-tv

Stock Market Hopes On Apple

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:24:07 -0500

“The hopes for the next trading day, according to CNBC’s first four minutes after the close of trading, were all on Apple.”. According to an eye opening article in MacWorld, the magazine that recently hosted Apple Keynote 2008.

Read the full article online at:
Analysis: Apple's best-ever quarter is no disappointment
http://www.macworld.com/article/131780/2008/01/1qanalysis.html?t=104

MacWorld also shows, “Apple reports $1.58 billion profit”.

See the complete story at:
http://www.macworld.com/article/131754/2008/01/appleearnings.html

Apple Insider also states that Apple’s current quarterly report is their “Best quarter ever” and provides a closer look at their most recent statement of earnings.

Best quarter ever: a closer look at Apple's record Q108 earnings
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/01/23/best_quarter_ever_a_closer_look_at_apples_record_q108_earnings.html

Apple tv (take 2) is expected to play a big role in this years success story. According to Apple Insider, “Apple TV sales and the new movie rental business associated with it appears to be trending toward the company's big news of the year, as noted in Apple TV Promises to Take 2008.”

To get a good idea of why Apple tv promises to take 2008 and 5 ways Apple will change TV read the full story from Roughly Drafted Magazine at:

Apple TV Promises to Take 2008
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/01/21/apple-tv-promises-to-take-2008/

Five Ways Apple Will Change TV: 1 Five Ways Apple Will Change TV: 2 Five Ways Apple Will Change TV: 3 Five Ways Apple Will Change TV: 4 Five Ways Apple Will Change TV: 5
And, in doing so, you may also discover why some reviewers get it wrong when they critique Apple tv.

Scott Woolley Attacks Apple TV in Forbes, Gets the Facts Wrong
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/09/17/scott-woolley-attacks-apple-tv-in-forbes-gets-the-facts-wrong/
Once you are armed with factual information and stripped of misleading or misunderstood information, then you can independently look at the news - with no end in sight - regarding Apple tv to gather what is needed to decide if Apple tv fits into your lifestyle or not.

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&resnum=0&q=New+Apple+TV+2008&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=news_result&resnum=11&ct=title

One big mistake I see often is how Apple tv is compared to PVR’s like TiVo. It’s a fatal comparison, like trying to choose between apple juice or orange juice as a kid’s drink, except that the only information you have is one that compares artificially flavoured orange drink to Apple wine. In my comparisons I see PVRs as a great thing of the past - one that requires a massively large HD. I see Apple tv as a great thing of the future - and one that has, but does not require, a hard drive. In this case the hard drive is bonus. (It’s not the size that matters, it’s the performance, however, the HD is available in bigger sizes for those who desire it).

New Apple TV Software Update

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 23:48:30 -0500

“Apple TV now automatically plays all of your iTunes content without setup or management. The company will provide the new Apple TV software free of charge to existing Apple TV owners...”, according to an article in MacMinute News.

Read the article for yourself at:

Apple intros new Apple TV software, lowers price to $229
http://www.macminute.com/2008/01/15/new-apple-tv/

The FREE software extends the already existing features of the AppleTV in to a device that also “allows movie fans to rent movies on the iTunes Store directly from their widescreen TV, and lowered the price of Apple TV to $229. With iTunes Movie Rentals and Apple TV, users can just click a button on their remote to effortlessly rent movies from a catalog of over 1,000 titles by the end of February, including over 100 titles in high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound, with no computer required. “

Apple announced that the new, lower price of the AppleTV will be $299US. Apple Insider has posted Apple’s prices of it’s new movie rental business. “DVD-quality iTunes Movie Rentals are $2.99 for library titles and $3.99 for new releases, and high definition versions are just one dollar more with library titles at $3.99 and new releases at $4.99. Apple will provide the new Apple TV software free of charge to existing Apple TV owners when it releases the new Apple TV priced at $229 in about two weeks, the company said.”

Read the full article online at:

Apple introduces new Apple TV software,
lowers hardware pricing
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/01/15/apple_introduces_new_apple_tv_software_lowers_hardware_pricing.html
However, the hidden story, was posted by The New York Times.

Read NYT online at:

Video Podcasts: The Sleeping Giant on AppleTV
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/video-podcasts-the-sleeping-giant-on-appletv/

Apple also posted a press release on their site. Read it online at:

Rent High Definition Movies Directly from Your Widescreen TV
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/01/15appletv.html
You can also learn all about this new movie rental business and the impressive list of studios who have signed on at:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/movies.html

If you want to see the bigger picture here (perhaps the most important announcement that was somehow lost in the shufle (no pun intended), then read the New York Times story right away. Mainly because my experience with NYT links is that they tend to expire after a few days to a week. So read it now before the link expires. After it expires, you can still read it, but you will have register with their site (which I would highly recommend anyway), but the urgency is still mentioned for those who do not want to register. (I’ve noticed that New York Times happens to be the only non-RBC based cookie that is generated by RBC on their online banking site as well as a number of “Canadian” sites. Which makes one wonder why would the NYT be interested in who and when an RBC customer does online banking? And, why would RBC let them in? Oh, yeah! It’s the revenue stream. The bank is the new digital girl scouts of American - selling browser cookies to the highest bidder.

Check out Apple tv today

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 10:10:33 -0400

Come in to the log cabin store to check out Apple tv today. Now that we’re back from the Caledonia Home & Garden Show, where Apple tv was introduced to the Haldimand County Area and from the Brantford Home Show, where Apple tv was introduced to Brant County we gained a lot of experience and got the reactions from a lot of people.
There were some initial negative comments, partly because of other web reports by techie types who made the natural mistake of comparing Apple tv to a PVR.
Apple tv is on an exciting, whole new level beyond PVR.
Once people got to test drive the Apple tv for themselves then Apple tv became the clear choice with the most promising future.
For example, there were plenty of comments that basically said, “I read online that you can’t get a bigger harddrive with Apple tv, with a PVR I can get a bigger harddrive”. This proved to be a non-issue once the commenter saw how Apple tv actually works. 250GB HD is not enough for a PVR, simply because they are mired into a HD-based storage solution with user access to backups. Once filled, people have to start deleting movies to make room for new content when they are stuck with the rather limited PVR concept.
With Apple tv, that whole concept is radically different and favours the user more than the content provider. No one has to delete movies from the harddrive in order to add content that can easily - almost magically - extend beyond the 250GB size of a large PVR.
I demonstrated that a 40GB harddrive is plenty of space for the Apple tv because of the why it works. Even if I had a 4 Terabyte harddrive in a PVR (and I wouldn’t want anything less), eventually, it just wouldn’t be enough for me - and the cost would be too prohibitive.
Mind you, there are hacks that let you put in a bigger HD, but it doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense to me. Why hack up the drive and possibly the warranty in the process, to add a bigger harddrive where it simply is not needed? I’m sure after people have their fun hacking it, the will soon discover that doesn’t make that much of a difference to the way Apple tv operates. Unless the hacker can substantially come up with something better, I see no purpose in modeling a rather limited PVR with something as cool at the Apple tv.
The second main comment was basically, “I read online that with Apple tv you’re restricted only to content from iTunes Music Store”.
Being able to disprove that notation to a live audience is a lot of fun. Again, the online post was probably made from someone doesn’t understand iTunes.
iTunes is the greatest player in the world. It’s number one in the Mac world and in the PC world. Actually, it’s number one in the world.
iTunes not only plays standard MPG-3 files but it can also play higher quality files. It can also play movies. It can use content from non-iTunes sites, such as music from other Internet sites, MIDI files, MPG-4, AAC, AVI. iTunes is number one because people prefer it, not because they are restricted to it. That’s a hugh difference that has to be demonstrated to understand.
To demonstrate we loaded up our Apple tv with cool Hi-Def movies from non-Apple sites such BBC HD, Wildlife HD.com, Animusic, and others that are offered as free downloads. They were a big hit.
We also downloaded common stuff such as movies from YouTube. Anyone who’s ever found a cool video to show, but had to bring their audience to their bedroom to view it on a little screen will immediately see get the picture they moment they see how much better it is to have the movie playing on their big widescreen hi-def TV in the comfort of their living room (instantly streamed from their bedroom PC or Mac at 10 times the speed of their non-Apple wireless router).
But, with 4 million virus-free, perfectly recorded, faster downloading music that you can burn to your own CDs, along with the largest collection of TV shows, Movies, podcast and other contect, it’s easy to see why the iTunes Music Store is clearly the dominant choice by both PC and Mac users.
The 3rd most common comment was, “I read online that it only works for Apple, but I have both a PC and Mac in my home - so it won’t work for my household”.
This part was perhaps the easiest comment to address. Basically, the same thing was said about the iPod shuffle, nano and video; the Mac Intel line; Airport Extreme and Express; the iTunes player; the iTunes Music Store; and FileMaker Pro. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you now know that that is not true. Enough said.

So, before you get confused by many misleading online reports by people who don’t get it, check out Apple tv online at:

http://www.apple.com/appletv/

Then come in for a test drive. That’s the best way to get the big picture.

Overall, most of the people who took time to discover what it’s about, loved it.

- Sure you can download all the virus-infected, spyware bloated crap from the free sites and play them on iTunes. But, lets face it. Where else but the iTunes Music Store are you gonna find 4 million perfectly mixed songs for the original sources, and 350 TV shows and 250 movies that are virus-free and burnable to disc?

- PVRs don’t let you archive your downloads. Apple tv doesn’t force you to use copy-protected stuff with expiry dates and rental fees. With Apple tv you keep your stuff, available for archiving to DVD or CD, the HD is more like your “Movies of the Week”, it doesn’t change the fact that you still have your content when next week rolls around.

- The Apple tv harddrive lets you pick your favourite TV shows, movies and photos and sync it so that you can take your portable Apple TV on the road or to another household TV for veiwing. But it doesn’t require you to download your movies to the harddrive when you’re at home.

- If you have five different computers streaming content wireless that is already on their larger harddrives, which in theory could have at least 5 different external LaCie 1TB harddrives connected to each of the 5 different computers, then why would there be any concern over the size of the Apple tv harddrive? In other words, if it’s already on your computer it can stay there, where you can back it up to DVD/CD as normal, it doesn’t need to be on 40GB HD for Apple tv to play it in real time on the big screen.

- With iTunes for a under $9.99 you own the latest DVD release forever. From the other subscription sites, after a year you paid $120/yr for it (and the others), except that it expires the moment you stop paying, at which point you paid $120 but have nothing to show for it. With the PVR type harddrives, you must delete the movie the moment your harddrive becomes to full to download the next movie.

- Clearly, Apple has seen the future and does not want to get mired in the past.

Apple tv has arrived here

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 13:24:08 -0400

Apple tv has touched ground today at the iC SuperCOMPUTERS log cabin store. And, it wasn’t alone. The new ViewSonic N3260w LCD-TV arrived with it.

What’s cool about the new Apple tv is that is has the HDMI connection for our 32” LCD-TV.

What’s cool about the new 32” LCD Flat-TV is that it is High Definition. The store does offer larger sized LCD Flat-TVs. They’re cool, but they weren’t HD. For me HD is the better way to go.

Apple annouced that the Apple tv was shipping March 21, 2007. It arrived last weekend, but that was in the U.S. It took a bit longer to cross the border. Maybe it took time to get it’s Passport.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Apple tv is here now and in stock in time for the Caledonia Home and Garden Show 2007.

Stay tuned for more details.

Apple tv Now Shipping

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 00:11:56 -0400

Apple is now shipping Apple-tv.

“Apple TV is like a DVD player for the Internet age-providing an easy and fun way to play all your favorite iTunes content from your PC or Mac on your widescreen TV,”

For more info click on the link below:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070321/sfw038.html?.v=97

NOTE: Apple TV requires iTunes 7.1 or later running on a Mac with Mac OS® X version 10.3.9 or later, or a Windows PC with Windows XP Home/Professional (SP2).

We have 10 due in this weekend.