howard | 
04 30th, 2007| 
The second question I asked on LinkedIn was to do with Apple TV, which I’ve blogged about a bit here recently as I got one on a trip to Canada.
This question got significantly less attention that the one on Twitter,
at only 4 answers as opposed to 15, but the answers were much more
involved and detailed. As before, I’ve edited them slightly here, and
if you want to see the full version then please visit the page on
linkedin.
Question: Is Apple.TV going to make a difference or have they got it wrong? Everyone’s talking about IPTV and the change from broadcast to on-demand. With Apple.TV being perhaps one of the first to market, are we going to see big changes? What does it mean to you?
I do not fully understand the AppleTV concept. I am a MacAddict and have everything else. I transmit my iTunes from the computer to the stereo by way of an AirPort Express. I was given the first generation of iPod by my wife and at first did not see the value of that either.
Steve may not have a home run with AppleTV yet, but you can bet your bottom dollar that this is the direction of things to come.
Lloyd Showalter, Industrial electrician at Alcoa Flexible Packaging LLC
AppleTV is not an IPTV product in its current form. It will only stream content from a PC or Mac running iTunes and allow the user to transfer video from iTunes to the AppleTV hard disk drive to play from there. The device does not allow you to play video or audio content directly from the Internet and thus should not be categorised as an IPTV or WebTV set-top box. It would be more accurate to call it a HD-capable media extender, especially considering its dependency on a computer running iTunes.
AppleTV essentially provides a TV with Video iPod-like functionality with the ability to playback HD content at 720p resolution, and it complements the current crop of Apple hardware. However, the current limitations of the hardware (only 33GB HDD space available to the user, standard definition televisions not supported, no AV cables supplied, no support for Dolby surround) and software (cannot purchase content at the iTunes store directly from the device) make this a weak play into the video hardware market. To make matters worse, there is a distinct lack of HD content available on iTunes at the present time, and what video content is available does not make for enjoyable viewing on a large TV display.
Apple’s strong brand and loyal consumers will no doubt shift a reasonable number of units, but the lack of iTunes store integration in particular makes this a missed opportunity for Apple to become a major player in the IPTV/WebTV market. This could, of course, change with later revisions of AppleTV software and hardware, but until then AppleTV is unlikely to make significant waves in the industry.
Matt Taylor, DTV/IPTV Development Consultant
I think their biggest problem is the competition; the box is 300$ and then there are the costs of the content. The price point (for TV programming) it is competing against is 0$, just a broadband connection needed. For instance look at Joost, just a broadband connection needed.
Don’t confuse this with the things that made the iPod successful. That was a great product at the right time and a realistic price. Plus the iPod can play ordinary, non-DRM mp3 files. So people could leverage their existing collections, and their friends music collections, and content (not all illegal!) downloaded from the internet. This does not play Div-X, the video equivalent of mp3.
Owen Carter, Software development tools specialist and Unix admin
IPTV is getting a lot of attention in the market place an has created a huge amount of revenue for conference organisers. However, having attended a few conferences, it is clear that this had been a strategy from Fixed Wire networks flogging DSL to counter the Cable companies moving into their ‘turf’, by adding telephony and broadband to cable TV. However, no-one has to date been fully successful with it. Free in France is often referred to as having been succesful, but the reality on the ground is that their IPTV service comes bundled for free with their broadband package, and it is not all happiness with the users that actually use it.
However, there is a growing move to WebTV, as distinct from IPTV which refers to traditional TV. Howard Eisner, ex Disney, ahve invested in Vunguru, a web video production company. There is a growing number of video production companies developing specific content for the Web.
Jeremy Nel, Consultant
I think the apple TV is going to be one we have to wait and see with, but from the point of view of everyone I’ve shown it’s a big hit and a lot of people say they’re going to get one. The possibility of Apple releasing extra plugins for it, 3rd party plugins and upgrades, and Apple’s own brand extension devices, like a HD-DVD module, or external storage etc., mean it’s a small device that has the potential to be a massive change in the living room.
Howard
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