It’s hard not to be impressed by Apple…
In their quarterly analyst conference call last week, Apple reported significant year over year growth in every one of their business lines. While some areas came in a bit weaker than expected (iPhone sales), they were easily balanced out by some that came in surprisingly strong (MacBook and iPod sales).
While not welcomed by the Apple shorts out there, this is certainly good news for everyone looking for leadership to help pull the tech sector out of it’s market slump. Given the broad drop in consumer sentiment it will take more than your typical corporation to fill that role – a company with products that are creative, innovative, and exciting.
That’s a role Apple has a track record of filling quite well…
While there was plenty of good news on the call about all of Apple’s most popular product lines, perhaps the most interesting bit of information to come out of it was an update on a niche product that Steve Jobs has referred to ‘a little hobby’ – Apple TV.
It appears that Apple TV sales are up 300% from a year ago. That is a substantial increase for a product that has received almost no advertising attention from Apple. But it does get the most effective type of advertising a product can get.
Work of mouth from happy owners…
I love my Apple TV, and know that I’ve already talked at least three other people into getting one for themselves. I have no doubt that they will, in turn end, up influencing some of their friends to join the “Apple TV club” as well. It’s that type of product.
Once you have it, you wonder why you waited so long to get it…
Apple TV’s 2.0 refresh was a significant step forward for the device. One of the key features added to it in that release was support for video rentals – and it seems that movie rentals are actually one of the drivers behind its growing success.
“…it is clear the movie rental business has helped AppleTV and there are more and more customers who want to try it. We fundamentally believe there is something here for us in the future. We will continue to invest in it.
While Apple has shown some recent love to Apple TV on the software side, the hardware platform hasn’t changed since it’s launch nearly 2 years ago. It definitely needs to see a refresh, if for no other reason than to open up some of the awesome possibilities that new software updates could bring.
Here’s a breakdown of some of the things I’d like to see in the next generation of Apple TV:
Hardware:
- True 1080p support – The current Apple TV hardware just can’t deliver on that. With flat panels getting cheaper and bigger – and all most of them being 1080p – the market is there for the full res HD experience. If Apple want’s to position digital downloads as a genuine alternative to BluRay, this is a must have improvement.
- Bigger hard disk options – Selling a set top box today with drive sizes of 40GB and 160GB is kind of sad in an HD centric world. To keep costs low, Apple needs to create a new hardware footprint that will allow for full sized drives instead of just notebook drives. People just load up the box without worrying about running out of space. Failing that, I’d at least like to have some way for the Apple TV to make use of external drives both for storage and backup, or even integrate more directly with Time Capsule over the network.
Software:
- Better integration of remote media – Apple currently allows Apple TV to stream content via iTunes from multiple local systems. Unfortunately, you can only connect to one systems at a time to do this. An update to the software should create an integrated view of all of the content available from any pre-connected systems. If I want to watch a particular movie, I probably don’t care that it’s on my son’s laptop or my iMac in the office. Show me everything and let me pick.
- Support for the uPNP protocol – The uPNP protocol would allow non-iTunes devices to deliver video, music, and photos to an Apple TV. This could bring in content stored on low cost NAS devices from companies like Lacie or even on game consoles like XBox 360′s. Perhaps most importantly, uPNP brings DVR functionality to Apple TV – in a way. Both Elgato EyeTV and MythTV – two very popular DVR systems – both support uPNP streaming. This means you could record programs using these devices and simply have the recorded programs show up in Apple TV. That would definitely go a long way to integrating the oft requested DVR capability.
- Games and Applications – This should be a no brainer. Apple has all of the pieces in place to make Apple TV a killer casual gaming platform. It could leverage either the iPhone or iPod Touch as a controller and change the console model in even more significant ways than Nintendo’s Wii did. This one probably deserves a post of it’s own.
Content:
-
NOTE: I recognize that content is an area Apple doesn’t really have complete control over. Consider this a wish lists that I’d like to see Apple strongly advocate with the actual content providers.
- Make rentals available the same time as Netflix – If the studios are serious about moving into the digital world, they need to get over making distinctions between physical and digital distribution. There is nothing more frustrating than seeing a movie on iTunes that I would like to watch, to find that it is only available for sale (in standard definition!) and will not be available to rent for another few weeks. The studios let you rent these movies at Blockbuster or via Netflix, so why not iTunes? Apple needs to be a strong advocate with the studios to make this shift in mindset happen.
- Allow HD movie purchases – With Apple now in the process of shifting their entire computer line over to DisplayPort (which supports HDCP), I’m hoping that the studios will now allow movies to be purchased in HD as well as SD. I hate copy protection for all the myriad reasons I have talked about in the past, and see it as detrimental to the market in the long term. That said, if this is a precursor to getting the necessary HD content lined up to create a digital rival to BluRay, so be it. The stronger Apple can become in this space, the more leverage it will have to transform it the same way it did digital music sales.
- Integrate TV network streaming sites – YouTube integration opens up a world of short form video content to Apple TV owners and is a great addition to the platform. However, the one thing that is specifically not available on YouTube is the content produced by the television studios. Instead of making it available there, most studios have chosen to either developed their own individual streaming sites (keeping everything under their control), or are providing their content to shared sites like Hulu. Getting these site natively integrated into Apple TV would be a really big deal. A well designed software interface could go a long way to making this form of television access mainstream. Note that until that happens, a great 3rd party alternative is available from a company called Boxee. They have a software mod for Apple TV that adds this capability and a whole lot more to Apple TV.
I have no clue when Apple plans to do their next Apple TV refresh. But given the traction it seems to be getting in the market place, I am confident that one will be coming in the near term. I covered the things I think are realistic both technically and politically, and hope to see at least some of them there when a new version drops.
Of course, my priorities may be different than yours.
Let me know what you’d like to see in the next Apple TV release…