Why Apple TV Is Rotten
First I would like to welcome you to my blog! This is officially the first post, with many more on the way. If you are wondering about the name, I can tell you that Unugunu is a monster from a German children’s story I once read. The reason I chose it is that all the good names were taken. Now I will tell you why I think the recently announced Apple TV will not be a big hit.
I would like to preface this post by saying that I am neither an Apple nor Microsoft fan boy. I use products from both companies, and I think both companies do a lot of things really, really well. I also use Redhat Linux on my laptop, so I have most of the operating system bases covered. I love my iPod, but I am not a fan of the Zune, at least the first generation. I use Windows and enjoy it for the most part, but I also realize it does have some big problems (
When the Apple iTV was announced in September 2006 I was extremely excited, as were most people that realized what would be possible if it was done right. I personally have a lot of television programs, movies, and DVDs stored on a computer with nearly 1 terabyte of storage, and it would be spectacular to stream all of that content to my 52” widescreen HDTV in my living room. For years I have been looking for a device that streams all my media easily, and I thought if anyone could make it simple and easy, it was Apple.
As Steve Jobs said during the initial announcement, “Apple is in your den. Apple is in your living room. Apple is in your car. Apple is in your pocket. That's a little snapshot of where we're moving.” Clearly Jobs wants the name Apple to be synonymous with media in your home. The name change from “Apple Computer” to “Apple Incorporated” is further evidence of this shift towards a media-centric business strategy. That is great, but Apple has in my opinion dropped the ball with its Apple TV. It also has some external forces working against it, namely hot competition from several big players. Here are some of the things working against Apple TV.
Competition – As I just mentioned, Apple faces stiff competition from a number of different companies. If you have been following the news from the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) you have no doubt learned that the major theme was bringing streaming media solutions to the home. Several companies have announced products designed to make distributing digital content throughout your home and onto your television. If someone else makes a more functional and less expensive media streaming device, Apple TV will be in serious trouble.
Consumer Ignorance – With many consumers still struggling to understand basic computer technologies such as home network routers and even things like e-mail, I am not sure how many consumers will see the need for a device like Apple TV. Many people already have some sort of DVR solution in their homes, such as a Tivo box or a cable/satellite box with DVR functions. However, in my experience not many non-techie types have a great deal of television programs and movies stored digitally on their computers, much less from the Apple iTunes Store. And as I will discuss in a moment, media purchased from the iTunes Store will really be the only content available on Apple TV.
HDTV Required – Although prices have dropped dramatically over the past couple of years, HDTVs are still not everywhere. HDTVs still cost a significant amount of money for the average consumer. High definition programming from your cable or satellite provider also costs more money. In addition to the added costs, there is still relatively little HD content presented to consumers. It would have been nice to see standard definition outputs on the Apple TV, in addition to the high definition outputs. I cannot imagine that adding some standard definition outputs would be very complex or expensive. On top of all that, Apple did not even get their high definition right! The Apple TV only supports a maximum output resolution of 720p. I really would have liked to see 1080p or even 1080i support included.
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Lack of Codecs – The Apple TV will only play H.264 and MPEG-4 video files, in addition to the standard audio formats such as MP3, AAC, and so on. Those two video codecs account for a very, very small portion of the video content I own, and I am sure other people are in the same boat. I will not be able to play any of my DivX movies using Apple TV. It will also not be able to play all the DVD content that I have ripped to my hard drive, as Apple has said it does not support playback of the VIDEO_TS files that DVDs use. So basically all I will be able to watch are movies and television shows purchased through Apple’s own iTunes store. Now, let’s suppose that I choose not to buy video content from the iTunes Store because of the limited selection, the restrictive DRM, and the relatively low quality and resolutions offered. In that case, the Apple TV would be of little use to me. Two thumbs down on codec support.
Overall the release of the Apple TV at MacWorld 2007 was a big disappointment. I was much more excited before the announcement than I was after I learned the capabilities of the device. I was really hoping (and expecting) that Apple would do things right with the Apple TV, but instead they have done the exact opposite. They have taken what could have been a truly revolutionary home media device and fouled it up. Instead of adding support for the popular video codecs available, they chose to only support two codecs and not to support DVDs. They chose to push their iTunes Store at the expense of functionality. There is no standard definition support, and the high definition support is limited to 720p. There is a useless USB port that could have been used to add an external hard drive.
Perhaps the second generation Apple TV will fix all of these problems, and perhaps all of my points will prove to be non-issues. But for now, I think Apple TV is a rotten apple.
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