Filed under: Apple TV

A small post in Barron's noted today that TiVo shares have jumped up about 5% today on rumors that the company's DVR technology may be included in the next iteration of the Apple TV.

TiVo's Premiere device has greater functionality than the Apple TV, with the ability to record up to 150 hours of HD video (with the Premiere XL), on-demand video streaming from Netflix, Amazon Video, and YouTube, viewing of photo libraries on TV, and a choice of music and photo streaming services.

There has been a lot of speculation as of late that Apple may be poised to make the Apple TV more than just a hobby. With Google TV just around the corner and Google making deals with Sony, Logitech, Intel, and the Dish Network, Apple may be looking for partners to help jump-start a revival in the neglected Apple TV.

As noted in Barron's:"Is it true? Who knows?"

[via MacDailyNews]

HardMac is reporting that they've been told by one of their sources that Apple is gearing up to launch a new video format. Apple's supposed new format would be based on the Dirac codec which was developed by BBC Research. The codec is open source and currently supports 1920x1080 resolutions, but Apple plans to up the format to support 4k video – that's a resolution of up to 4096x2160. HardMac points out that many people still do not have 1080p HDTVs at home, much less TVs capable of supporting 4k resolution, but they theorize that Apple would be planning to enter the HDTV market from the high end – at the same time introducing not only stunning hardware, but making Blu-ray discs look archaic with their "low" resolution.

Apple has always maintained the Apple TV is a "hobby" and indeed, they haven't done much to promote the device since its launch in 2007. Still many prominent analysts believe that it's not a matter of "if" but "when" Apple will enter the the home television market full-force. The logical step, it would seem, would be to merge the Apple TV digital receiver into a large LED display and offer an iPod touch-like remote control and Bluetooth keyboard support. Throw in a built-in camera with FaceTime and the world of The Jetsons is one step closer to reality.

Well part the skies and let the doves descend. It looks like the Apple TV may evolve into a more desirable machine before too long.

Quoting a tip that was "confirmed by a source very close to Apple," Engadget reports that the next incarnation of Apple's set top box will feature cloud storage (awesome), the same internals as the upcoming iPhone (meaning an A4 processor!) and be capable of full 1080p HD. Be still our hearts.

They go on to describe it as tiny, "an iPhone without a screen," and costing only US$99. Yes, one hundred bucks. While cloud storage will be the machine's default, those who want to keep things local can use a Time Capsule as a storage component.

This thing sounds like the Apple TV I've personally been waiting for. How soon can we have it, Steve?

It seems so. The Apple TV was announced with some fanfare in 2006, and it's been pretty much downhill since then. Sales have been sluggish and new features are coming out very slowly.

As it is, the US$229.00 Apple TV allows you to buy Movies and TV shows through the iTunes Store, look at MobileMe galleries if you subscribe to that service, and play music from your iTunes library. There are links to YouTube, and your iPhoto library. You can also stream internet radio stations and movie trailers.

In the years since 2007, when the Apple TV went on sale, other consumer electronics companies have stepped up and pretty much trumped Apple's solution.

The famous Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray, has another wacky prediction for us: within the next two years, he says, Apple will release a connected HDTV.

Unlikely, to say the least -- the thinking around the virtual TUAW offices is that Munster's way off base on this one. Not only is the HDTV market pretty darn price sensitive (Apple is, of course, not one to compete on price), but Apple has always considered television "a hobby," and they're not likely to take on a whole new market unless they think they can do something different.

However, we'll give Munster his chance. He says that combining "hardware, software, and content will become a key selling point for TVs" in the future, and Apple does that very, very well. He says that the natural evolution for the Apple TV is to build an all-in-one solution with a screen for about $2000, and that Apple might even offer a subscription service in order to completely oversee the producer-to-consumer relationship. Admittedly, that does sound like something Apple might want to do. Munster also says that such a service could be ported to the iPhone and iPad for a wireless solution as well, and that makes it a pretty tempting idea.

Yet again, that presumes Apple wants to get involved in television, and with most of their attention already focused on bringing content to the iPad, that's a bit of a stretch. I guess we'll wait and see. Would you buy an all-in-one TV and subscription from Apple if that's what they decided to do?

Apple's so-called "hobby," the Apple TV, is about to receive some serious competition from apparent nemesis Google.

According to the New York Times, Google is working on a set-top box that will integrate web services like Twitter and Facebook with sites like Hulu, YouTube and Google's own PIcasa. The Google TV, as the Times calls it, will be based on the Android operating system, and a toolkit will be made available to developers within the next couple of months.

As for Google's partners, Sony has been tapped to develop the platform, Logitech will make peripherals and Intel will manufacture the chips. In fact, Intel recently posted job listings for Android developers who can extend technology "...from PC screen to mobile screen and TV screen."

As a front end to the iTunes Store, the Apple TV does its job well. But people obviously want it to do more. As computers and TVs merge into a single device, Apple should identify a clear role for its hobby; either make it a competitor or a toy.

In the battle of the network superstars between free-to-stream, ad-supported video (the Hulu model) and pay-per-show, ad-free TV (the iTunes model), there's been a big missing piece: how to monetize shows and sell ads for content that's downloaded and played on mobile devices like the iPad? Obviously, it's a better deal for the user if they can watch at will, without having to maintain network connectivity on the go (to say nothing of the streaming quality, or lack thereof, when connected over 3G), but making sure they see the ads in the content -- and reporting back to advertisers who want to know who watched what -- is much more challenging for anywhere, anytime viewers.

Wherever there's trouble, they're there on the double: the Bloodhound Gang known as Apple's engineering team has a patent application that may offer a way forward. First filed in September of 2008 and made public on March 4, this patent received a thorough analysis over at Patently Apple. The core idea: watch a block of ads to 'unlock' the next segment of video content, not unlike the way most network streaming sites appear to work now. The difference is in the implementation, reporting and controlling how the ads appear and which content is freed up. Users might be able to 'pay past' the ads, or watch them all at the beginning of the program to deliver a more seamless viewing session.

More intriguingly, Apple's patents suggest that advertisers can require or customize a particular level & kind of user interaction that will be embedded in the ad experience, requiring viewers to engage on some level before proceeding to the next segment (thereby ensuring that they're paying attention and not off making a snack). That would be something of a Holy Grail for advertisers who fear that their messaging is getting lost in the TiVo/DVR 'just skip it' timeshifting era.

Combined with the October 2009 patent regarding ad-subsidized hardware platforms, which lists Steve Jobs and Mike Matas among its co-inventors, and it's looking like we might be moving towards a future where that $499 iPad can be had for a fantastic, subsidized price of $199... if you accept a certain level of embedded and un-skippable advertising alongside your media and mobility experience. "Magical & revolutionary," you betcha. The idea of power-ads taking over your media playback might not bother everyone, but if you buy Fake Steve's argument, that's where the $30/month TV subscription plan comes in. Can't take the ads? Just pay to play.

[via MacRumors]

Image from Apple patent, courtesy Patently Apple site. No comment on the fact that it looks like a picture of Charlie from Lost (Dominic Monaghan).

Dear Aunt TUAW,

I'm planning a road trip for the summer. We'll be driving for 3-4 days, then spending a couple of months in a rental house before heading back. Thinking about keeping the family sane, especially during the drive, I thought, "Why not hook up the Apple TV to the Composite inputs (meant for video games) in the minivan?" That way, we'd have entertainment on the drive, then we could hook it up to the TV in the rental house as well.

One thing I can't figure out, however, is how to power the Apple TV in the car. Are there car adapters that might work?

Love & Kisses,

Narcema

Michael Pachter is probably the most visible gaming industry analyst out there -- while he's not always right about his predictions and insight on the video game industry, he does usually know what he's talking about, and he's definitely got the ear of a lot of investors. And so when he says that Apple is planning to turn the Apple TV into a game console, people listen.

In fact, that's exactly what he said on his online show last week -- he says that "by accident," Apple has "become a serious gaming company." Steve Jobs never really was interested in gaming, and yet, because the iPod touch has really jumped into gaming with the App Store (and the iPad will follow), Apple will go for games more and more as a way to sell their hardware. He also says the Apple TV will get hooked up to the App Store sooner or later, and that it probably won't be sold as a straight game console, but will eventually succeed as a "multi-use, multi-purpose device" that plays games.

Hardly an original idea, of course, but the rub here is that while lots of people have suggested Apple make a jump like this, the company itself hasn't been interested in doing so. Despite the App Store's success, Jobs still doesn't seem interested in games (the iPad is getting new iWork apps on day one, but all it gets officially for games is upscaling), and Apple has echoed the original idea of the TV as a "hobby." Hooking up the Apple TV to the App Store would be an interesting move, but I'm not convinced it's one Apple wants to make quite yet. Pachter says it'll happen as soon as 2012 -- we'll see.

After many years together, my Linksys WRT54G and I have parted ways. In its place, I'm now using an 802.11g-based Apple AirPort Express with AirTunes that was passed along to me. Besides not wanting to fork out the extra beans (c'mon, who here isn't saving up money for an iPad) for a shiny new 802.11n Airport Express, the devices living in my current wireless ecosystem are more g-leaning. That, and I don't really need the speed of 802.11n or the ethernet cable connection afforded to me by the WRT54G.

Or so I thought.

Boxee recently released a brand new version of their beta software, but unfortunately, that build didn't happen to work on the Apple TV. That's now been fixed, however, and you can now get the USB flash drive creator app that will give you a patchstick to install the latest version on that Apple box hooked up to your television. Here's a quick FAQ on the whole process if you need a little help with it, but it sounds pretty straightforward: set up the patchstick, power up the AppleTV with patchstick installed, and enjoy. And even if you have alpha currently installed, you can just put the stick in and upgrade to the beta, no worries.

That's some very impressive and quick work by a bunch of people who aren't obligated to do this at all (there are a few XBMC devs on the team as well, and the patchstick will allow you to install XBMC also, if you'd like).

Yes, Apple TV has an available firmware update, bringing the Apple 'hobby' device to version 3.02. No reason for the update is given, and no new features are listed.

It's likely an update to allow Aperture 3 to work with it, but really, we don't know and Apple ain't talking. If you have an Apple TV you can force the update by going to the settings menu, or wait until the auto updater gets around to reminding you. Either way you'll get an update that ... uh... well, really, we don't know what it does.

Apple released a Bonjour update today that is suppose to improve the connections between iTunes and the Apple TV. For those who have downloaded it and own an Apple TV, have you seen any improvements? Please let us know in the comments.

Bonjour Update 2010-001 is available now via Software Update. It is not yet available through Apple's support downloads site.

Thanks to all those who sent in the tip!

Apple has updated a patent that they already held featuring a sort of a Magic Wand -- a remote control for operating a media system by controlling an on-screen cursor. That might sound familiar if you own a Wii -- even the pictures look very similar to the way the Wiimote currently works. And the pictures tell us something else: not only does the patent itself mention a "media system," but the user interface looks very similar to the current Front Row interface on the Apple TV. So it's likely that if Apple is updating this patent, they're working on a new remote to control their set-top box.

But that doesn't mean it's the only thing they'd use a motion controller for -- I speculated a long time ago that Apple might want to put their now substantial App Store library into play on another platform, and a motion controller would go a long way towards replicating the touchscreen and accelerometer capability of the iPhone. Of course, this patent only means Apple is playing around with these ideas, not actually releasing hardware based on them. But it just shows that they're thinking along the same lines in terms of improving the browsing and interface experience.

Just in case the gifts you got from your family last week didn't float your boat (no kidding, I got a Yakov Smirnoff DVD -- I love my parents, but they're not the best gift givers in the world), here's another fun present to unwrap. The folks at XBMC released a brand new version on Christmas Eve, and it's available as a free download right now over on their website.

XBMC is the open source app that started off as "Xbox Media Center" (designed to be run on the original Xbox hardware), but has now blossomed into a full-featured media center that is usable on your Apple TV or Mac. Thanks to an app, you can use your iPhone as a remote as well.

The new version 9.11, a.k.a. "Camelot," has far too many new changes for us to list in their entirety here, but there's a revamped (and good-looking) user interface with increased skinning capability, updated support for different subtitles and video formats, new movie database scrapers for picking up information, and specifically in Mac OS X, support for the very popular Logitech Harmony Universal Remote. The devs say they're excited to get this one out the door, if only because it means they can move on to bigger and better very soon. Kudos on the release (during the holiday season!), and if you're an XBMC fan, have at it!

[via Engadget]