So, that Harmony Remote issue…you guys were ON that. Thanks to everyone for their comments, and Mark especially for his Living with Mac screencast that really spelled everything out. I just followed it, and had the thing set up in a snap. Check it out here.
In tomorrow’s post we’re going to go over the numbers to see if I’ve spent more or less than buying the DVDs of the movies and seasons that I purchased, and if I sent more on iTunes TV shows than I would have on cable…that should be interesting. I’m honestly not sure which way it’s going to come out.
Today, however, I wanted to talk about what the future might hold for the AppleTV.
I’ve read a lot on that subject online, and have tried to steer clear of it, and even wrote a post on it myself outside of this 30 day review, but instead of talking about what I want to see, I’m going to throw my hat into the prediction barrel and tell you what I think we’ll see from the AppleTV within the next year.
Lower Price – I expect by the time the holidays roll around, we’ll see a price drop for the AppleTV. Maybe knocking it down to $249
HD Content in iTunes – I think HD content is just around the corner…in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if that long rumored bittorrent-like way of download HD iTunes content as in the next version of iTunes, or even intergrated into Leopard. I expect that it will be more expensive than the SD content we currently have available, and much like the EMI music deal, I expect to be able to upgrade my existing library if I choose to for a small additional fee.
Browse iTunes on AppleTV – I think we’re going to see direct downloads onto iPod when the next generation hits, and I think we’ll see the same concept extended to the AppleTV at that time.
That latter half of 2007 is going to be an interesting time for Apple. With so little released in the first half, it will be interesting to see how they fill the product void, and I think the AppleTV will be among the products that receives software upgrades to keep it current with what Apple has in store for us next.
3 thoughts on “30 Days of AppleTV – Day 28”
I would love to see a rental system added to iTunes for use with both the Apple TV and video iPods. I had been toying with getting a MovieBeam prior to the announcement of the Apple TV.
I am just wondering though if this would also fall into the “Consumers want to own their music” speech Jobs gave today. If you can buy the movie for $10 – $15, will consumers really shell out $5 just to watch it once? While I know I would never go for the subscription model on music, I probably would for movies/TV shows in a heart beat, depending on pricing of course.
I’m not so sure I agree with a price drop, but I could see it dropping to what you said, 250, I highly doubt 200. As for HD content I think thats a no brainer, however I would like the ability to view in 1080p rather than just 720p. Also a bitorrent download system would likely work amazing for the iTunes store as its popularity is at an all time high and doesn’t seem to show a slowness in pace. Especially for HD content, but downloading songs within a matter of seconds wouldn’t be too bad either, especially if we are talking about your 3rd point about being able to download directly to your iPod/AppleTV. The only flaw I see with that is how are you going to be able to browse the store easily on such a device.
I’m expecting Apple will expand the iTunes Store to allow something like a 7 day movie/TV show rental through the “BackRow” interface in AppleTV. If you wish to purchase a movie/TV show, you will only be able to do that through the iTunes interface, which requires the full-fledged OS (OS X or Windows).