Future Features You want to see for :apple:TV

[FreeState]

-FreeState

Um. Wow. That was impressive.

How'd you do that?

Command click on the iTunes icon in the application folder and select show package contents.

Then navigate here

contents>Resources>English.lproj>Localizable.strings

Open up "Localizable.strings" with text editor and you can view all of that and much much more...

 

[patrick0brien]

Let's think outside the 'watching tv/listening to music on it' functionality!

-charlie20003

But, thats... not what it's designed for. IMHO that's a whole new device.

 

[FreeState]

-charlie20003

But, thats... not what it's designed for. IMHO that's a whole new device.

I agree partially. The iPod was designed to be an excellent music device. However as time when on it added games, movies, TV etc etc. These are things that are conveniences that are not to far off of the initial devices functions and purpose.

I think Apple is doing the same thing with ATV - it will add every option you have on your iPod/iPhone to make it a true convergence device. In addition to that it might add options that are conveniences to the end user that are specifically related to TV, but probably not a full blown anything other than the original intent - iTunes on your windscreen TV... IMO.

Apple IMO is going to work on the video part - because that is what its primary use it. It has to have its primary use be excellent so it can be seen as the must have leader. And its just about there except for content. The HD trailers are excellent - once Apple gets content in this quality they can start focusing on other convergence ideas.

 

[patrick0brien]

The iPod was designed to be an excellent music device.

-FreeState

Have you ever wondered why it was called the iPod? And not the iMusic?

 

[FreeState]

-FreeState

Have you ever wondered why it was called the iPod? And not the iMusic?

LOL - maybe because iMusic was taken already - or better yet iPod is hardware not music

Most likely Apple had a different idea when they originally released the iPod and then found that marketing it worked best when they made it do one thing better than any other device could at the time without to much bloat But Im pulling this all out of my b*tt so Im most likely wrong!

 

[indraunt@gmail.]

Further from the pointlessness of upgrading the hdd of your AppleTV - Why do folks want to plug a hdd into the AppleTV? What's wrong with plugging it into your computer? My network is... g? the one before n... whatever the hell it is... anyway, my point is that streaming is flawless - no interruptions, only a second or two of waiting at the start while it buffers... Is that 2 second wait really enough for people to cry about a lack of storage on the AppleTV?
Cummon folks - Justify all this storage rubbish for me. I just don't get it.

 

[patrick0brien]

Further from the pointlessness of upgrading the hdd of your AppleTV - Why do folks want to plug a hdd into the AppleTV? What's wrong with plugging it into your computer? My network is... g? the one before n... whatever the hell it is... anyway, my point is that streaming is flawless - no interruptions, only a second or two of waiting at the start while it buffers... Is that 2 second wait really enough for people to cry about a lack of storage on the AppleTV?
Cummon folks - Justify all this storage rubbish for me. I just don't get it.

-indraunt@gmail

Well, I think this is one of those differences in values folks have. I for one run a gigabit network and still would like bigger HDD, because I have lots of pics and such, and having it all in the TV is simple.

I like simple.

 

[GregA]

- Merge shared sources (don't list duplicates). Would be nice to get a list of what's available without seeing who has it. Me and my girlfriend have a shared iTunes account. We both have our laptops. We can't sync everything to the AppleTV. Would be nice if it was a seemless list of what's on the network (and cached locally) that I can view.
<snip>
- Would be nice to be able to stream FROM the AppleTV. Lets say I push a video to the AppleTV. I am at work with my laptop, my GF should be able to watch the video on her laptop if she wants. Just adds some more flexibility.

My biggest hope and wish is that with iLife07, Apple will introduce an integrated media management system of some form. People have photos on different computers, music spread around, they're syncing devices... and we need a better management system.

I do believe Apple is looking into this with Leopard - but perhaps we can ignore that for the moment, since iTunes does run on Windows.

Could Apple provide a way of presenting multiple itunes libraries as a single library, to everyone in your house? Naturally you'd only see what you could play, and you wouldn't have any more privileges than you have now - it'd just be a single library.

And if you had this 'single library' and had a shared hard disk (maybe on an Airport Extreme?), would you care if all the music was centrally stored?

Synching with more than one computer! My photos are all over the home network!

The good thing about photos is that Apple lets you move them around. Would you like a central library, with a subset of albums on your laptop (synchronised just like we put a subset of albums onto an iPod?).

An AppleTV working with this central storage (even if it just simulates a central storage), could change the way we access our media.

 

[GregA]

allowing purchases from itunes helps integrate apple's business plan, which is to become your primary provider for entertainment content. Adding DVR directly thwarts this objective by allowing a user to go to an outside content provider.

So in short, while DVR is the one feature that might make me like TV enough to buy it, I think it will never happen.

I agree for a different reason.

With Time Machine, Apple may be about to let you backup EVERYTHING you have, on .Mac (or similar). If your home got hit by lightening, you could buy a new Mac and login as you and have all your data at your fingertips in a very short time.

Music & Photos are big, but it's quite doable. Backing up movies is far harder. If all your movies are purchased from Apple, then they can pretend to back up your movie (in reality they just send you a new copy).

So I agree - Apple isn't going to provide a DVR. And they don't want people building their own DivX libraries either (for a similar reason, though the files are smaller than DVR files).

ps. The last side effect of backing up everything is that we can purchase as many iTunes movies and shows and we don't have to worry about not having enough local disk space. Apple removes a big barrier to purchasing.

 

[brucebrendon]

BluRay Streaming and iChat

Howdy folks,

TV would only be of use to me if:

1. i could stick a HD disc in some new mac and watch it wirelessly

2. i could login to a/my mac (maybe via iChat) and use wireless keyboard and mouse

then i'd get one and a new mac.


everything else seems to be just buying into buying, Zzz...

 

[pumpkinhead]

Video Conferencing

Everyone here seems to bang on about the same things - essentially small tweaks. Support for external storage - that's just MORE storage, support for connecting an iPod - the video on your iPod is already on your Mac, support for buying from the iTunes store from the Apple TV - nice but hardly ground-breaking. Let's think outside the 'watching tv/listening to music on it' functionality!

The recent changes to iChat to allow qualified USB Webcams to work with it got me thinking (either a sign that there will be a new USB based iSight, or there definitely won't be one). Anyway - I'd like to see iChat (probably AV only) on the Apple TV - think of all those sci-fi movies where you have people chatting with their mom via the living room tv.

Very insightful, this makes perfect sense to me! Apple have been aggressively enabling their PC's, notebooks (and soon standalone monitors) for iSight video conferencing/chat. Why not turn every TV in every living room into a wide-angle video-call device?

Question is, does that h.264 chip in the AppleTV encode as well as decode? I know there were some rumours of adding h.264 encoding to a lot of apple devices recently.

Even if not, they could build the encoding chip into the next iSight and pass the lower-bandwidth encoded A/V over USB into the AppleTV putting very little load on the little box. This would help justify relatively high price they would inevitably put on it.

And, the iSight is/was auto-focus too (kind of unique), perfect for the different focus lengths present in the living room environment, where people are not always a set distance from their screen.

Man, if they aren't going to do it, they should think about it now! There's another 100% margin piece of hardware many would be happy to purchase. I know I would drop and extra $100 to add "grandparent-friendly" video conferencing to my olds back in Australia.

And I'm not even going to mention the home-grown streaming content this could make available....better get those parental controls working...

 

[blybug]

I'll buy movies from iTunes when I can burn them to DVD and play them in our DVD player in our vehicle for our kids.

It is sad that I have to burn songs to disk and reimport them. It is sad that Mac the Ripper has to exist. Nonsense.

Last road trip I crawled under the drivers seat and plugged the video feed of my iPod into the video-in of the onboard DVD player in the van. Instant access to dozens of movies...no more swapping out DVDs while driving.

 

[BobtheTomato]

Actually the thing is growing on me. I'd like a larger hard drive and a smarter way to manage/backup movies. The iTunes movie store isn't a bad deal ($10 for a recent movie is good enough for me) but I don't like not having a ready made local backup (for my MP3 collection in iTunes the CDs are in the closet). For the AppleTV with iTunes movies I have to get a DVD burner to make a backup and/or a big drive for the desktop to store an extra copy of movies (we probably won't have a mega library but still at a gig a shot that's a pretty good amount of space). Now I could re-download them if the AppleTV puked but even on Road Runner downloading 40 gig or so would take a while (and might draw an excessive bandwidth complaint from my ISP).

Then there are all the movies not available on iTunes. Right now I'd have to violate the DMCA and monkey around a bit to get a movie from DVD. That would entail quite a few hours of CPU time (which is precious commodity around here with 6 users and 3 G4s). What I really want is a box/software that lets me deal with movies the way iTunes and the iPod lets me deal with music: Rip easily and quickly and then just enjoy my media without worrying about fooling with the discs. Renting movies via the iTMS could be cool, but I'd be happy if I could just get our favorites into the box and have those handy without having to find the disc or worry if it is scratched when I want to watch it.

 

[SLiM620]

i love the ichat idea and it sounds very likely....an isight camera is as good a use of the usb port as any

 

[Doctor Q]

Unless I'm missing something, if you organize your photos albums in iPhoto into folders, the Apple TV ignores the folders, and shows you all photo albums all the time, making you scroll through a huge list.

There appears to be no way to display the folders or open/close them to make it easier to navigate among your photo albums.

The Apple TV should mimic the iPhoto folder display and behavior.

 

[trule]

Cummon folks - Justify all this storage rubbish for me. I just don't get it.

Would be nice NOT to have to turn my PC/Mac on so that I can watch a movie on Apple TV...because there was no room left on the 40G disk. Mind you I have 100 DVD's I would like to use over Apple TV so even a 120G disk is not going to help me much.

Streaming a DVD from PC to Apple TV would be nice, for rental DVD's and such.

 

[Doctor Q]

Streaming a DVD from PC to Apple TV would be nice, for rental DVD's and such.

Are you saying you would forgo having a DVD player and use Apple TV instead, if it could do this?

Otherwise, why wouldn't you just pop a rental DVD in a DVD player? That seems a lot easier, already works now, lets you watch in whatever resolution your DVD and DVD player and TV support, lets you us any special features on the DVD, and gives you surround sound.

 

[blackbones]

would like to see the streaming radio stations that are available in iTunes (and ones i have added) available on appleTV.