[Ken Gracey]

Well after much much fence sitting, I finally decided to buy an apple TV, and you guessed it, I can't

Nobody has any stock AT ALL.. and can't tell me when they are getting more stock in, So i am guessing a New model will be announced along side the iPad 3 on Wednesday ?

[JZ]

yep i've been lots of rumours about the new apple tv, ranging from a new set top box to a physical tv set to a revolutionary remote to control existing tv's in a much simpler way, and rumoured to be at iPad event next week...

[Ken Gracey]

Well in that case, I am glad i waited

[BrianB]

Wow.. How cool... I hope Apple pull some magic out of their hats next week... It will bring back the spark that seems to missing.

[JZ]

ha ha Brian, there i s no spark missing, it's just we are all the end of our product purchasing cycle and are ready to upgrade, the people who get their brand new iPhones, iPads and Macs feel as excited as we will with the iPad 3 and iPhone NeXT (my name for it) and the new Macs, and Apple TV (which ever form it takes)

Apple still have the best line up compared to any other company just ask Ken with his Samsung purchase, the only other product with any spark at the moment for me is the PS VITA.

[Some Random Bloke]

It makes more sense to my mind if they turn the Apple TV into a glorified STB rather than try to release a TV screen. They won't have the headaches of TV distribution and margins but will still own the content space. Or maybe they'll do both? The STB would be the TV what the Mac Mini is to the iMac?

[Dylstra]

I don't think that an actual Apple TV set makes any sense at all.

[JZ]

Why not?


jz

[Some Random Bloke]

JZ®, on 03 March 2012 - 09:37 AM, said:

Why not?


jz

Because Apple is a high margin company and you have already very good brands operating on thin margins in this space. This isn't a category Apple practically invented like computing or, I suspect, can radically reinvent like the phone or tablet. At least, not by any way that can't be done with a box. Run a TV signal through a box and you can do anything with the feed. So if Apple has some fangled new menu system, why try to compete with televisions for that when consumers can just plug a box into their current TV set? I suspect they could make better margins and have a higher turnover on the boxes than the TV sets.

[Dylstra]

Exactly. A television is essentially a screen.

Apple will never sell as many TV sets as STBs. And there's two problems with this:

1. The margins on TVs are razor thin so they would need to sell a lot more to break even.
2. Market penetration. Apple will never convince content providers to come to the party without a heap of consumers.

A third problem:

Televisions are a big investment, most people buy TVs only every 5+ years.

[Ken Gracey]

Yep, you usually only buy a tv when your old one packs up, and the cost to repair it, is more than the price of a new one.

[JZ]

But people only by new computers every 5 or so years too.


jz

[Dylstra]

JZ®, on 04 March 2012 - 05:30 AM, said:

But people only by new computers every 5 or so years too.


jz

That's the dream! I think it's closer to three years for computers. But at any rate, a five year old computer is a heck of a lot older than a five year old TV.

And, as Alex pointed out, Macs are a high margin product, televisions aren't.

It still comes back to market penetration. Apple can make more money, and reach more consumers, by selling STBs than actual TVs. The more people who have an Apple TV device (whatever form it takes) the better leverage Apple has to use on content providers.

[BrianB]

There are some interesting points raised here guys.

Perhaps there will be no iTV. It will be a reinvented ATV with maybe a remote control with Siri or something of that nature.

[JZ]

Dylstra, on 05 March 2012 - 12:46 AM, said:

That's the dream! I think it's closer to three years for computers. But at any rate, a five year old computer is a heck of a lot older than a five year old TV.

And, as Alex pointed out, Macs are a high margin product, televisions aren't.

It still comes back to market penetration. Apple can make more money, and reach more consumers, by selling STBs than actual TVs. The more people who have an Apple TV device (whatever form it takes) the better leverage Apple has to use on content providers.

Depending on what you use your computer for I think you can easily get 5 or more years out of it. I have the first aluminium iMac that was released and a black MacBook. Both are closing in on the 5 year mark and both are running lion as smoothly as I'd like. The only problem I could say in having is space (storage). But easily fixed by plugging in an external drive.

But back to Apple TV. Whether they make one or not isn't really an issue to me. Of course I'd buy one if they made one but I'm happy with my tv and a apple tv plugged into it.

What would be great though is a re-designed apple tv set top box with a built in tuner and revolutionary way to control it (what ever that is). Cloud storage instead of local. But a small hd would be nice. Then so you can choose whether to plug into your existing tv or an apple branded one I would love to see apple make some giant cinema displays. So if you choose to use the apple tv as a tuner, in theory all you would need is a screen. Without the tuner. And also have a few hdmi ports to plug in playstation etc.




jz

[Dylstra]

Computers can run well for over five years, certainly. The issue becomes one more of, especially in Apple's case, an inability to run the latest OS. But given three quarters of the world still use XP it isn't that big of a deal.

[Some Random Bloke]

Dylstra, on 05 March 2012 - 12:06 PM, said:

Computers can run well for over five years, certainly. The issue becomes one more of, especially in Apple's case, an inability to run the latest OS. But given three quarters of the world still use XP it isn't that big of a deal.

Agree, although I always found my beige box PCs becoming virtually unusable after just 3 or so years. This iMac is 4 years and still going strong (just slips inside the ML upgrade window). But it may be I was buying cheap, minimum memory systems.

[Ken Gracey]

Maybe that's it, the new apple tv everybody is expecting is just a 42 inch plasma or LCD, that simply doubles as a massive monitor or, a tv monitor via an apple tv tuner ?

[JZ]

I think that would be the best way TL. Although I hope it's OLED - retina display. Then I can just hang that in my lounge room. Hook up apple tv and ps3 and mirror my iPad iPhone and Mac to the 40" cinema display. Sweet.


jz

[Jonathan Stewart]

Xenophos, on 03 March 2012 - 08:20 PM, said:

Because Apple is a high margin company and you have already very good brands operating on thin margins in this space. This isn't a category Apple practically invented like computing or, I suspect, can radically reinvent like the phone or tablet. At least, not by any way that can't be done with a box. Run a TV signal through a box and you can do anything with the feed. So if Apple has some fangled new menu system, why try to compete with televisions for that when consumers can just plug a box into their current TV set? I suspect they could make better margins and have a higher turnover on the boxes than the TV sets.

I think you are right Xenophos, financially its better to create a small box than a whole television. Not many would buy a new tv just to have the apple adaptability. But there would be a few.

If it did happen would it be 3D? Would be pretty neat if it had a dock attached for your iPad or iPhone.