Apple TV

The Apple TV has eclipsed the iPad in overall viewership of Netflix content, the movie-rental company said yesterday.

"Apple TV has done very well for us, and in just four months has passed the also-growing iPad in Netflix viewing hours," the company wrote in its letter to shareholders.

Netflix stopped short of providing exact viewer figures for the two Apple devices, but the very fact that the Apple TV is now leading the iPad is impressive. Apple has sold millions of iPads since the device launched last year, and it sold 7.33 million units in its last-reported … Read more

Apple may have some big plans for 2011, but one analyst believes the company may be saving one of its biggest announcements for 2012--a television.

Gene Munster, a Piper Jaffray senior research analyst, said in a research note today that he believes Apple will enter the TV set market by the end of next year. If Munster is right, that gives Apple two years to design and manufacture the television.

"While Apple's commitment to the living room remains a 'hobby,' we continue to believe the company will enter the TV market with a full focus, as an all-in-one … Read more

Apple and Netflix are competitors in the online movie rental business, but one analyst is suggesting that instead of competing, Apple should buy its rival.

Brian Marshall, an analyst with Gleacher & Co., suggested in a note to clients yesterday that Apple's iTunes movie and TV rental business is only about one-tenth the size of Netflix. He estimated that Apple rents approximately 475,000 TV shows and movies every day, while Netflix rents about 5.1 million DVDs and pieces of streaming media per day, according to Computerworld.

Looking at the cash side of the business, Marshall estimated that … Read more

Who said the Apple TV was just a hobby?

Apple announced today that unit sales of its tiny set-top box are expected to reach 1 million by the end of this week.

The Apple TV, which launched in September, is one-quarter the size of its predecessor, and allows users to rent and stream television shows and movies from iTunes on their televisions. The set-top box also features access to Netflix, podcasts, and Flickr. Users can stream music content from their computers, and use AirPlay to send multimedia content from their iOS-based devices to the Apple TV. It retails for $99.… Read more

We've criticized the new Apple TV for its lack of streaming-media services, but we've always held out hope that AirPlay would bring the additional functionality we wanted. Today, Apple released the new 4.2 iOS update and an Apple TV update, which enables AirPlay functionality. We've had some time to play with it, and though it doesn't fully deliver on its promise yet, it's on its way to being one of the best features of the Apple TV.

What is AirPlay and how it works The idea behind AirPlay is "pushing" content from an iOS device to your Apple TV, so you can watch on the big screen. It's designed to work with music, photos, and videos, although the video functionality is limited for now.

"Pushing" content to an Apple TV couldn't get much easier. You'll need an Apple TV with the latest software update and an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad running the new iOS 4.2 software, and they both need to be on the same home network.

Start playing back a media file, such as a song stored on your iPod, and next to the volume slider will be a "push" icon, which looks like a box and an arrow pointed up. You'll see another screen that let's you select your Apple TV and once you hit that, the content playback on your TV.

That's it. There's a very slight lag before it starts playing on your Apple TV, but otherwise it works exactly how you'd expect.

What's AirPlay compatible right now?… Read more

The iPhone Dev-Team has been using a tool called Shatter to jailbreak iPhones and iPod Touches running iOS 4.1. It's not in userland yet--meaning, no, it's not ready for you to download and try--but it's a very promising jailbreak. It uses an exploit at a very low level of iOS that they say Apple might not be able to patch easily.

Shatter isn't just for iPhones and iPod Touches, it seems. A video recently posted on the Dev-Team's blog shows the exploit being applied to the new Apple TV. Right now, it doesn't … Read more

We made the case this week for holding off on buying the new and improved (and shrunken) Apple TV. We highlighted a few other boxes, notably those made by Roku, that might be better Internet TV choices, but also pointed out that the other devices sport features that Apple TV might eventually get.

That said, some consumers aren't going to be ditching their cable or satellite TV anytime soon, and for them the question is irrelevant.

For the others, the set-top market is going to be fractured and confusing, much like the burgeoning tablet market. And, well, that's … Read more

In case you haven't noticed, there's a revolution going on in how people watch movies and TV. Traditional services like cable and satellite are losing ground, as more people are streaming content directly from the Internet, using services like Netflix, iTunes, and Amazon Video On Demand. The revamped Apple TV is the company's aggressive move to capture the streaming-video business: for just $99, you get access to Netflix, YouTube, TV, and movies from the iTunes Store, plus all the music and videos on networked computers running iTunes. And with a pitch-perfect design and user interface, it'll … Read more

Don't expect Time Warner content on the Apple TV anytime soon.

Speaking at the Royal Television Conference in London this week, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said that 99-cent rentals of his company's television shows makes no sense as far as the bottom line goes.

"How can you justify renting your first-run TV shows individually for 99 cents an episode," Bewkes said, according to the Hollywood Reporter. He added that doing so could "jeopardize the sale of the same shows as a series to branded networks that pay hundreds of millions of dollars and make … Read more