Apple TV: Slowly Dissolving Into Uselessness
Since hooking up the Mac Mini to the television, it goes without saying our Apple TV is getting less use. The primary app running on the Mac Mini is Hulu Desktop, which has proved a solid app, recreating the TV experience on a computer with a minimum of fuss. It even responds to a remote flawlessly.
But the other big plus for Hulu: free. Well, free plus ads. Even the lesser quality compared to Apple video downloads is trumped by free plus ads.
Coming in second is the Netflix Roku box which I’ve praised endlessly so I’ll spare you the details, but monthy subscription is pretty close to free in terms of the end experience of flipping through shows.
What I’m coming around to: Apple’s pay per play deal doesn’t work so well with TV shows. Works okay with movie rentals, but there’s so much competing “free” content, even that one step of “purchase” throws up many barriers that delay the impulse.
For instance, whenever we want to rent a movie via iTunes, there’s the “wait, let’s check SpeedCine and see if it’s available elsewhere” moment, and sometimes that’s enough to kill the mood.
So Apple TV is now used for increasingly rare movie rentals and as a media bridge to play all the content stored on the Mac Mini. Not much at all that a game console couldn’t do, and therefore even this Apple fanboy finds himself sadly unable to recommend the Apple TV to others.
Some options to make the Apple TV compelling again come to mind:
- Add ads: Supplement the TV show pay per download model by adding a cheaper, streaming with subscription, or free with ads.
- Let it run iPhone apps and developers will take care of the rest.
- Leverage the iPad: Drop the storage, essentially make it a cheap wireless dongle that accepts video input from an iPad or streams content from a computer or the web. While playing back content on a TV, iPad turns into a ginormous remote. Plus, stores all the content if needed. Big reason: iPad looks to outsell Apple TV. Apple TV might (sadly) sell better as an iPad accessory (and yes, this would include video output from iPhone / iPad apps).
- Kill it, but duplicate functionality in a new Mac Mini. Absorb the software into front row and add an hdmi port. Blu Ray drive wouldn’t hurt. Anybody who wanted an Apple TV could just buy a Mac Mini
It’s unlikely Apple will add Hulu or Netflix functionality. The studios will continue to be jerks so exclusive content or better deals than elsewhere is also unlikely.
Anyhow, all the above ideas have been bandied about here and elsewhere for months if not years. It’s pretty clear Apple needs to update the Apple TV in a bold way or kill it.
Because the current strategy of calling it a “hobby” and doing nothing as other options catch up, is essentially the same as the latter.