Apple unveils the all-new Apple TV with Siri Remote, tvOS, and Apple TV App Store

Mac Daily News ^ | Wednesday, September 9, 2015

[Swordmaker]

Stock fell. After hours not looking good either. Hmm..

After hours was all over the place. High was 114, low was 107. It's churning. Trading numbers are low. When that happens, small trades at odd prices get some strange figures listed.

[Eaker]

most people just, you know, watch TV.

Well put. That is all I need mine for and I don't need my TV to bond with my toaster either.

[bolobaby]

Omigod. The iPencil can sense WIDTH??? Why didn’t you say so earlier! Device of the year award is on its way! Now I will need to order a case of these!

*snicker*

Dude. You’re embarrassing yourself again. I get it. Your church’s big event served up lemons and you are desperately trying to make lemonade.

[Swordmaker]

So, why should I invest hundreds/thousands of dollars (?) to replace my $49 Roku device that delivers all my NetFlix and Hulu content today?

Huh? Apple TV is $149 for the 64GB version and $199 for the 128GB version. Where do you get "hundreds/thousands of dollars" to replace your $49 Roku device? Who told you Apple TV was so expensive?

Oh, and the Apple "Pencil" ... I remember Steve Jobs saying if Apple ever delivered a device with a stylus to run the other way. Heresy! (Before I go further, I really could use a fine point stylus for my iPad mini. Getting my old, fat, arthritic fingers to press any "button" on its screen is an exercise in futility.)

You are misunderstanding what Steve Jobs was talking about. At the time Steve was making that comment most touch screen phones REQUIRED a stylus to accurately tick off boxes or make a selection on the tiny screen to even work. The screens were all RESISTANCE screens and not very accurate at all. A stylus was necessary to make choices on those screens. Styli were easily lost. . . at which point the screen was effectively useless. Steve pointed out that we ALWAYS had our fingers with us and they could not be lost, dropped, or fumbled.

The Apple Pencil shown today is a specialized ELECTRONIC tool which interacts with the iPad Pro and facilitates drawing specialized artwork lines with style and grace, something a dead stick stylus cannot do. For instance, the Apple Pencil makes doing Calligraphy easy, because controlling the flow and width of the line is dead easy with the Apple Pencil, where it is not with ta stylus that can only turn on pixels it actually touches.

This entire picture was drawn using the Apple Pencil.
Each line is a single stroke, drawn by changing angle and pressure.
None of this can be done by using a mere stylus.

[usconservative]

Huh? Apple TV is $149 for the 64GB version and $199 for the 128GB version. Where do you get "hundreds/thousands of dollars" to replace your $49 Roku device? Who told you Apple TV was so expensive?

Thus my (?) after "hundreds/thousands" of dollars. Ok, "thousands" was a gross exaggeration so let's stick to the comparison of a $49 Roku device vs. either the 128GB or 64GB version of the Apple TV device.

I think my question's valid: what makes the Apple device superior to something like the Roku or Western Digital devices that also stream content? As with any product launch in which one wants consumers to choose their brand vs. the competitors there has to be a distinguishing characteristic or feature set that the Apple device has that other devices (Roku, Western Digital, Sling, others..) do not have.

I'm just curious to know what the difference is. If it delivers features & functionality that I like, but do not have in my Roku device I'd consider switching.

It really is just that simple.

< And yes, you're right on the Steve Jobs quote.

When I was at the Ad Agency, we often joked that our creative media people (the creative heads that did the art work, conceptual work, etc..) lost their "edge" once they asked for Mac devices to do their work on rather than pencils and sketch paper to do the conceptual work.

I'd give anything to be a fly on the wall in those creative meetings today when the "Pencil" was introduced. I'd bet dollars to donuts that purchase requests for the Apple "Pencil" were flying left and right there today.

[Swordmaker]

Someone on this thread hinted at Apple using old tech to deliver TV content. If you’re implying the rollout of some kind of OTA network, I can’t disagree with you there :-). I’ve always wondered why there isn’t some kind of encrypted OTA network out there that uses a decoder not unlike satellite radio. It might have to do with the available TV spectrum ... But I think there’s plenty out there still.

Not going to happen. The FCC is trying to shut down the broadcast TV industry and it will happen sooner rather than later. The bandwidth the TV signals have been using are desperately needed for other purposes than entertainment that is being used by fewer and fewer customers. As more and more people are picking up Satellite transmission from Geosynchronous orbiting satellites, and more people are getting their content from the Internet, fewer are picking it up from antennas. When it drops below a certain point, they WILL pull the plug and auction off those bands to companies who are slobbering in the wings, wanting to bid for the bandwidth being wasted on old tech.

No one is going to put any investment into developing anything that would use those wavelengths for more entertainment.

[Swordmaker]

1. Brand Loyalty. Apple knows how to cultivate their customer base and sell them things they don't even know they need yet. Straight up, that's the #1 reason.

Your number 1 reason of Brand loyalty doesn't hold water when you realize that 95% of Apple iOS buyers were non-previous owners. There is no way Brand Loyalty accounts for that. The real reason is building quality, reliable products. Do that and customers flock to your door.

In just a short eight years, iOS devices went from selling a few million in one year, to selling a grand total of almost 1.3 BILLION iOD devices worldwide. That is NOT brand loyalty. That is building products that do what they are designed to do and doing it well, in away that delighted the users so they told others.

The branding tells people to expect the best. . . and then you better make sure you follow through to provide it. That is Apple's real formula for success.

[Jane Long]

THAT is hilarious!!

[Swordmaker]

I watch 4 channels and pay for 395. If Apple can solve this problem, this concept will fly. If they can’t, it won’t.

That is exactly what Tim Cook and his staff have been trying to accomplish. Several nights a week, my girlfriend and I sit down and flip through over 500 channels and find NOTHING worth watching. . .

Cook et all are trying to get the providers to unbundle the channels so that you, my girlfriend, and I can pick those channels, or even those programs we might find interesting, and buy only THOSE we choose to watch, without having to pay for endless ESPN channels on sports I've never heard of, don't know the rules for, and could not be less interested in ever clicking on. . . not to mention the endless cartoon channels of mind-washing Global Warming dreck that has been poured into our children's heads over the past twenty years, or, worse yet, the channels of NOT-so-science on the same not-so-scientific subjects.

If Apple can do that, and there is a good probability they have the clout to do it, then it will be on Apple TV.

[Larry Lucido]

[minnesota_bound]

#4 I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and I can draw on it. Not very well as I am no artist but youtube has many people that can. I bet they wish they had that pencil.
The one that comes with the Note is S-Pen is clunky. You can buy better ones.

Here is an apple being painted using Sketchbook Pro on the Samsung Galaxy Note https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb32e4XN_1c
GALAXY Note 10.1 Official Hands-on Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_DQ_NYVoN8

Tablets will get better when they can do what pc’s can along with all those cool apps. Windows 10 is a step in the right direction and I guess Apple’s OS is too.

[Swordmaker]

Steam comes out of Tim Cook’s ears whenever he gets the weekly China/Asia sales reports

Sales in China INCREASED in the last two months. Sorry, you are wrong again, Dennis.

"Apple reported fiscal third-quarter Greater China revenue of $13.23 billion, a 112 percent gain from $6.23 billion in the year-ago period. The region (which includes Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China) saw "outstanding" results, Apple CEO Tim Cook said Tuesday, adding that the company is going "pedal to the metal" with its expansion plans there.

"We remain extremely bullish on China and we're continuing to invest," he said. "Nothing that's happened has changed our fundamental view that China will be Apple's largest market at some point in the future." CNBC — Apple doesn't have a China sales problem: Experts — July 22, 2015

[Swordmaker]

Same here, couldn’t believe that 4k wasn’t part of the update. Why surrender the market to Roku?

4K is in the iPhone 6S for video at 60 frames per second.

[Mad Dawgg]

"Amazon Fire TV has been discontinued due to problems with functionality and lackluster sales."

Ahh I see more FUD from the Head FUDster... Next-gen Amazon Fire TV (or stick) Update: As Nate points out, it’s likely that the FCC listing describes a next-gen Fire TV rather than a Fire TV Stick, since the documents mention a microSD card slot and Ethernet jack.

FCC Lists A Potential Fire TV Successor

[Swordmaker]

Hehe... OOOOOOK Swordmaker. I know you are completely ignorant to all the cool technology that is being developed and in use unless Apple releases it. For the record, my Samsung Smart TV does most of the crap you listed out and I’ve had it in the house for 18 months. The voice activated Roku was just ONE device that Apple is trying to catch up on. I have others that Apple will eventually copy, too. (Oh, and, btw - I can get these devices for half the price Apple charges.)

And your Samsung SMART TV is listening to you 24/7 (C-Net — Samsung's warning: Our Smart TVs record your living room chatter. . . "Technically Incorrect: Samsung's small print says that its Smart TV's voice recognition system will not only capture your private conversations, but also pass them onto third parties." — February 8, 2015) — even when it's turned off and transmits the conversations you are saying to Samsung's servers. Ain't it great?

Please tell us what things your Samsung has that Apple is trying to catch up on. . . that actually WORK well and reliably. PLEASE. I actually am quite well familiar with state of the art beyond Apple, bolobaby.

Why would you want the Apple Pencil. . . you obviously won't have an Apple iPad Pro nor are you much of an artist, the target artist it is intended for. . . who WILL appreciate what it can do. No, Snarky idiot, not everyone needs or wants everything Apple makes. The Apple Pencil does MORE than some artists tools for the Mac or iPad that work with some art programs that are over $700 including the software to drive them but you are just too ignorant to know anything about that. The people who USE those tools will appreciate what the Apple Pencil can do for a mere $99. Obviously philistine idiots like you who cannot see beyond the ends of their Anti-Apple hate brigade biased nostril hairs cannot even begin to make that jump of intelligent logic.

[Swordmaker]

“Right now, 69.1% of all streaming on-demand video is already sold through Apple TV.”

Pardon me. . . transposition typo. It was 61.9% of streaming content on set-top boxes. Keep in mind this is purchased video, "sold", not stolen, or free video. Apple users tend to buy their content while Android users tend to go for the "FREE" choices.

[roadcat]

I’m going to wait for my 4K Roku. Coming Soon, I think.

I have both Rokus and Apple TVs (neither is the latest just out). Roku does poorly in comparison to Apple TV. I rarely watch Roku any more, except when I get an urge to play Angry Birds on it. Borrow an Apple TV and try it, or use a friend's Apple TV and you'll see what you're missing by getting the (inferior) Roku.

[Swordmaker]

And you are just posting Apple propaganda. You doubt things you know nothing about. Just a social media troll.

Can you demonstrate that Samsung's stylus is anything but a piece of aluminum rod with a plastic tip? If so, please do so. It is NOT a live interactive electronic device at all, by any stretch of your's or bolobaby's FUD spreading imagination.

I happen to know a lot, CodeToad. . . and you guys know nothing about Apple . . . zip. Yet you post a lot of know-nothing negative FUD about it, don't you?

[Swordmaker]

I did not give you permission to put my name in your tag line, Eaker. Please remove it.

[Swordmaker]

I'm just curious to know what the difference is. If it delivers features & functionality that I like, but do not have in my Roku device I'd consider switching.

It actually does add quite a bit of functionality for Apple product users. . . and it is planned to be the hub of the connected home for Apple products in the future. As such, the price is quite reasonable. Those other devices are essentially just streaming video devices with no further function. For the major differences between the Roku 3 and the new Apple TV, I refer you to my reply 31 in this thread.

There have been so many anti-Apple hate Brigade members throwing spit wads of misinformation and trying to obfuscate what these new Apple products can actually do by comparing them to older, already on the market competition that do far less, instead of actually even looking at what Apple has publicly stated their new products ARE capable of doing. I point out the repeated efforts to denigrate Apple's new Apple Pencil, by continually calling it a stylus and ignoring what it actually can do, despite being told repeatedly the actual facts, which they repeatedly ignore.