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ebrown009

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 12, 2010
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I like the ATV and all but is there more functionality coming to it soon? I guess I just expected more from it. How about streaming other sites on the web? ESPN3? Apps? What more is coming?
 
I like the ATV and all but is there more functionality coming to it soon? I guess I just expected more from it. How about streaming other sites on the web? ESPN3? Apps? What more is coming?

I can see an App Store coming for it soon… Maybe after they get the Mac App Store up and running they will release the Apple TV App Store. I couldn't imagine any other reason they would have 8GB of memory available in it.

- Joe
 
I can see an App Store coming for it soon… Maybe after they get the Mac App Store up and running they will release the Apple TV App Store. I couldn't imagine any other reason they would have 8GB of memory available in it.

- Joe

the atv uses the disk space as a cache for the streamed content.. you would need a super fast internet connection if it didn't have storage.
 
Search these forums or google Plex, Firecore's ATV Flash (black), and AirPlayer. This is just the beginning.
 
Another possibility:

Instead of having an app store for the :apple:TV, apple may just make more iOS apps (or Mac apps) airplay compatible for audio and video (MLB At Bat, etc). This would encourage more people to buy more apple gadgets!
 
I don't think there will be apps on it, it just doesn't have the storage.

What would be cool was, if you could use your apps on your iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, on your TV through the Apple TV.
 
Another possibility:

Instead of having an app store for the :apple:TV, apple may just make more iOS apps (or Mac apps) airplay compatible for audio and video (MLB At Bat, etc). This would encourage more people to buy more apple gadgets!

That's exactly what I was thinking at least for video and music but probably not for gaming. Using Airplay for Pandora from my iPhone to my Apple TV made me realize that it's actually better this way than a Pandora app on the Apple TV because of how easy it is to interact with the user interface directly on the iPhone and how flexible it is to send the content to my mobile device, Apple TVs, or Airport Expresses depending on where I am. This is

With Airplay, Apple's plan may be to make the Apple TV the ultimate accessory for any iOS device taking advantage of the ecosystem they've developed to give them an edge against Android, RIM, Win Phone 7, and others. Not to mention developers wouldn't have to create and update their apps for another device.

Heck, they could probably include one in the box with any iPad purchase instead of dropping the price next year.
 
I don't think there will be apps on it, it just doesn't have the storage.

What would be cool was, if you could use your apps on your iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, on your TV through the Apple TV.

Are you crazy? I've got like 20+ apps installed on my iPad and I am using less than a 1 GB of storage. You might also want to tell all of those iPhone users with only 8GB of total storage that they don't have room for apps.

Seriously?!?!
 
Are you crazy? I've got like 20+ apps installed on my iPad and I am using less than a 1 GB of storage. You might also want to tell all of those iPhone users with only 8GB of total storage that they don't have room for apps.

Seriously?!?!
You don't really know how the new Apple TV works…do you?:rolleyes:
 
Instead of an :apple:TV app store, i believe they will open up many other iOS apps to be compatible with the :apple:TV. For those of you who haven't figured it out yet, the :apple:TV is the ultimate iPad accessory. A lot of the expanded functionality of the :apple:TV going forward will be dependent upon the iPad. When the :apple:TV was released a few months back, many people were wanting Pandora on it. Without having to change the :apple:TV at all, iPad owners now have Pandora streaming to their :apple:TV's via their iPad with iOS 4.2. I believe that this will be the future model of :apple:TV. I think the future of iPad gaming will be very much linked to the :apple:TV. So, if you're an :apple:TV owner and you don't have an iPad, get yourself one.
 
I agree with most people here that the mac app store as well as the iso app stores in place will give us airplay for most apps. The mac apps will be able to stream media, but for gaming you will need a touch screen device. It would be nice to see larger games stored on a mac, played on your tv and controled by your touchscreen device. This would give us the functionality of the the touch screen to play like a x-box/ps3 controller, but also use the gyro and acceliromator like a wii game depending on the program running. Just think of games that combined the two functionalities for game play. As I see it the Ipad will have its usefulness but for swinging a device around in a game I would rather use an Ipod touch incase it slips, and smaller for one handed activity.

As for the 8 gig of flash memory, it would be able to support apps, but more likely when apple is ready to move into the 3D world we will need that space to buffer the larger amounts of data.

I think the functionality will be there, it is the tv networks and apple to see this as a real solution, not to mention game developers and app developers to see this functionality.
 
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You don't really know how the new Apple TV works…do you?:rolleyes:

When the new Apple TV launched, Apple's PR people went to great lengths to explain to journalists that the new Apple TV had enough memory to buffer two full HD downloads from the iTunes Store and a little more.

Then, Jobs tells Bloomberg that Apple could do for TV what they did for phones by creating an App Store for the TV.

"What Jobs didn't say is that Apple wants to become king of the living room. He tells Bloomberg Businessweek that when the time is right, Apple could open an App Store for the TV that could do for television sets what all those apps have done for the iPhone."

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_37/b4194030216774.htm

The amount of flash memory in the new Apple TV is enormous compared to other streaming devices like the Roku. Even the low-end model of Microsoft's XBOX 360 only offers 4GB and that includes room for game saves and downloadable content.

If Roku can offer an App Store, Apple sure as hell can.

How much more confirmation do you need that apps are coming at some point? Apple TV even shows up in the Xcode beta (although you obviously can't do anything with it yet).

An App Store is coming --- probably next summer.
 
Good luck with that.
You're being unfairly dismissive of a well-reasoned argument.

I have to agree with him. An App Store for Apple TV is definitely coming. Otherwise, new architecture aside, there was no strong case for switching Apple TV to iOS.

When, and what type of apps Apple will allow are the only questions. Nearly all of the apps people will want on Apple TV will be for third-party video content.

The tight reigns Apple holds on the iOS platform means they can control how big apps are. Irrespective of that, most of them will only need to stream H.264 files (DRM or no) from a server, with basic authentication. You're talking a few paltry megabytes for most apps, if they are programmed well and make use of hooks Apple make available.

In fact, there already are apps on there. YouTube, Flickr and Netflix. iPhone had selected third-party (Google) apps on there when it launched, too - and look what happened later.
 
If the ATV ends up getting a comprehensive App Store, 8GB of local storage will be a limitation.

Sure, most apps written to date have been relatively small, but I just finished downloading RageHD for my iPad which weighed in at 750MB. This is a sign of things to come, as developers starting writing some serious applications and games for iOS.

However, don't forget that the ATV has a micro-USB port, which means that we are only a firmware update away from allowing terabytes of local storage via external hard drives.

I think that Apple will have to enable this if they go down the path of apps run locally on the ATV.

However, as others have pointed out, maybe Apple is going to go down the thin-client path with apps the same way they have with media, with the apps stored locally on another device (iPhone, iPad or PC) and "streamed" to the ATV.

The third option that no-one has really talked about is the cloud. Does anyone think that those massive data centres that Apple are building in North Carolina will be where our ATV apps are stored, and that we won't ever have to "download" anything to the ATV locally?
 
I am not sure what it means but after looking at the tear downs of the atv, they have room for a second 8 gig of flash memory. This may be a feature they will put in when/if they put out an app store.
 
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