Is the Apple TV on life support?

oh, and about flash, I meant on their moble devices, ipad etc, and so on...

Of course every apple tv owner will say it meets their needs. You've written an article for all the ifans to show up an deny your claims. But then you have to wonder what kind of person buys an apple tv to begin with. Likely the same people who have an ipod and an imac (well I hope not..). And we all know why they do that, it's because they'd have to believe it's superior in order to follow such devoted brand worship. This doesn't include random apple owners that buy perhaps one iphone... But you can take any example of why something else might work better, explain it to these multi-apple product people, and they will twist every thing you say like a pretzel, turn it around. And even though it doesn't make a shred of sense, it will sound like it does... well almost. lol. 9 times out of 10 an apple fanatic, owner will think they've gotten something of very high quality. And it's partly true. But then you can always show them a way to get something better for less or the same price and they get stuck. Like I have an i7 based pc that runs rings around apples typical, core2duo imac for $1600.

It can render video at twice the rate. And mine only cost $830. But an ifan will argue and say their hardware is better even thought it's not. It's the SAME thing! In fact I hackintoshed leopard onto my pc, then overclocked to 4ghz and showed my friend a mac twice as fast as his macbook pro. He was sick, but thought it was cool, lol. And windows 7 is great. Or they argue you can't edit video etc even though I have no problems here. Besides many titles are written for both platforms anyway. And then many buy a mac only to turn around and run windows on it often. Finally my friend agreed it was pointless to boot osx just to have to end up booting windows 1/2 the time. But also notice that everything apple creates seems to be constrained in the real world. In other words, if you need to use flash, you can't because apple won't allow it. Or if you want to play netflix on your tv, it won't work unless Lord Jobs gives it his blessing, which he won't. Or how blueray is mysteriously missing from apple's product line which aligns it's image with being "cutting edge". No, only if you have bought multiple apple items will things almost work the way you wanted them to. But then you're stuck in that limited realm and that too can have it's down side. And the ifans are in denial of this, naturally, for if they weren't they wouldn't be ifans. Not to say apple is a horrible company, but I see it for what it is. There is a universe of other things to choose from out there. I could go on and on, and fill the internet, but I'm going to stop. ;-)

@Kevlar @Dan Woods

When and if Apple can get the Apple TV right for apps...I'd say that the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad would all make awesome controllers/peripherals for the device. Apple doesn't need any 3rd party hardware producers, except of course for chips and so forth...of course. Could you imagine playing PVZ on your big screen? Or some kind of multi-player game between you and your friend who are both using iPhone/iPod Touch? Or a racing game without having to tilt your head along with the movement of the screen? That last part comes from the simultaneous love and hate I feel for all App Store racing games. Apple would be SET in the gaming market if they opened up the App Store to console gaming. I'd be even more thrilled if they did so while keeping the game prices at a reasonable level. Heck yeah!

Im new to apple tv. Got rid of ps3 for media streaming from mac to get apple tv. I love it. I sent mister jobs an email the other day with a suggestion that would improve the service.
I contemplated buying superman (79) on apple tv, i own it on DVD and HD DVD for xbox already. It has more features which i like. I said I was hesitant about paying £6.99 today incase apple release special feature version with all the extras and I have to buy same movie again. My idea of a digital library is I only have to buy it once.
I asked wouldnt it be great to buy the film and if an updated version is released I could upgrade either for free or pay difference between two versions. Then I wouldnt hesitate buying any film I wanted.
I await his reply:-)

The Apple TV is great. I use it at least twice a day, Airtunes Streaming and Watching and renting movies. It is a great piece of tech that I hope they update soon, hardware is becoming outdated. I have three in my household. And btw it does have youtube access, the author stated it didn't.

@David S: "I've given up waiting for Apple to do the obvious with ATV - make it into a TiVo-killer."

Good. Because you would have waited for 1000+ years. Apple has no interest in letting users record random content from cable or satellite or internet or over-the-air. Why would Apple want its users to record free content when they've spent the last decade working on iTunes and the iTunes Store?

Apple wants you to buy your content from the iTunes Store. Period. This is also one reason why Apple TV doesn't have a DVD or Blu-Ray player.

The other reason must be that Steve simply hates everything about DVDs and Blu-Ray discs. If you saw any of Steve's keynotes from the early 2000s, you would have detected a note of disgust as Steve was forced to put a blank DVD into his demo Mac. All this easy to use iMovie / iDVD software and, suddenly, boom. The demo stops. Burning discs takes time and slows down your Mac and Steve had to do that same demo year after year. Until Apple TV was announced.

I think Steve must have developed a hatred for plastic discs over the years. Even back in the old iTunes "Rip. Mix. Burn." era. Burning discs take time, is boring, and is a previous-century technology.

@Kevlar: "What they really need is an AppleTV App Store"

That's the key IMHO. Sure, it would be nice for Apple TV to support 1080p, but that's easy. The hardware is always the easy part.

But one of the major reasons for the success of iPhone and iPad is the App Store. And gaming is one of the most popular software categories. It should be relatively easy to add an Apple TV-only apps, the way there are now iPad-only apps.

I think Apple needs to work some deals with game publishers first, then upgrade the hardware and software. But everything else is already in place. Just waiting for a killer app.

I already have a Blu-ray player (but hardly any BDs). What ATV lacks for me is a DTV tuner (or two) plus DVR software of Apple quality. Give me that and I would have bought an ATV years ago.

iTunes is great but it's not comprehensive enough (and uses too much of my limited broadband capacity) for everything I want to see and listen to. For the foreseeable future I need the ability to record TV and transfer the results to DVD and/or BD.

So instead of buying an ATV I'm going to buy a EyeTV Netstream DTT box to replace my existing EyeTV DTV tuner. That plus iTunes on my 24" iMac should give me what the ATV can't. I've given up waiting for Apple to do the obvious with ATV - make it into a TiVo-killer.

My ideal setup would be to have a mac mini hooked up to my plasma. I already have a PS3, so that serves 95% of my media needs, but MKV files and some other stuff would be nice on the mini.

I like my Apple TV, but it is really getting slow and lethargic. It can also barely handle purchased HD movies with additional features, like bonus materials. Freezes, locks up, heats up incredibly. Either way, I'm kind of Applized and its hard for me to go in another direction.