Last week, Apple had their company presentation of the new things that they have come out with. Since I have an iPad and an iPhone and we have an Apple TV, I always look forward to seeing what new ideas that Apple has come up with. Our Apple TV is probably about 4 years old now, and the last time that Apple upgraded everything on it, we somehow lost some of the programs tthat we had received before. They added a bunch of new ones; but not anything that we really cared about; however, the one that we lost was the Youtube one. Since Apple was coming out with an upgrade on the Apple TV, we had been talking about maybe getting anwer version so we could have the Youtube on it again. Well, it turns out that they have decided that what people would now enjoy doing more on their television is playing games, like they do on their smartphones and tablets. So, Apple is adding a new iOS to the Apple TV, and now you can go to their app store and upload the game apps that you most like to play, and do it right on your (bigscreen) television. The remote now has a touchscreen, and is sensitive to things just like a gaming remote is, and it will just plug in to charge up just like a smartphone does. No more dead batteries on the remote. I like that part. However, we do not want to play games on the television, so there is not much sense in spending money for a new Apple TV box in our situation. I do think that Apple probably had a good idea with doing this, and I think that it may well set a new trend, because there are a whole lot of people that play games, and would love having an app for their favorite games on the television.
I heard that you can just tell the TV what program you want to watch and it switches automatically to your program.
The largest tv network here is promoting a subscription for the mobile that showcases their old tv shows. From what I understand, it is an interactive subscription where you can select the program you want to watch. So practically it's just like having a library of DVD where you can select and play or even replay a show. The guys in our technical group in the office are saying that the mobile will soon overtake the computer in terms of popularity mainly because of portability. You can use the mobile anywhere you are and with the present traffic condition, the mobile is one good thing.
We have something similar to that here, too, @Corie Henson , and it is called Netflix. It is not put out by any TV network, it is an independant company. When Netflix started out, they rented movies to people and mailed them to you. They still do that; but several years ago the expanded to also allowing people to stream movies over their computers, and now on mobile devices. They have thousands of movies and television programs that you can watch and it only costs about $8 per month for all the shows you want to watch. People watch movies and television shows on their smartphones all of the time nowdays. The Apple TV is a totally different thing, It is a little box that connects between your wifi and television, and then you can see anything that you can put on your iPad screen, and also from your computer if it is also connected to the device. It has icons for the different options that you can choose from, such as Netflix, or even your iTunes music. You can show the pictures from your photostream as your screensaver on the TV. Any webpage that I put on my iPad, I can display on the television. But what they are going to do now, is make it so that people can also get the same gaming apps on the TV as they are now playing on their smartphones or other mobile devices. If you look at the little tutorial that I posted, it explains it much better than I am doing.
@Yvonne Smith, that Apple TV sounds wonderful. From what I understand that Apple TV is acting like a monitor of your ipad, I mean an extra monitor. Would you believe that I am under the IT department and yet these new gadgets and electronic items never fail to mesmerize me. When the smart phone came into the market, I had a difficult time understanding that it can access the internet. And when the tablet came out, I was kind of surprised that it was just like the smart phone. Indeed, technology is so fast that some people are being left behind. And to think that technology was developed to serve man, huh.
I don't really look at tv. I use my computer to look at Netflix, Hulu and may get Amazon videos soon. My daughter recently added cable to the tv here in the house, I do like to watch the HGTV network but I find myself still looking at the older shows which I can do without cable or Netflix on my computer.
While Apple TV sounds exciting, I don't think television has a long-lasting future in general terms. TV has been agonizing since awhile back and the poor contents and low quality shows and production is making this industry to decay, while the Internet entertainment keeps going on the raise. Personally I wouldn't buy an Apple TV or any other regular television screen, but would be still watching TV shows and movies on the web
An Apple TV is not a regular television set, it is just a little box that makes your TV work like a mobile device or a computer; so that you can pretty much see anything on the television set (that you already have), that you can see on your computer. In effect, it makes your television like a very large computer screen. Whatever TV shows and movies that you are watching on the net right now, you can watch on your television using the Apple TV. Now, what Apple is also doing is adding apps, just like people have on their smartphones and tablets. this way, the television can also be used for any online games that people like to play. I do not play any online games, so this feature holds no interest for me personally; but if they were to put other types of apps in the App Store, then there might be some things that I would be interested in having.
I like NOVA on the Discovery Channel and you can't get that online. I also like 60 minutes, Nightly News, Sunday Morning Show, Face the Nation, and occasionally a randomly featured movie on Showtime and the like (I don't get HBO nor want it). I don't have Netflix…I don't really watch many movies and don't play games. I've only had a range of channels for a month now so many are new to me. I don't watch crime, horror, reality shows, attitude, or violence (even have to close my eyes sometimes during the news). But I manage to find a lot I like.
Hmm, if Apple TV is just an enhancement to mobile devices, computers or actual television screens, I found it absolutely pointless and too expensive to consider buying it keeping in mind this because I'm not longer a TV fan (in fact not since more than a decade ago.) So that I don't care the quality of whatever I'm watching because I'm not really watching it at all, but listening to it, as my eyes are usually elsewhere; browsing websites, doing something around the house or else. TV, movies and videos mostly run as a background noise to me, and only drive my attention to watch if something truly interesting seems to be happening there, not usually really.
TV does have a future, the question is whether Cable TV has a future at this point. Now we have Apple TV which is taking things to the next level. So, I can see Cable and even Satellite not being around in the next decade. These I think could become obsolete thanks to such services as Apple TV which are making entertainment more affordable.
I think perhaps the 'TV' part of the Apple TV is what's confusing some people. Apple TV is a device that allows streaming of programming, in the same way that Roku, Chromecast, and Amazon FireStick do. Each device plugs into your television, and through wifi streaming or hard wiring in some cases, enables you to view content. Each company offers different types of programming, in much the same way as the different cable and satellite providers do. Here's a link to an article that explains the differences among the various products. http://www.cnet.com/news/chromecast-vs-apple-tv-vs-roku-3-which-media-streamer-should-you-buy/
When I was growing up - a process still in development - we had three channels on television in the UK, BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. Now, even with Freeview (a completely free digital-to-air service), there are around 100 channels and if you have a paid-for TV service, even more. I swear that there were more programmes worth watching in the days when we had only three channels.
The new Apple TV's are now available, and the price has gone up; but probably still reasonable , considering all of the new functions that they have. As @Dave Sun mentioned, you can just tell the ATV what you want to watch or search for, and it will find it for you. This is because SIRI, which has been part of the iPhone and iPad for a while now, is now also a new feature of the ATV. The new remote is also a lot more advanced, and similar to the touchscreen on the iPhone, and you can just slide around on the screen to get what you want instead of clicking the remote across like you did before. The new ATV also has an app store (again like iPad/iPhone), and you can put as many apps on your ATV as you want. Right now, it seems like most of the apps available are games or shopping apps; but I am sure that once it has been out a while, many more apps will become available for it. The basic model is on the Apple Store for $149, and the best model (more storage space) is $199. The information on the website says that if you just stream movies, then the basic model will work fine; but if you like to play games and use a lot of apps, then the one with more space will be necessary, the same as with an iPad. This new version would be awesome for anyone who plays any kind of games on their phone or tablet right now, because there is a huge selection of games, and the larger screen and gaming app will make the games a whole lot more fun to play. We do not need any of the new functions; but we would like to have a newer version that has the Youtube app on it; so I am in the process of shopping on eBay and finding an ATV3, which should still have that app available. Because ours is so old, it apparently was not able to do one of the upgrades that Apple put out, and so we lost Youtube. It looks like I can get one of the ATV3 for under $50, and in good condition on ebay; so I am just going to keep watching the ones listed on there as more people are upgrading to the new model and selling the older ones, and eventually I will find one cheap enough that I can afford it.