware and (3) doesn't suck CPU and battery power then it's unlikely that Apple will cave over this.

  15. mzilikazi
    Linux

    There are already more capable devices available

    $100 for the privilege of streaming video? No thanks. Why, when Mvix for example, http://www.mvixusa.com/product/ultiopro does it all for well under $200?

    1080p, DVR ,

    DivX® (3/4/5/6), Xvid, MPEG 1/2/4, WMV-9, ASF(WMV9), MKV, DVD(IFO, VOB), ISO, MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG, FLAC, AC3.

  16. The First Dave
    Boffin

    untitled

    From the article: "On the other hand, Jobs' vendetta against Adobe Flash is causing him to be rebuffed by Time Warner and NBC Universal, according to Friday's New York Post, because those media giants aren't keen on going through the time and expense of converting their massive Flash-based video libraries."

    That is at best a stupid reason, since the content is NOT stored in flash, which is only ever a controller / player for content encoded in otherwise normal formats.

  17. kevin king
    Thumb Down

    Icarus?

    so 60 minutes of 1080p is around 1.2GB (figures from bbc Iplayer) so even if you have BT unlimited *cough* which has a package with a cap of 100GB per month you can only use the device for 2hr 40 minutes per day before you use up all you bandwidth and thats without email, general surfing etc as well. So God forbid that your on a 20GB or even 10GB cap a month . So till the UK ISP get their act together and remove these small caps this kind of cloud based entertaint technology isn't going to fly.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cloud video not yet viable.

    I'd love to ditch all my DVDs and Blu-rays, it's just clutter, but at the moment streaming 1080p (with 5.1 audio) just isn't possible over the 'net, at least not in the UK. Or at least not over Virgin Broadband. I supposedly have a fast connection, but not a reliable one to watch even 720p stereo streams without it stalling multiple times. And that's even before we get onto download limits.

    So for now I'll stick with my existing ATV and blu-rays.

  19. Kebabster
    FAIL

    Already established? @ Hollywood Geek

    "There's a lot of buzz here, but the connected TV segment is already established and the leaders are Yahoo, Adobe, Roku, Vudu and (one could argue) Microsoft through both Xbox and the media server."

    And there's a LOT of world outside of the USA that noone is covering. Roku, Vudu, Netflix, none of them are available in Europe, so much for an established market! If you really think of yourselves as the World, maybe you should get out more...

  20. Matthew 17

    What does this mean for the current ATV?

    I only bought mine last Christmas. Lovely little box, particularly when running XBMC. The PPV programmes and films are nice but I think the rental price is a little high.

  21. richard 69
    Jobs Halo

    pay for the data centre?

    haven't they paid for it already - apple have $20 billion in the bank at least?

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