Last week, Apple started shipping the first major redesign of Apple TV to giddy nerds around the globe. Their new black box is a strange beast, shifting functionality to focus on a streaming-only video service through iTunes and restricting purchase of movie and TV show content to rentals only, while simplifying the hardware. What we've ended up with is a startlingly small unit that will slot transparently into any home theatre setup and perform a short list of A/V tasks with all the competency and style we expect from an Apple product. But its overall usefulness (beyond nudging you to spend more money on iTunes Store content) is up for debate. Let's delve a little deeper into whether this new design marks an overall positive or negative change from Apple.Apple TV v2 still plays your iTunes music, movies and photos over your local network, but this time, there's no syncing. The lack of local storage and syncing is a move which Apple sees as progressive. The device still works best with content you've bought on iTunes; still no DivX support folks, and don't hold your breath. There's no incentive for Apple to support formats it can't make money out of.The previous generation Apple TV had the same restrictions in terms of codec support for non-iTunes video content, but the hacking community found ways to make it more useful with great platforms like XBMC and Boxee made available after applying simple patchstick hacks. These took a while to surface, but it's now possible to download open source code to any USB stick and power on your (previous generation) Apple TV with the stick inserted to quickly enable a host of impressive apps, thanks to its familiar Mac OS X underpinnings. These hacks enable wider codec support, direct access to NAS devices, connection of USB2 external HDDs and many other perks that aren't available out of the box. Many great mods are on their way to the new Apple TV I'm sure, but we'll have to wait until the jailbreak community regroups and starts producing quality content before we can partake of its fully unlocked goodness.
If it seems strange for me to jump straight to hacking options, I only do so because Apple TV becomes a far more useful device when you open it up to the world of XBMC and other hack-only media centre software (in my opinion). Unmodified, it's just too limited in terms of codec support for some users. Let's take a look at the main changes to Apple TV and whether they help or hinder the average user.
Step Forward: Design
Apple TV v1 was a very attractive unit. Though the new Apple TV looks in no way similar, the same can still be said. It's a shockingly small, simple and elegant design, fitting easily in the grasp of one hand and showing nothing on its front or top panels except a shallowly embossed Apple TV logo. It instantly makes the first gen Apple TV look bloated and outdated, especially considering it's capable of (almost all) the same tasks. Its more efficient innards also make it far cooler to the touch while running, which any owner of the previous model will tell you was an issue during video playback.
The new Apple Remote is also way ahead of its predecessor in look and feel, matching Apple's modern standard of fit and finish in unibody aluminium products. Going back to the old remote feels junky and cheap. Overall, there's no comparing the designs. The new Apple TV is a great example of Apple's famous Less Is More approach.
Step Back: No Local Storage
?iFixit's recent teardown of the new Apple TV reveals it houses 8GB of internal storage. This drive is not for local storage of movies, music or photos, but for buffering of HD video and other content, leaving plenty of headroom for (as yet unknown) future plans. It's strangely large for a streaming-only device.
The lack of real local storage means all your content will be streamed over WiFi, ethernet or the internet. While this is certainly the way of the future for media consumption, there are still situations where local storage puts streaming to shame.*Streaming of high quality images comes to mind. If you have a digital SLR camera and you store your images in full quality in iPhoto, viewing those photos over a wireless network is horribly slow and frustrating. A slideshow can be a very painful affair on devices that allow this. Of course, you can view web albums from MobileMe and Flickr on Apple TV and get whatever performance your internet connection affords you, but it was nice to be able to have your whole iPhoto library always in sync with the big screen in your lounge room, no matter what resolutions that library contained. I'll miss this feature from the previous model.*It was also nice to have your iTunes Music library fully synced for local playback. As well as being more reliable, it didn't depend on your host computer being powered on for playback.
Step Forward: iOS
A quick look at the firmware file for the new Apple TV quickly reveals its iOS origins (by its*".ipsw"*file extension). You'd be forgiven for not noticing this huge software change on powering up your new shiny, as the UI does little to show off its revamped OS beyond the rearrangement of a few menu items.
The move to iOS has made Apple TV v2 a much snappier device, both in navigation of menus and launching of content. This is no surprise, as iOS is designed for the kind of mobile-tier hardware found in Apple TV. Much more suitable than the stripped down version of Mac OS 10.4 used previously.
The familiarity of iOS to developers around the world will also make it a hit for jailbreakers in the future.
Step Back: No Purchases
If you're someone who likes to rewatch favourites, this is a major downside to the new Apple TV. You can't actually purchase permanent licenses for media. Not TV shows, not movies. You get 30 days in total to watch the rented content, but once you start watching an episode or film, you have 48 hours before it expires (24 hours for those in the U.S.).
The rental-only model is certainly cheap enough (based on equivalent app pricing, $1.29 per episode once some content hits Oz), but when you love your Battlestar Galactica enough to watch the whole series three or four times, it could quickly become just as expensive as buying it in the first place. I was hoping for the ability to buy a permanent streaming-only license for TV shows and films at this price. It might sound a bit much to ask for, but when services like Hulu have been offering recent episodes of pupular TV shows in high quality for free, it's surely not beyond the realms of possibility.
Apple can only twist the arms of content providers so much, it seems. They don't all seem particularly interested in making money. If the situation stank less and I had access to more content at a better price, I'm one consumer who'd be purchasing content legitimately, just like I have been with music since iTunes audio went DRM-free and bumped up the standard bit rate to 256Kbps. I'm happy to pay for digital content when the experience of legitimacy is superior to the experience of illegitimacy. Right now, that's just not the case for video.
Step Forward: AirPlay
This is probably the most significant forward step for Apple TV v2. Airplay is the ultimate answer to peoples' long-lingering question "I have media X on device Y and I just wanna play it on this other thing! Why is that so hard?!" Forty years ago we landed on the moon, and it's taken us this long to come up with an elegant solution, sheez. But it's finally here, and it's awesome.
From iOS 4.2 onward on 'regular' iOS devices, the new AirPlay button will be visible in media apps for those times when you have other iOS devices floating around capable of playing the same content. It allows you to effectively 'push' the movie or song to another device. It's perfect for those times when you've purchased content on one device and want to quickly view it on your Apple TV, or even when you're watching a YouTube clip with some friends and it quickly becomes obvious that it would go well on the big screen. For the former example, I remember a snarky request from a woman at the D8 conference this year addressing Steve Jobs directly, which will be solved by this feature (she'd bought a film on her iPad and wasn't able to use the analog video out to watch it on her HDTV [thanks to DRM] and wanted a solution). She echoed the sentiment of many who rightly hate DRM's restrictions, and AirPlay is a huge step forward.
Check out this clip for a demo of AirPlay in action. Soon it will be on nearly every Apple device and I'm envisioning it being a feature to sway many an Apple outsider.
Step Back: No Analog Audio Or Video
I know, there's only so much room on the back of that tiny black box. But no RCA audio or component video outputs? That assumes an all-digital home theatre, which many don't have.*Personally, I have a gorgeous Yamaha receiver I have no interest in replacing, but it's hardly a newey. It's*pre-optical and my only input option is analog. It's possible to run HDMI from Apple TV into your TV then run analog out of your TV into your receiver in this situation, but it's far from ideal.
We shouldn't be surprised by this move, though, as Apple has never been afraid of dropping old formats! Goodbye, little red and white friends
Step Forward: Price
$129 is dirt cheap for a device like Apple TV. I don't imagine Apple are making much money from the unit, but they do have a much more viable go to market strategy for their iTunes Store content now.
Apple TV was never expensive, but at $329 the previous model was expensive enough to take a decent chunk out of what it would cost to throw a dedicated home theatre PC together, or pick up a cheap Mac Mini. At that price, reasonable as it was, I always held back from Apple TV, as the other more powerful and flexible options were attractive to me. The new price point is so cheap I can see myself quickly buying another one to throw in a second room with a small HDTV - to extend my media to the bedroom, for example. It's great to see Apple being so aggressive with their pricing.
Sidestep: Still 720p
The fact that Apple TV is still limited to 720p shocked many an Apple fan on the device's announcement. When you consider that HD content in iTunes comes in 720p only, though, it's hardly a surprise that Apple aren't too fussed about higher resolutions. I personally have no feelings either way, as my main tv only displays 720p. But most owners of newer HDTVs have gone straight to 1080p, and will be somewhat disappointed with this. I do feel the sentiment.
I'd say that when iTunes Store content goes full HD, the Apple TV will be right behind it with a 1080p-capable upgrade. If we're really lucky, we'll get something 1080p-capable before then (like when the successor to the A4 chip makes its way into Apple devices), but until then, 720p is hardly ugly. If you have a PS3 or Xbox 360, most of the games you play are running at 720p anyway, whether you realise it or not.
A Promising Future For Jailbreakers
The great thing about Apple TV v2 is that it's a clean slate. Now that Apple is done replicating the existing interface with a chewy new iOS core, it can start building on what's already a great platform. And while they're at it, hackers the world over will be finding new ways to exploit its new (and again familiar) underpinnings. If jailbreaking an Apple TV is as easy as jailbreaking an iPhone (which I still haven't had a good enough reason to do) it will become a very popular platform for hackers and media centre junkies.
I'm expecting to see some quality hack-only media centre software within a couple of months. Even if it's just a good client for a Plex server running somewhere else in your house, that's a great start, but it'll be very interesting to see what complete solutions (ā la XBMC) come out in future. It's really the skinning options, scrapers, customisation and automation of good HTPC software that makes it so attractive. When that functionality arrives, I'll be hopping off to the local Apple store to pick up a second box.
Which To Buy Right Now
As it stands today, I'd argue that the first generation Apple TV may be the most useful of the two versions considering the extended home media capabilities of hacked units (which will be matched over time on the new version) and the local storage offered. This will vary depending on user needs and the strength and reliability of your network. AirPlay will likely be cool enough to sway many to an insta-buy to the redesign.
When there's a mature and active jailbreak community for Apple TV v2, the game will change. At that stage, I'll be the happier owner of two of Apple's hobby boxes. Until then, I'm happy to stay a generation behind. For some people, Apple TV v2 will be just perfect. If you're a heavy purchaser of iTunes store content, it's a no-brainer. But if you have a rich variety of digital media in various formats, you may want to pick up a previous-gen model while they're on sale or wait for the jailbreak community to gain some momentum on v2. Either way, hats off to Apple for another great design. When you look at it as something designed to extend the iTunes experience (which is exactly what it is), it's a big winner.
Apple TV v2 - Stepping Forward or Stepping Back?