4 ms·

It's still not a bad product. I don't need my TV guide to be revolutionary. Tiles of apps are widely used now. Apple the TV Provider assumed Apple would be abl

by dexwiz 10y ago

It's still not a bad product. I don't need my TV guide to be revolutionary. Tiles of apps are widely used now. Apple the TV Provider assumed Apple would be able to make iTunes like deals to get TV and Movies like they got Music. This didn't come to fruition, so we got a pretty standard media streaming device with pretty standard prices. If you use other Apple products, AirPlay is probably the best screen sharing software out there. Try to get a Windows computer to do that with an Xbox without at least an hour of Googling and shady streaming software. In the last 2 decades Apple has made a single revolutionary product, the iPhone. The rest have been polished version of existing products. The Apple TV falls into the latter category.

s3r3nity 10y ago
Not sure I understand what you or the article consider "revolutionary." I would consider products like the iPod, Mac Air, iPad, hell even iTunes or the App Store concept (which wasn't released at the same time as the first iPhone, but shortly fast-followed), to be "revolutionary" If, as an example, you're going to claim that the iPod is just a polished WalkMan or Mp3 player, that's a _real_ oversimplification in a way that can be applied to the iPhone = a polished cell phone with a bigger screen (touch screen cell phones were rare, but around before the iPhone.)
- rusk 10y ago
  I would also include the iMac, which was badly needed when it came out. A computer people actually wanted to own rather than grudgingly accept. Also the "it just works" philosophy which almost overnight raised the bar for what customers should expect in terms of UX. Also, the availability of Microsoft Office was key to early success, which other new platforms of the time (e.g. BeOS, the budding desktop Linux) just couldn't muster. Similarly the Macbook Pro for raising the bar in terms of what users could expect from the high end (aluminium body, sleek bevel, rock-solid reliability, high performance). Just to underline iTunes a little more - hand in glove with the iPod and eventually the iPhone completely turned the music industry upside down and gave it a new impetus since being destroyed by illegal downloading. App Store and iPhone revolutionised lifestyle computing (ad hoc: there's probably a better term) by getting the balance between the walled garden and innovation just right (various others had attempted this before but fell between these two stools). Also iCloud deserves a footnote for the automatic cloud backups if nothing else, which is still one of the killer features that keeps me with the platform. It's an interesting correlation that most of these innovations (perhaps all?) proceeded under Steve Jobs' watch. Interesting that not much has happened since ... the watch maybe is kind of cool but I don't think we're seeing the same kind of stellar revolutionary uptake and ROI with these other products. I wonder if he was around still would apple have made inroads into TV yet? Not much higher walled gardens than Film (Pixar), Music or Telecomms ... it would at least have been interesting to watch. Many say he wasn't the nicest guy going but for me that's beside the point. Innovator on a global scale. RIP
- sametmax 10y ago
  The iPod was not revolutionary. Arcos did a superior product before apple. They failed to market it. The iPad and mac air are not revolutionary. They are evolutions of iphone and mac book. A good idea don't make something revolutionary. Making something bigger or thiner is not a revolution unless you talk about 2 orders magnitude. iTune and the app store concepts are not revolutionary. They are just paid version of existing concepts. Linux had official software repo for decades. We used pirated music download services online for years. Apple products are never revolutionary. This word is just, literally, the one used in all their PR and people repeat it again and again. They take good existing idea (touch screens finger control, phone PDA, mp3 players), use them, make them better, integrate them better. They build great hardware, add solid software on top of it and design friendly beautiful UI to use them. The only apple revolution is their ability to always improve the user experience. Not their products. The apple watch has a poor user experience, and hence nobody uses it. This is not to diminish apple's merit. What they do is hard. It's just not revolutionary. Inventing the paper print is. Inventing the vaccine is. Inventing Internet is. Creating a better phone you manipulate by touching the screen years after Palm existed is not revolutionary. It's innovation.
  - scarface74 10y ago
    "They take good existing idea (touch screens finger control, phone PDA, mp3 players), use them, make them better, integrate them better. They build great hardware, add solid software on top of it and design friendly beautiful UI to use them. The only apple revolution is their ability to always improve the user experience. Not their products." If all of that is so easy, why didn't anyone else do it?
    - sametmax 10y ago
      You are trying to make me say something I didn't. I specifically said: > This is not to diminish apple's merit. What they do is hard. It's just not revolutionary. You don't need revolutionary to be great. People confuse "apple has a great impact in their industry and society" and "apple products are revolutionary". "revolutionary" is marketing. And reading your comment, good marketing. It works.
    - 10y ago
pmalynin 10y ago
"Try to get a Windows computer to do that with an Xbox without at least an hour of Googling and shady streaming software." My TV has Miracast, which is natively supported by my Android and Windows PCs and casting on the TV is literally a button away, but neither my iPhone nor my Mac supports ... and Miracast is a better technology.
- rusk 10y ago
  Not quite an XBox, but my PS4 does this quite nicely out of the box with Plex. As an aside I'd also highly recommend "Sofaplay" which is by far the easiest way I've found to beam video to my Samsung Smart TV from my MBP. Literally "just works" dragging a file onto a drop-target. Does the transcoding and everything with '0' fuss.
- WorldMaker 10y ago
  Xbox One has built-in Miracast support, too. There's a free Miracast app on the Xbox One to receive Miracast and stream it to your TV. (The app is called something like "Wireless Streaming", published by Microsoft themselves. I don't think they currently bundle it onto the Xbox out of the box, but they should.)
sixothree 10y ago
It may not be a bad product but the prices are annoyingly high compared to netflix, amazon prime, or just about any other service. And the device itself is fairly lackluster, especially compared to Amazon Fire. Apple TV is one of my more disappointing purchases.
WayneBro 10y ago
I use https://www.airserver.com/ https://www.airserver.com/ on my Windows computer and I can stream all of my devices to it. As a matter fact the only thing I want plugged into my TV is a Windows computer. It's the best. I get all the content that I want plus video games. I feel bad for people who are stuck with locked down walled garden devices.
nick_ 10y ago
AirPlay screen mirroring used to be good. They crippled the frame rate a few years ago to discourage casting pirated content from computer to Apple TV.

by dexwiz 10y ago

s3r3nity 10y ago

Not sure I understand what you or the article consider "revolutionary." I would consider products like the iPod, Mac Air, iPad, hell even iTunes or the App Store concept (which wasn't released at the same time as the first iPhone, but shortly fast-followed), to be "revolutionary" If, as an example, you're going to claim that the iPod is just a polished WalkMan or Mp3 player, that's a _real_ oversimplification in a way that can be applied to the iPhone = a polished cell phone with a bigger screen (touch screen cell phones were rare, but around before the iPhone.)

rusk 10y ago
I would also include the iMac, which was badly needed when it came out. A computer people actually wanted to own rather than grudgingly accept. Also the "it just works" philosophy which almost overnight raised the bar for what customers should expect in terms of UX. Also, the availability of Microsoft Office was key to early success, which other new platforms of the time (e.g. BeOS, the budding desktop Linux) just couldn't muster. Similarly the Macbook Pro for raising the bar in terms of what users could expect from the high end (aluminium body, sleek bevel, rock-solid reliability, high performance). Just to underline iTunes a little more - hand in glove with the iPod and eventually the iPhone completely turned the music industry upside down and gave it a new impetus since being destroyed by illegal downloading. App Store and iPhone revolutionised lifestyle computing (ad hoc: there's probably a better term) by getting the balance between the walled garden and innovation just right (various others had attempted this before but fell between these two stools). Also iCloud deserves a footnote for the automatic cloud backups if nothing else, which is still one of the killer features that keeps me with the platform. It's an interesting correlation that most of these innovations (perhaps all?) proceeded under Steve Jobs' watch. Interesting that not much has happened since ... the watch maybe is kind of cool but I don't think we're seeing the same kind of stellar revolutionary uptake and ROI with these other products. I wonder if he was around still would apple have made inroads into TV yet? Not much higher walled gardens than Film (Pixar), Music or Telecomms ... it would at least have been interesting to watch. Many say he wasn't the nicest guy going but for me that's beside the point. Innovator on a global scale. RIP
sametmax 10y ago
The iPod was not revolutionary. Arcos did a superior product before apple. They failed to market it. The iPad and mac air are not revolutionary. They are evolutions of iphone and mac book. A good idea don't make something revolutionary. Making something bigger or thiner is not a revolution unless you talk about 2 orders magnitude. iTune and the app store concepts are not revolutionary. They are just paid version of existing concepts. Linux had official software repo for decades. We used pirated music download services online for years. Apple products are never revolutionary. This word is just, literally, the one used in all their PR and people repeat it again and again. They take good existing idea (touch screens finger control, phone PDA, mp3 players), use them, make them better, integrate them better. They build great hardware, add solid software on top of it and design friendly beautiful UI to use them. The only apple revolution is their ability to always improve the user experience. Not their products. The apple watch has a poor user experience, and hence nobody uses it. This is not to diminish apple's merit. What they do is hard. It's just not revolutionary. Inventing the paper print is. Inventing the vaccine is. Inventing Internet is. Creating a better phone you manipulate by touching the screen years after Palm existed is not revolutionary. It's innovation.
- scarface74 10y ago
  "They take good existing idea (touch screens finger control, phone PDA, mp3 players), use them, make them better, integrate them better. They build great hardware, add solid software on top of it and design friendly beautiful UI to use them. The only apple revolution is their ability to always improve the user experience. Not their products." If all of that is so easy, why didn't anyone else do it?
  - sametmax 10y ago
    You are trying to make me say something I didn't. I specifically said: > This is not to diminish apple's merit. What they do is hard. It's just not revolutionary. You don't need revolutionary to be great. People confuse "apple has a great impact in their industry and society" and "apple products are revolutionary". "revolutionary" is marketing. And reading your comment, good marketing. It works.
  - 10y ago

pmalynin 10y ago

"Try to get a Windows computer to do that with an Xbox without at least an hour of Googling and shady streaming software." My TV has Miracast, which is natively supported by my Android and Windows PCs and casting on the TV is literally a button away, but neither my iPhone nor my Mac supports ... and Miracast is a better technology.

rusk 10y ago
Not quite an XBox, but my PS4 does this quite nicely out of the box with Plex. As an aside I'd also highly recommend "Sofaplay" which is by far the easiest way I've found to beam video to my Samsung Smart TV from my MBP. Literally "just works" dragging a file onto a drop-target. Does the transcoding and everything with '0' fuss.
WorldMaker 10y ago
Xbox One has built-in Miracast support, too. There's a free Miracast app on the Xbox One to receive Miracast and stream it to your TV. (The app is called something like "Wireless Streaming", published by Microsoft themselves. I don't think they currently bundle it onto the Xbox out of the box, but they should.)

sixothree 10y ago

It may not be a bad product but the prices are annoyingly high compared to netflix, amazon prime, or just about any other service. And the device itself is fairly lackluster, especially compared to Amazon Fire. Apple TV is one of my more disappointing purchases.

WayneBro 10y ago

I use https://www.airserver.com/ https://www.airserver.com/ on my Windows computer and I can stream all of my devices to it. As a matter fact the only thing I want plugged into my TV is a Windows computer. It's the best. I get all the content that I want plus video games. I feel bad for people who are stuck with locked down walled garden devices.

nick_ 10y ago

AirPlay screen mirroring used to be good. They crippled the frame rate a few years ago to discourage casting pirated content from computer to Apple TV.