Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 02 September 2010 17:08
Your IT -
Entertainment
Page 1 of 2
It’s that time of the year again, with Apple launching a new Apple TV, new iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, iPod Touch, a new social-music-network-aware iTunes 10 and the new iOS 4.1 with several bug fixes, all available either now, within the week or in the Apple TV’s case, by month’s end.
After much pre-iEvent rumourmongering that Apple would launch a brand new Apple TV dubbed the “iTV”, along with access to the App Store to bring a more sophisticated, app store compatible experience to your TV set and somehow turning your big screen TV into something like a giant iPod Touch, but this didn’t happen.
Yes, there were a range of other iThings launched, which we’ll get in a future article later today, but about all the rumourmongers got right was the introduction of US 99c TV show rentals, further doing away with the concept of actual “ownership”, with the US TV networks of ABC and Fox having come on board with a selected range of HDTV programming.
The Apple TV remains the Apple TV, but loses its built-in hard drive, become a “bare minimum” streaming device, able to stream TV shows, movies and photos from your existing PC, wirelessly or via Ethernet, to the Apple TV device, or via iTunes over the Internet.
The UK’s ITV channel/network will clearly be pleased – they had made noises that they weren’t about to roll over like Cisco did with the iPhone and iOS names, but with Apple not going down the iTV naming route – or at least, not yet – there’s nothing the UK’s ITV can really do about it.
Part of the Apple TVs appeal will be a focus on HD content, with HD in this case meaning 720P, not 1080P, and with the Apple TV now coming with an HDMI port as standard.
“First run” HD movies available to rent “on the same day as the DVD release”, TV shows in HD will be available to rent also, and aside from streaming content from your existing iTunes library on your PC or Mac, you can stream content from Google’s YouTube, Yahoo’s Flickr and Apple’s own MobileMe.
The new Apple TV is a bold move for Apple, allowing the company to cut the cost of the Apple TV from US $299 to US $99 (AUD $129) but it does change the nature of the Apple TV device from one of being another giant iPod that you have to “sync” to being a streaming device.
US users also get access to Netflix, but Aussies get the flick by Netflix when it comes to flicking through the flicks that Netflix offers US customers.
Basically, if you did want a “computing” experience on your big screen TV that also happens to let you surf the web, run software, run iTunes, play movies, TV shows, other content from iTunes and more – what you want for your TV is a Mac Mini, not an Apple TV.
The new Apple TV is really a streaming device, and if you’re streaming HD content from Apple, YouTube or elsewhere, then not only do you want a solid broadband connection, but also an 802.11n wireless network, if you’re not plugging it in via Ethernet.
Continued on page two, please read on!
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