Chris Lanier's Blog : Apple TV Gets Upgraded

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Chris Lanier's Blog

Apple TV Gets Upgraded

Apple finally upgraded their Apple TV yesterday at MacWorld making it worthy of a look. Overall, I’m impressed with the upgrade, but still not touching it. I’m sure a lot of people out there are not impressed, but I’m trying to see it from Apple’s angle. No PVR and no DVD player is exactly what they want in this product. As soon as they give you the ability to playback “legacy” formats you have no reason to buy/rent the same content from them.

The big draw of the new Apple TV is being able to make purchases/rentals directly from the unit, taking the PC out of the picture. I’ve said that would add significant value before and I think it succeed in that. What they haven’t succeeded in is killing Netflix. With HD movie rentals for $3.99 ($4.99 for new releases), I’d much rather pickup an $8.99 Netflix account. New releases will be delayed 30 days from the DVD release on iTunes, so Netflix is still the top choice here. Plus, at $3.99/$4.99 you are talking about Blockbuster rental prices, which have been too high for a while and caused the switch to Netflix. I’ve completely skipped the technical stuff like lackluster bitrate and resolution when compared to HD DVD/Blu-ray.

Apple did drop the price to $229 for a 40GB model, which does beat out the price of any current Media Center Extender. The problem is, the two products are competing against each other while offering completely different feature sets. If Microsoft would bring the Xbox Live Marketplace rentals to Media Center and Extenders the products would match up a bit more and I think give Media Center a big push. Doing this doesn’t fix the price issue from above, but it does give you choice as DVD playback is part of several Extenders. If Microsoft can actually combine them all (you know, like a Connected Home) then Apple could have a fight on their hand to upgrade Apple TV to support other formats and features.

Apple TV no longer sucks, it is just not for me. What about you?

Apple TV (Take 2) Details (Engadget), More on Apple's iTunes rentals (Engadget), Apple TV Take 2 Hands-on (Engadget)

Cross Posted from Chris Lanier's Blog at http://msmvps.com/blogs/chrisl/

Published Wednesday, January 16, 2008 9:44 AM by Chris - Moderator
Filed Under: Digital Media, Media Center, Apple

Comments

curbnoise said:

You nailed it. Apple TV is now Vudu for the casual, non-devotee movie watcher. Its sad that MS has had this capability on the XBOX for a while, but when Apple announces it, its a revelation. Microsoft could have easily headed this off at the pass by making XBOX Marketplace available on Media Center a long time ago.

I don't know if it was the studios being hinky about giving their evil customers access to a file (albeit one DRM'ed to the hilt) on an open system, or if they were hedging their bets to wait for Apple TV (given Apples iPod track record) or MS's own self destructive sabotaging that has kept the Marketplace off Media Center, but the upshot is that Apple has now stolen the cache with its iTunes/Apple TV wunderkind (media perception, not reality).

I really hope MS wasn't keeping the Marketplace XBOX only to drive console sales. I really doubt a significant number or XBOX purchasers were ultimately swayed by movie rentals when making a GAMING SYSTEM purchase decision. I both get and applaud MS vision of what the XBOX can be, but the primary driving force in the console market are games.

As it is, MS was first to market with online rentals, but Apple has a better selection and is the media darling. MS has to realize that being better or first does not signify victory.

January 16, 2008 10:13 AM

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