doesn't really bring anything new to the table. It
might be best of breed in terms of polish and features
It is. That's exactly how Apple revolutionizes anything - by making it fun, and natural, to use. Just like tablets, mp3 players, and smartphones existed before Apple got into them.
This is what they do, it's what they always do, and yet people are surprised by it every time.
What they didn't look at was how great the UI was, how well it integrated with their Mac (and eventually PC) and how much better the same features that already existed elsewhere were.
I believe the same rules apply here. And the app store will be the best in town. Again.
The fact that most of HN seems to hate or deride these features (like the Live Photos thing) tells me that they'll likely be a huge success and all be using them in a year.
If the fact that gifv videos are already everywhere (Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit, Vine-sorta-kinda) didn't tip you off. It seems like people are starting to think of short, usually-silent, looped videos as just what you take to preserve a moment, instead of a photo.
Tech-savvy crowds are often the worst arbiters of taste, certainly the worst predictors of it.
Form and function are one.
I mean, you said it's identical...
To put it another way, people who have 4k TVs today - the luxury market - may be put off of the new Apple TV because of its lack of support for their higher-end devices. I'm not sure that's a desirable effect.
Of course, some rich people are racing-car enthusiasts, or audiophiles, or whatever else—and it seems to be more common in the high-end, simply because more of the rich can afford to actually get these things when they want them. But that doesn't mean that the desire is a rich-people thing, or that making something super-duper-high-numbered will make it sell more to the rich.
(Of course, if you give the thing a super-duper-high-numbered price tag, you might inspire some rich people to get it as a Veblen good, which can often look like a desire for the bleeding-edge. You'll frequently find things purchased in this way being underutilized—4K "Veblen TVs" purchased in order to watch 480p Seinfeld re-runs and so on.)
Ultimately, it'd presumably add cost for a feature useful to few people. Connectivity for 4k also remains a mess; there's HDMI 1.4 (24hz at 4k, so not good enough; the interface presumably runs at 60fps like all other Apple interfaces), and HDMI 2.0, which does support 60hz at 4k, but which is somewhat rare, and has its own problems: http://www.avsforum.com/forum/168-hdmi-q-one-connector-world...
I expect in a couple of years when 4k TVs are more common, content exists for them in significant amounts, and the connector standard (possibly HDMI 2.0a?) is sorted out, they'll support it.
That puts 4K squarely in the "middle class" market, if you ask me, and if Apple TV doesn't support it, that means they aren't even targeting middle class. They are basically targeting poor people with an expensive luxury item that can run apps (half of which, like Netflix and Hulu, already run on most users' smart TVs). Their marketing strategy is borderline nonsensical.
Apple's brand image is "luxury"
You can buy a 50 inch 4K TV nowadays for under $1,000. 4K is going to explode in the next year or two, and if the new Apple TV doesn't support it, I won't be buying it. Period.
Is that brief standing-too-close moment worth the massive increase in bandwidth required?
The only reason you can't tell the difference is because you are probably watching 1080p content that is being upscaled.
Watch TRUE 4K content on a 65+ inch television, and it's like looking through window. It's amazing.
At which time they will no doubt support it. Right now it'd be an extra expense of use to very few users, and they'd have to deal with the connectivity problem.
4K TV's aren't going to "explode", they are going to continue to be a slow trickle.
http://www.rethinkresearch.biz/articles/15-years-after-launc...
They are going to miss the boat if 4k explodes this black friday.
Similar as pushing 2k/4k screens to mobile phones - marketing and sales.
>60" TVs are a thing, but they're a serious niche, especially outside the U.S., where homes tend to be smaller. Apple would simply be adding cost to work for the tiny amount of the market who both want a really huge TV, and happen to have gotten a 4k one, and they'd probably have to release a hardware revision or so anyway in a year or so she the connectivity issues around 4k resolve themselves.
I mean, aren't they are supposed to be releasing cutting edge technology here? Why are they releasing a set top Apple TV that can't even display the content that the new iPhone and iPad can CREATE and edit?
I want to be able to record 4K videos on my iPhone, then turn around and play them on my 4K TV, without having to leave the Apple ecosystem.
It is a huge, glaring flaw in their ecosystem if I can't do that.
I'm not saying this a valid excuse for omitting 4K support. However, for the most part I don't think the infrastructure is really there for the wider population. I live out in the sticks and barely get 3Mbps.
Perhaps we might see 4K come to the Apple TV next year either as a software upgrade on current hardware or with better GPU/CPU to support it.
Probably a chicken and egg problem, why upgrade to fibre many people will think when you have no need for it apart from slightly faster large file downloads
That said, 25Mb/s is at the lower end of the FTTC service. I can imagine a lot of households will max out at around 40Mbps due to distance from the cabinet and cross-talk on busy lines (though vectoring should help somewhat). I would like to see what G.FAST can deliver but unshielded copper phone lines can only take you so far.
You have a promising career ahead as an Apple analyst.
Sometimes being familiar with features prevents people from realizing that most people can't use them, or that they're not well implemented.
It's not like Apple has ever been late to a party (phones, anybody?) and redefined and entire already-saturated market.
Apple TV just.. doesn't.
Don't think "Apple TV," think "Apple bigass interactive application substrate."
"Apps...on your TV!" has been a promise on multiple platforms for a few years now and it seems like nobody really cares past the first couple of weeks they have the device.
Not-console-manufacturers have been trying to break into this market for ages by making a TV viewing device that also happens to be a casual gaming console (/app platform), but it seems that people who want gaming on their TVs buy gaming consoles, while people who want TV on their TV buy things that let them watch TV, and there isn't enough overlap between the two for One Grand Unified Device to capture the market. Microsoft really went hard-in on the married TV and gaming concept with the XBox One, and it's been a massive flop compared to the PS4 (with the PS4 outselling it 2:1).
I don't think it's an issue of "nobody's done it right yet" - I think it's actually two separate markets and attempts to marry them just can't force those two markets to both want the same thing.
Every "Smart TV" has garbage software features. Some become completely unusable during the hour it takes them to download and install weekly updates.
Apple creates new markets by switching the equation from 90% hardware/10% software focus to 70% software/30% hardware focus.
As for the xbone, that's more of a marketing/positioning argument. Just because a game console can be a home media center doesn't mean people will buy it for one. xbones are for teenagers who want to be racist over their headset connections online.
There's a very good argument to be made that the reason nobody wants "apps" on their TV is because the experience can be charitably described as utter shit.
Smart TV's are known for awful UI's with awful lag, high end consoles such as the Xbox One stutter and hitch on their simplistic home screens, experiments such as Google TV have failed for the same reason, set-top boxes from outfits like DirecTV have the same problem, lag, lag, and more freaking lag.
If anyone can put a decent user experience on this whole idea, it's Apple. After this, expect the rest of the market to shape up quickly.
I do hope Google was taking some notes during this keynote. Siri's interaction in Apple TV is far superior than Android TV's Google Now integration. Hopefully that changes with the work in contextual awareness they've been doing and Now on Tap in Android 6.
I was really hoping to hear about a deal with ESPN to bring ESPN directly to viewers without a cable subscription.
If they ever offered an individual subscriber deal they sure as hell wouldn't do it for $6.50 per sub per month.
That's always kind of been Apple's thing, though. The controller does look somewhat original.
> What happened to Apple revolutionizing the way people pay for/consume content?
I suspect that the content providers looked carefully at what happened to the music industry when they played ball with Apple (especially the unilateral killing of DRM on iTunes; the last holdouts were supposedly told to drop the DRM or be kicked off) and decide that they don't want any of that, thank you very much.
Simple step by step tutorial allows you to load Kodi from FireTV through any app icon.
It seems casual games are the desired inroads to mainstream.