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I believe that the new Apple TV won't be a runaway success (and possibly a failure by their standards) for Apple. The reason the iPod was a huge success was be

I believe that the new Apple TV won't be a runaway success (and possibly a failure by their standards) for Apple. The reason the iPod was a huge success was because you could fill up that enormous hard drive with music you didn't pay for. What would be the point of owning a piece of hardware you paid hundreds for if you now had to pay hundreds or thousands more to fill it with music? Of course some do, but they are in the minority. People have no problem paying for an expensive-looking piece of hardware they can hold in their hand but balk at the thought of paying a lot for digital content they can only access temporarily (especially when said digital content could be downloaded free elsewhere). I think this is the elephant in the room that Apple have overlooked. If the Apple TV did everything the new model did but had a 1TB drive attached, it would be a different story.

mjallday 16y ago
You can still stream movies from your PC or iPod/Phone so the ability to have a hard drive with content you didn't pay for is still there. http://www.apple.com/appletv/#remote http://www.apple.com/appletv/#remote Not sure if it's limited to MP4 or not but I'm sure there will be a way around that.
- Fluxx 16y ago
  I'm pretty sure it's limited to H.264 and MP4, at least that's what Apple is saying on the tech specs page under "video formats." http://www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html http://www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html I still don't like the idea of having iTunes on a PC be necessary for me to play my video files. What if iTunes doesn't recognize certain file formats that I want to play? I'm SOL. I really like the AppleTV and will buy one, but it's not a media player in the same sense that XBMC or any of its decedents are. It's a player for the userbase who doesn't want to deal with storage, file formats or torrents. That's not me, but it is certainly a large # of people.

mjallday 16y ago

You can still stream movies from your PC or iPod/Phone so the ability to have a hard drive with content you didn't pay for is still there. http://www.apple.com/appletv/#remote http://www.apple.com/appletv/#remote Not sure if it's limited to MP4 or not but I'm sure there will be a way around that.

Fluxx 16y ago
I'm pretty sure it's limited to H.264 and MP4, at least that's what Apple is saying on the tech specs page under "video formats." http://www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html http://www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html I still don't like the idea of having iTunes on a PC be necessary for me to play my video files. What if iTunes doesn't recognize certain file formats that I want to play? I'm SOL. I really like the AppleTV and will buy one, but it's not a media player in the same sense that XBMC or any of its decedents are. It's a player for the userbase who doesn't want to deal with storage, file formats or torrents. That's not me, but it is certainly a large # of people.