Apple TV State Of Art, But Little Content Available
03.23.07 - 11:02am
Appe TV is being touted as the iPod for TV as it builds a bridge between the TV and the computer. To put in
metaphorical terms, until Apple TV there have only been rope bridges that are hard to walk on and rickety at best - Apple has built a bridge that is made of tough cement and is strong and easy to cross.
Apple TV offers state-of-the-art 802.11n wireless networking and maintains backwords compatibility with older Wi-Fi and wired networks. Basically streaming from the PC to the TV is extremely smooth and effortless.
However there are some drawbacks - the major one being you can not just upload any video from your computer through your TV to Apple TV - similar to the iPod it only streams iTunes content and at the moment there is not a large amount of video available on iTunes with only Disney offering new movies. Also while capable of HD their is no HD content on the iTunes store, yet, so the video doesn’t look that great on the big screen. Also you must have a new wide-screen TV if you are going to purchase this product. Apple TV won’t connect to older non-wide-screen TV’s. No A/V cables are included as well as no internet radio support.
Still Apple has hopes that Apple TV will drive business to it’s iTunes store and perhaps force more of the major movie labels to sign with Apple, as a way to get their movies out to the public.
We believe the potential is huge for this small device,” said Jonathan Hoopes, an analyst who follows the company for ThinkEquity Partners LLC in New York. “As a digital media content delivery vehicle positioned in users’ living rooms, we think the Apple TV-iTunes combination could become as disruptive to legacy video purchase-and-consumption behaviour as the iPod-iTunes combination has been to the traditional music business model.”
This may be true but first Apple needs to get the media on iTunes. Whether the labels will be willing to sell on iTunes or not is up in the air. In Canada Apple lacks the right to sell any movies and TV shows at all so in that market they can only access podcasts, music, music videos and audio books on Apple TV. Hollywood has so far resisted signing with Apple due to discrepancies over price points on it’s movies and while they have been able to garner contracts for older movies they have little to offer in new releases, and Apple TV has no DVD player so you can’t watch the DVD’s while you wait for more films to be offered on iTunes.
Also the device won’t record TV shows or material from cable like Tibo can. Matt Rosoff, lead analyst on consumer products and services at Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm in Kirkland, Wash., says “If you’re already paying for cable TV, you’re going to want to record shows you’re already paying for. It just seems like there’s a gap here. Is there enough content on iTunes that people will want to pay $300 for a device to access it? I’m not sure.”
Bottom line the device is there the content is not. If the iTunes store can get the new video Apple will have something great - if not it could be extremely detrimental to the device that the movies must come through iTunes, thus monopolizing iTunes more than it’s music is already. People already hate that you can only play iTunes music on the iPod, and now you can only play video on Apple TV from iTunes. Steve Jobs said he wanted to abolish DRM’s yet Apple TV is just as proprietary as the music from iTunes. While it is their hope that this will make iTunes of such great value that all Hollywood will sign to have their movies distributed it may backfire, since if no one signs then Apple TV will be of little use with no content to back it.
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