The Apple TV is new — like brand-freaking new. Still, the system has officially been jailbroken with the SHAttered exploit previously used for iPod touch 4g hacking. This opens up a big door for all sorts of apps although the only one available right now is the native Lowtide.app. Thanks Dev-Team. You just gave everyone something to do this weekend. [Dev-Team via Engdaget] → Read More
How exciting. iFixit found a8GB of flash memory courtesy of Samsung and a lot of the same chips and bits found inside the iPhone and iPad. There’s even solder points for a dock connector lending to the thought that the Apple TV is nothing more than a repackaged iPhone minus certain parts. See, I told you it was exciting. You can keep your high going by clicking over to iFixit for even more fun. → Read More
Apple TVs are shipping and there isn’t much of a delay if any. That’s good. There will no doubt be dozens of Apple TV hands-on reports and so-called reviews popping-up within the coming days as Fedex men everywhere deliver the streaming box. But Clayton Morris can officially call “First!” on this one, though. He just posted what he calls a review, but while I totally have a bro-crush on the man, I think calling his article a review is a bit generous. Maybe “First Look” or “Hands-On” would be a better label. But no matter, click through to read a bit about his mom and the new Apple TV. → Read More
It seems last week’s hubbub about Apple delaying the new Apple TV was a bit premature as our tip box is full of Fedex shipping notifications. Apple still lists a shipping window of 2-3 weeks for new orders, though, making the brick and mortar Apple Stores your best bet of snagging one soon if you didn’t pre-order one. Of course you might wanna wait until some hands-on reports drop. [Thanks for the tip, Steve!] → Read More
Apple announced the refreshed Apple TV just a few weeks back and immediately starting taking pre-orders. However, something is now amuck. The Apple TV product page always listed September as the ship date, but now it says 2-3 week, which puts it in October. Apple also just started issuing refunds for expedited shipping. This comes days before it was expected to ship, too.
What’s that? Getting a little deja-vu? Very good, sir. Apple did the same thing days before the iPad shipped. → Read More
Once upon a time, Microsoft backed a format called HD DVD and, well, that didn’t turn out so well. But the departure from focusing on high-density physical media early on might have forced Microsoft — and the Xbox team — to look towards digital downloads for future products. UK Xbox chief, Stephen McGill, seems to agree and recently stated to gaming site Xbox Achievements that “People now recognize what a smart decision it was to keep the [Xbox 360] pricing low,” in reference to not including an advance optical format within the Xbox 360. Then he goes on to properly slam the Blu-ray format. → Read More
Perhaps you read my post this past weekend about my quest to remove cable television from my life. As a refresher: I’m giving Comcast six months (heavily discounted months due to new service) as I try out better solutions, then I’m cutting the cord. This past week I got the chance to try out one possible replacement: the new Roku XDS.
If you’re familiar with Roku, it’s likely as the first box that was able to play streaming Netflix titles outside of the computer. Way back in 2008 it launched for just $99.99. Back then, that was a pretty killer feature for a pretty killer price. But since then, the marketplace has become much more crowded. It seems nearly every device (videogame consoles, TVs, etc) come with Netflix integration. And Apple is about to launch its new version of the Apple TV for the same $99 price also with Netflix.
The Roku XDS (and HD and XD versions) is Roku’s attempt to strike back at the competition. The box now offers a lot more than just Netflix (as it has for a while, but now there’s more content than ever). In fact, there are over 75 channels you can get for the box — Netflix is just one of them. And, the Roku XD and XDS offers 1080p HD support — something the Apple TV will not (it only goes up to 720p). Bottom line: it’s a nice, simple box with a ton of content for a good price. → Read More
Among companies I loathe, Comcast is right up there. Alongside Expedia and AT&T, they share the common thread of having typically poor service, and even worse customer service. But I’m a forgiving guy. I’m willing to give Comcast a second chance. Well, for 6 months at least.
I’ve been a Comcast customer a few different times at various points of my life. Each time I’ve had an awful experience. My favorite was two years ago when I was continually getting billed for services I didn’t have (nor had I ever had, actually). Each month I was told it was resolved, and each month it was right back on my bill. It took me bitching up a storm on Twitter to get it actually resolved by the higher-ups at the company. And I know my situation wasn’t unique — and sadly, many people have an even bigger nightmare resolving things. → Read More
Get thee to MacMall and pick up a 160GB AppleTV for $149. Don’t worry about not getting updates – just install XBMC and you’re golden. → Read More
As a longtime Apple TV owner, I’ll admit a dirty little secret: I really like the device. Sure, it has been one of the rare flops for Apple in recent years. And it could be so much more with say, a Blu-ray player or a web browser. But it is really good at its core functionality: bringing iTunes content into your living room. And that’s why this new version of the Apple TV makes sense — at least for now.
When I first bought the Apple TV, there were two varieties: a 40 gigabyte version and a 160 gigabyte version. I was torn between which one to get, but I ultimately went with the 160 GB one thinking I could put most of my movies on it. Big mistake. I basically never use the hard drive on my Apple TV, so it’s a 160 GB hard drive sitting there doing nothing. Instead, I stream everything to the Apple TV.
In fact, the only time I do use the hard drive on my current Apple TV is when I rent a movie on it. Currently, even when renting, you download a movie to your hard drive where it sits for up to 30 days (or 24 hours after you start playing it). But with the new iTunes rentals (both TV and movies) everything is streamed — no hard drive is required (besides a small one for buffering purposes). Thanks to that, and undoubtedly the knowledge that most owners were using it for streaming, Apple removed the hard drive from the device, and cut it down in size and price. → Read More
Plex is about to get big. The offshoot of the XBMC project just announced that LG will be using its media platform in upcoming Netcast HDTVs and Blu-ray players, in turn, making these devices about the best media streamers imaginable — even better than the upcoming Boxee Box or just-refreshed Apple TV.
After all, Plex already works with Netflix, Hulu, BBC’s iPlayer, and supports playback of just about every media format ever created via the best interface in the business. There’s even an iOS remote viewing app coming soon. Forget about having an extra box sitting on your TV stand just to stream random content, it’s going to be built into your HDTV. Welcome to the future, ladies and gentleman. → Read More
Whoa, this came out of left-field. Amazon just announced that its Video on demand service will be serving up $.99 ABC and Fox rentals just like Apple wait, no, these are $.99 per episode — like you actually own the content rather than just having a short window to watch. Plus, it’s not just limited to one platform as Amazon Video on demand is widely available a bunch of products. This could be huge and might take some sales away from the new Apple TV. → Read More
I’m going to just assume that if you’re reading this, you’re familiar with torrenting and the like. It’s pretty much commonplace now and while I’m not here to argue its legal ground, it’s a fact that many people get their TV and movie content this way. Yes, it’s illegal, but the fact is there are products specifically geared for that market. The Apple TV isn’t one of them.
Oh no, the Apple TV is for those on the up and up. It’s clearly for those that for one reason or another, want an easier or legal way to get on-demand content on their HDTV. I can’t think of a single device that makes renting TV shows and movies easier. The Roku? Well, it has Netflix and Amazon Video On Demand, but even those require one or two more steps than the new Apple TV — and you can’t get the latest TV episodes, either. Its dead simple interface and feature set are the Apple TV’s main draw and, I suspect, why it will be successful. → Read More
Okay so you want to buy Apple TV but you are in Europe. You got used to the fact that in Europe everything costs the same in the Apple Store as in its brother in the U.S. just in Euros which is like a lot more. Not any more. The Apple TV in Europe costs MORE than in the U.S. It costs 119€ ($152). You would think that you actually get more or at least the same stuff right? Well, no. No Netflix for you, friend! You can buy a box to stream stuff from YouTube and iTunes for $152. → Read More
The new Apple TV, is, well, boring. Sorry, it is. But more on that later. Right now, I thought I should point out that there’s already a well-developed product on the market that not only competes directly with the new Apple TV, but in many ways, is vastly superior: The Roku.
Update: Amazon just leveled the playing field for Roku (and others like TiVo). → Read More
“You’re going to be able to be watching a movie, push it to your TV, and finish watching it there. You’re going to be able to push photos from your iPad to your TV… it’s going to be pretty cool.”
– Apple CEO Steve Jobs, September 1st, 2010
Many people noticed that Jobs’ “and one more thing …” intro today was reserved for Apple’s “hobby,” Apple TV. Jobs also referred to Apple’s TV venture as a “hobby” back at the D8 conference in June with significantly less tongue in cheek. In an interview with All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher, the Apple CEO implied that he had given up on it with the dismissive “smarter people than us will figure it out.”
“The problem with innovation in the TV industry is the go-to-market strategy … Ask TiVo, ask Roku, ask us. … ask Google in a few months. It’s not a problem of technology, it’s not a problem of vision, it’s a problem of go to market strategy. [TV] is very tower of Babel-ish, it’s Balkanized.” → Read More
Chances are Apple is releasing an updated version of its Apple TV product today, but it might not use the heavily rumored iTV name. Instead, the new product might keep the original name of Apple TV. At least that Australian Macworld is saying, which makes us wonder where the iTV name came from. → Read More
Perhaps you’ve heard: Apple is having an event tomorrow. Normally, this means that a sea of tech bloggers descends upon the Bay Area to cover it live for those sitting by their computers at home. But this time things are a bit different: Apple is actually streaming the event live — something they haven’t done in a very, very long time. Cue Double Rainbow: what does this mean?
It’s been so long since an Apple event has been live streamed that no one can seem to agree when the last one actually was. The consensus seems to be that it was a Macworld keynote (which IDG put on but Apple produced) back in the 2003 or 2004 timeframe. But what’s interesting is why Apple streamed one of these last ones: as some recall, it was at least in part to show off their then-new streaming technology — QuickTime Streaming Server. Might that be a hint about the intentions for tomorrow’s event? → Read More
Including access to Netflix on the rumored iTV seems like a no-brainer at first — every set-top box worth its salt has it. It’d be suicide not to, right? But then you start thinking about how Apple would probably like nothing more than to launch a full-scale competitor to Netflix in the form of 99¢ rentals. Chances are it was actually a difficult decision to make: it’s like acknowledging that Netflix has something Apple needs, and I’m sure you can imagine how much they like that idea. → Read More
