FA+
Shop
Apple's FAIL-O-THON 2010 continues.
15 years ago
>> Throw me some love! <<
http://www.patreon.com/cobalt
Just seen the demo of the $99 Apple TV unit.
We've had one of the older style Apple TV units here at the house for awhile. My dad got one for his birthday a while back. It's a pretty nice little device, but it's lacking a few things that a proper media PC has.
I was looking forward to what apple might do to improve upon it in the next version. And at $99 for the new unit, it seemed like it could have really become something.
I guess I should stop expecting better things from apple. They've pretty much proven they're incapable, anymore.
The old unit was vaguely similar to an ipod that you'd hook to your TV. You'd sync it to your itunes library, allowing you to put videos and music onto it, and then you could play those on the TV, and use whatever surround sound speaker setup you had connected to it.
The anticipation was that the new unit would finally get the full ipod/iphone style interface, with apps. Taking it all the way into being a full ipod style unit for your TV.
Instead what we got was so much less.
It's still got the same interface as before - but now, it's primarily just a front end for pay-per-view video rentals.
They've removed it's storage capability completely. No more storing your own videos on it. You can rent. Rent and pay. And pay. And pay.
You don't sync it like an ipod now either, so if you want to see your home movies or play your music, you have to have a computer with a copy of itunes open and running, somewhere in your house, so it can feed the video, music or photos to the new Apple TV over wireless. (Or an you could use an ipad to do that instead, because, hey - buy an ipad.)
It was insane watching Jobs rant about this "glorious" new product, which is basically half of the original product, with all the bits we regularly used, ripped out.
"They don't want a computer hooked to their TV!" Yes, I do. That's why I built a computer and hooked it to my TV. It's called a media PC and it's what pretty much everyone I know who knows how to, is building and using.
"No more worrying about running out of storage space!" Yeah, NO STORAGE SPACE, asshole.
"Why did we remove syncing? Our users don't want syncing, they never could figure out how it worked, anyway!" And that's why you built all your fucking products around syncing, including the entire raft of ipods you just stood on stage pitching to us, right?
All in all this looks like nothing so much as a desperate cash-grab.
What a let down. Instead of moving forward with the design, they've gutted it.
We've had one of the older style Apple TV units here at the house for awhile. My dad got one for his birthday a while back. It's a pretty nice little device, but it's lacking a few things that a proper media PC has.
I was looking forward to what apple might do to improve upon it in the next version. And at $99 for the new unit, it seemed like it could have really become something.
I guess I should stop expecting better things from apple. They've pretty much proven they're incapable, anymore.
The old unit was vaguely similar to an ipod that you'd hook to your TV. You'd sync it to your itunes library, allowing you to put videos and music onto it, and then you could play those on the TV, and use whatever surround sound speaker setup you had connected to it.
The anticipation was that the new unit would finally get the full ipod/iphone style interface, with apps. Taking it all the way into being a full ipod style unit for your TV.
Instead what we got was so much less.
It's still got the same interface as before - but now, it's primarily just a front end for pay-per-view video rentals.
They've removed it's storage capability completely. No more storing your own videos on it. You can rent. Rent and pay. And pay. And pay.
You don't sync it like an ipod now either, so if you want to see your home movies or play your music, you have to have a computer with a copy of itunes open and running, somewhere in your house, so it can feed the video, music or photos to the new Apple TV over wireless. (Or an you could use an ipad to do that instead, because, hey - buy an ipad.)
It was insane watching Jobs rant about this "glorious" new product, which is basically half of the original product, with all the bits we regularly used, ripped out.
"They don't want a computer hooked to their TV!" Yes, I do. That's why I built a computer and hooked it to my TV. It's called a media PC and it's what pretty much everyone I know who knows how to, is building and using.
"No more worrying about running out of storage space!" Yeah, NO STORAGE SPACE, asshole.
"Why did we remove syncing? Our users don't want syncing, they never could figure out how it worked, anyway!" And that's why you built all your fucking products around syncing, including the entire raft of ipods you just stood on stage pitching to us, right?
All in all this looks like nothing so much as a desperate cash-grab.
What a let down. Instead of moving forward with the design, they've gutted it.
And that's where Apple falters rather badly.
d.m.f.
Yeah, Apple is a greedy bastard. Who knew...
Now they're just imitators, pandering to a fool and his money.
Pathetic.
Appealing to intelligent users? Bad.
Appealing to the mentally limited (far too many people)? Good.
That being said, I have a big problem with it, and it's essentially echoing your complaints about it turning into a glorified PPV box with no local storage. I don't have any problem with that in itself, since on-demand video services are established in the market. What I have a problem with is, Apple throwing its weight behind restricted streaming (try streaming from Vimeo -- whoops, that's not Youtube, nor one of the networks, so too bad) gives this concept dangerous momentum. Hopefully, alternatives with local storage that allow actual purchases (not just rentals) will keep afloat to challenge Apple and provide diversity.
Fears of Apple's model becoming the standard for all media consumption from here on out aside, I'm not sure why you had your hopes up, bear. Ever since Apple's focus shifted from the OS X ecosystem to the iOS ecosystem, they have completely abandoned any pretense of making products for power users. More than ever before, to buy an Apple product is to commit to computing according to the vision of Saint Jobs. If you're comfortable with that situation, you'll be taken care of very well. If you want to make your Apple product do something not blessed by His touch, the message, distilled down from the PR and the actions Apple has taken against jailbreaking, is to go fuck yourself and buy some substandard hobby hardware like a Windows box instead. Casting out from the garden of Eden, as it were.
Don't get me wrong, I actually like Apple, but I'm a fan of the right tool for the job, and the Apple ecosystem comes with certain conditions attached, and you don't get to negotiate those.
Instead, they cut the legs out from under it.
It's not even as good as the previous model, now. This is such a step backwards.
The Apple TV was a dud product to begin with. it wasn't flying off store shelves. I don't see how crippling it's capabilities is going to suddenly make it more palatable to consumers.
I'm not buying one (being in Canada, most of those services wouldn't work anyway, unless they expand in the future), but I can see that it has a market niche where it would be useful. It's not the SAME niche as its father, though.
or just.. why not buy a popcornhour unit anyway?
a bit more expensive and lets you do a lot of crap more.. loads more.
Todd.
Boxee: 1
Apple: 0
Steve doesn't get it.
He doesn't see why so many are abandoning cable & satellite TV-- The cost!
And Netflix is already on several boxes, including PS3, internet-connected Blu-Ray disc players, Netflix's own box, Boxee, and so forth.... And even the Boxee Box can do a hella lot more, and it's expected to to hit the market in a couple months... And it's NOT TIED DOWN to using any particular software on a PC- It's a standalone WiFi-based box that will stream ANY internet video and radio....
Mr. Jobs has no clue... Just like the antenna issue on the iPhone 4....
He just doesn't get it.
On a bright side, the Nano, while losing the camera, still has FM radio, and a scaled-down version of iOS4, with a limited number of apps. The new iPod touch looks promising, but not a game-changer- It's just catching up with the iPhone 4, without the cellphone part. The high-res LED "Retina" display is an improvement. I could give or take the camera, though it might be useful. :) Doesn't have the Nano's FM radio, though.
All in all, weak to tepid.
d.m.f.
So... Unless there's a workaround, I can't get a brand-new Nano or iOS4 Touch, because I have an old machine! :(
Idiots!
d.m.f.
(And my 16GB Touch is, well, getting old-- I want a 64GB Touch!)
Jobs is a rich narcissist. He has no idea of what people who aren't rich narcissists want. Understandably, he isn't the least concerned about paying and paying and paying and paying when its "only" several bucks per shot. I'm not against rich people. But I don't appreciate it when the guy running a major company loses sight of what their customers want - like me. I certainly hope that Jobs continues to completely ignore OS X and the Mac, because if he sticks his nose in there, he is sure to screw things up royally...
It's obvious he neither watches TV or listens to radio all that much-- Notice these features aren't really something he focuses on AT ALL-- It's all third-party apps on the net-accessible iOS4 machines. and the new AppleTV only uses bundled apps.
He just doesn't get it.
d.m.f.