[Macworld]

Post your comments for Apple TV emerges from the shadows here

[ingus]

Good. Now if they allow me to hook up a hard drive to the USB port on the back, I might buy one.

[thinkman]

@ingus - buy a first generation TV with the hard drive built-in. Mine still works great!

[SAMBFriend4pso]

I too await the ATV for my setup
maybe once to is available it will be 4K

[lasvegasweb]

Yeah, why does it have a USB port in the back, that's good for nothing. Seems like the apple developers are on vacation lately.

[Jaddie]

We don't even have an HDTV in our house. My wife gave away our old 27" living room TV and its massive armoire. We were about to buy an HDTV during the holiday shopping season, but I advised my wife to hold off because I believe Apple may introduce one soon.

I just don't understand why Apple would make the whole enchilada, though. Why wouldn't Apple's contribution be in set-top box form and simply be the brains that drives the rest of the system? Then users would be able to choose almost any panel. Timbo believes Apple's users are smart. I'm usually wrong, but I believe smart users would want to choose their own panels and have Apple's user interface.

What do you guys think? Do you believe Apple's future TV product will be the whole set?

[Bob_Hudson]

We got rid of our cable TV service about a month ago and rely on Apple TV for everything and it is great! We have had the Apple TV box for a long while plus subscriptions to Hulu+ and Netflix. Getting rid of cable (keeping just their internet service) saves us about $150 a month, and - as my wife says - we now watch much better TV. We have lots free TV network apps on our iPhones and iPads and stream those to the HDTV through Apple TV (or just go onto another room, curl up in a chair and watch direct on the iPad).

Many of our favorite shows air on the apps a day or two after they aired on "regular TV" and they have shorter commercial breaks - - if any - than regular TV. Most of these streamed programs also have timers for the commercial breaks telling you how much time remains before they go back to the program.

For movie rentals I find the Apple iTunes store is better deal than what I used to get with Cox cable.

Someone mentioned wanting a hard drive connected to an Apple TV box. I'm not sure what you'd need that? Everything you watch is stored on a remote hard drive and you can pause, rewind, etc. I find no need for local storage.

[Kentbob]

Quote

We don't even have an HDTV in our house. My wife gave away our old 27" living room TV and its massive armoire. We were about to buy an HDTV during the holiday shopping season, but I advised my wife to hold off because I believe Apple may introduce one soon. I just don't understand why Apple would make the whole enchilada, though. Why wouldn't Apple's contribution be in set-top box form and simply be the brains that drives the rest of the system? Then users would be able to choose almost any panel. Timbo believes Apple's users are smart. I'm usually wrong, but I believe smart users would want to choose their own panels and have Apple's user interface. What do you guys think? Do you believe Apple's future TV product will be the whole set?

[Kentbob]

Makes far more sense to make the "brains" as a separate unit with HDMI out...

IMHO

[kronos46]

Apple needs to open up the SDK for Apple TV. If I want to watch HBO Go on my Apple TV or connected to my TV, I cannot because the App and others like them do not support mirroring to the Apple TV or HDMI out.

[ingus]

Bob_Hudson, on 24 January 2013 - 03:23 PM, said:

We got rid of our cable TV service about a month ago and rely on Apple TV for everything and it is great! We have had the Apple TV box for a long while plus subscriptions to Hulu+ and Netflix. Getting rid of cable (keeping just their internet service) saves us about $150 a month, and - as my wife says - we now watch much better TV. We have lots free TV network apps on our iPhones and iPads and stream those to the HDTV through Apple TV (or just go onto another room, curl up in a chair and watch direct on the iPad).

Many of our favorite shows air on the apps a day or two after they aired on "regular TV" and they have shorter commercial breaks - - if any - than regular TV. Most of these streamed programs also have timers for the commercial breaks telling you how much time remains before they go back to the program.

For movie rentals I find the Apple iTunes store is better deal than what I used to get with Cox cable.

Someone mentioned wanting a hard drive connected to an Apple TV box. I'm not sure what you'd need that? Everything you watch is stored on a remote hard drive and you can pause, rewind, etc. I find no need for local storage.

That would be me. I buy 1-2 Blu-Ray's a week. So I rip them to portable hard drives. Possession being 9/10ths of the law, I prefer to have physical possession of my media. The cloud is too slow, unreliable, and WAY too expensive. When a 1TB HD costs under $100 it doesn't make sense. As you may, or may not know, you can't stream your content outside of the US. This is highly problematic on many levels, not the least of which it places what you paid for into question. I purchased 100% of my media, and I want access to it at will. Not if I'm in an "approved location", or have internet access, which is spurious on the road more often than not. When Sandy knocked out power (and internet access) for over 10 day's, we were able to watch a movie on our laptops (having first charged them in the car).

[hayesk]

Quote

We don't even have an HDTV in our house. My wife gave away our old 27" living room TV and its massive armoire. We were about to buy an HDTV during the holiday shopping season, but I advised my wife to hold off because I believe Apple may introduce one soon. I just don't understand why Apple would make the whole enchilada, though. Why wouldn't Apple's contribution be in set-top box form and simply be the brains that drives the rest of the system? Then users would be able to choose almost any panel. Timbo believes Apple's users are smart. I'm usually wrong, but I believe smart users would want to choose their own panels and have Apple's user interface. What do you guys think? Do you believe Apple's future TV product will be the whole set?

[hayesk]

Quote

We don't even have an HDTV in our house. My wife gave away our old 27" living room TV and its massive armoire. We were about to buy an HDTV during the holiday shopping season, but I advised my wife to hold off because I believe Apple may introduce one soon.

Why do you think Apple will release one soon? Don't put stock into rumors. Now you're stuck without a TV.

The theory behind Apple making the entire TV is that even the act of selecting the input device is difficult and cumbersome for many people. I have to draw diagrams to tell my I laws how to connect their DVD player. Then when you throw in an audio receiver, it becomes even more complicated. And the menu interfaces for existing TVs can be horrible.

It's well established that Apple likes to control the entire user experience. They can't do that when they're just one set top box of many.

[johnkozar]

I hope that Apple does have a TV in the very near future. I will buy one and I think that DVD and Internet connection, Hard drive would be GREAT. Go Apple and make it happen.