I don’t see the point of building a massive back-collection of video content, most of which one will never watch again, as compared to something like an unlimited Netflix subscription. My hard disk space is much more valuable than that. Streaming makes much more sense in a “watch it once” scenario, whereas with music it’s more a question of battery life.

(Maybe the reason Real’s Rhapsody isn’t very popular is because people just really, really f***ing hate RealNetworks, not because streaming is inherently flawed. I mean, look how much people love Pandora.)

On a different note, it seems somewhat specious that people would rail against the Amazon Kindle’s a-la-carte sales model (most people only read each book once), when the same argument also explains why iTunes video sales are so much slower than iTunes music sales.

It just seems that iTunes video is overpriced compared to say Netflix: I can buy spend $30-50 buying each season of a show I’m going to watch only once, then have a large chunk of my hard drive used up, or burn the videos on expensive DVD-Rs. Or I could spend like $13 a month, and watch the show on Netflix. Or I could just watch it on Netflix, et al for free.

The iTunes video sales model just seems ill-suited to anything more than occasional usage, given how overpriced and storage intensive it is, and you can’t even re-download content.

While $0.99 for a song is a good deal (if you listen to your favorite song dozens of times, you’re getting a lot more than 4 minutes of entertainment out of a 4 minute song), $1.99-2.99 for something I’m only going to watch once or maybe twice seems like comparatively a very bad deal.

I find it interesting that no one has made an obvious connection to AT&T’s U-Verse IPTV service, given Apple’s existing relationship with AT&T.

AT&T’s U-Verse television essentially works with just a ethernet-connected broadband box, so it would be relatively easy for AT&T and Apple to support U-Verse content with a simple software upgrade. This would make a lot more sense than say adding CableCard to the AppleTV, which would be very much US-specific technology (CDMA iPhone?). This would also make sense given that AT&T has publicly stated that they are interested in releasing U-Verse related apps on the App Store.

On the other hand, I think Apple could easily remedy any perceived shortcomings of the AppleTV by releasing an SDK, a-la-iPhone, perhaps with USB peripheral access. This way all of the following could be added:

-optical drive via usb, possibly an official add-on (I don’t know if USB 2.0 has enough bandwidth for Blu-Ray, possibly USB 3.0 when it comes out, but that would require a hardware revision).
-Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Pandora, et al.
-U-Verse (AT&T-published App would obviously be US-only, although I could see AT&T possibly offering it in non-AT&T-landline locales)
-Bittorrent (though I’m suspicious that Apple wouldn’t let this into the App Store)
-EyeTV support for those who absolutely must have a QAM/ATSC/DVB DVR, maybe HDHomeRun if Apple doesn’t allow USB access.
-etc.,etc.

In this way Apple would be able to turn the AppleTV into a convergence device much like the iPhone, without a direct investment in each niche market on Apple’s part. Additionally, Apple could add more first-party middle-ware, like PIM/MobileMe and Safari, etc. if they saw fit.

The AppleTV’s App Store would neatly dovetail into the existing and vastly growing iPhone software market, with App developers tying in their software across the two devices, much like Apple offers their AppleTV Remote for iPhone.

Actually, I would be very surprised if Apple does not eventually offer an SDK and App Store for the AppleTV, as it would be an additional revenue stream for them, and would make the device infinitely more attractive to consumers.

(Disclaimer: I had AT&T U-Verse Television for a few months and was very impressed by it, but I ended up canceling in favor of ATSC on TiVo and Netflix Watch Instantly.)

Interesting that you wrote this article only a week before apple put out a survey asking for customer feedback on the apple tv.

Price is almost not even a factor.

There is a ton of broadcast content that’s not available on iTunes. I’d love to be able to DVR it, and then watch it on TV or dock my iPhone and transfer it directly. Even the stuff that is available on iTunes, I’d hate to have to buy it when I already get it for free via cable, but the Apple TV can’t DVR it…and my TiVo is a hassle to transfer to my iPhone. I’m sure the Apple interface would be better than the TiVo interface, and it enables me to get rid of a box in my cabinet.

Blu-ray would be a welcome addition too. The Nintendo Wii analogy doesn’t fit. First, I know a ton of people bought Playstations in part because of the ability to play DVD/Blu-ray. It helped in the decision. Secondly, the Wii *is* for playing games as stated in the article, but the Apple TV *is* for play audio/video content. It will appeal to everyone who will know that this device can play anything on your TV whether it’s from cable, DVD, Blu-ray, or downloaded from iTunes.

The open codec architecture of course enables it to play pirated content, but also enables it to play any other format…like from various video recorders and things that are legally downloaded from other sources. More importantly, opening the platform up for development would go a really long way.

The way I see this is that Apple could continue to sell a low-end Apple TV which is the Apple TV 3.0 mentioned in this article, but then also sell a higher end Apple TV that was really a Mac mini with additional features.

They could strike a deal with Comcast that was similar to the deal with AT&T, and the device becomes *very* appealing at multiple price points and feature sets.

It’s also a great time to evangelize developers for the platform.

As it stands now, Apple is competing against DVD, Blu-ray, Cable, TiVo, Netflix, Amazon, piracy, and all of the set top boxes.

Imagine how the iPod would’ve done if Apple declared the CD was dead and only enabled the iPod to play DRM tracks downloaded from iTunes.