New HW coming soon, just maybe..?
Those of you that are in to home convergence, and/or those of you who are singularly intent on an Apple ecosystem may derive some enjoyment from this post- and hopefully it will be of interest to others too.
The subject of the post is largely is Apple TV – and largely what Apple are up to with it, including whether we might see an upgraded version soon.
You see, I’ve been checking out the specs of the current high-end Apple TV hardware, and also reading reviews – and it would seem to me there are at least four areas where changes are needed:
- Bigger Hard disk
- Full HD support
- Better codec support
- Reduction in price!
I am very surprised to see the Apple TV box only has a 160GB hard disk in it’s more expensive variant – I thought the commonly accepted mantra (certainly in other home AV equipment anyway) is that users are going to want at least 200GB, and more likely 320GB – and to be quite honest, I think the standard should be 500GB, with 1TB as an optional extra. Come on, most people have got LOTS of content of their own, and they should be able to store it on-device. Yes, I know, Apple TV can stream, but have you ever seen a completely reliable wireless home network AND a reliable server machine to stream the data? Nope, me neither.
In a similar fashion to the small hard disk, iTunes seems to have a case of ‘small picture’ – that is, we only get 720p on an HD TV, instead of the proper 1080p – and I don’t care what anyone says, you CAN tell the difference. The 1080p content I’ve seen has been on another level altogether, quality-wise. And don’t start thinking about 1080i – I’ve got two Home AV boxes, one of which does 1080i, and the other 1080p – and the latter kicks the former’s backside!
Codecs – a trivial word perhaps, but massive implications – video players on any IP-connected devices these days have to be a ‘jack of all trades, master of ALL” – that is, they need to have diverse, update-able, and quality codec support for most, if not all, the well-known codecs – which you could argue include 3GP, MP4, AVI, MPEG, and WMV containers, with the associated codecs for audio and video e.g. AAC, eAAC, MP3, WMA, H.264, WMV, MPEG4, and a literal STACK of others!
And as for the price, come on Apple – you make great kit, it works awesomely well, and has a great UI – but that price is at a real premium. I’ll let you hurt my credit card, but I can’t let you sacrifice it altogether! Other media boxes are coming in around half to three-quarters the price, with better specs…
Apple TV hasn’t been updated for some time, which makes me wonder whether next year we might see an upgrade in the works. The InterWeb has been abuzz with speculation as to what Apple might do, including things like:
Blu-Ray support
1080p capability
Added codec support
One thing is for certain – if the sales figures of Apple TV to-date have been doing less than setting the world alight, combinations of some or all of the above changes would lead to re-invigorated sales – so let’s see where Apple’s focus is in the next couple of quarters…