Johnny
Premium
join:2001-06-27
Atlanta, GA
 ·Comcast
| reply to thender2
Re: Do it right the first time
The target market doesn't care about quality, freedom of use, have a brain, can't walk and chew gum at the same time, etc. I don't buy it. I don't believe joe blow can't put an avi file in a folder titled "video" or whatever the appletv uses, just as easily as he can a .mp4 or .mkv.
It's not that he can't - after all, he can be taught to run 8 different antivirus products on Windows... but he doesn't want to. He wants to take his existing iTunes, and iPhoto (or PC equiv), which now 100 million people have, and watch it on the TV. That's all. He doesn't know DivX from Shinola. He doesn't even know what MPEG-4 or H.264 is, but he knows there are files that play on his iPod, and he knows they come from iTunes. And he knows that the files on iTunes come from either his purchased CDs or the iTunes Store. He doesn't want to mess with folders or file extensions - just choose it from the databases that iTunes and iPhoto keep.
The Apple TV can be easily modified to play those other codecs, for those who want to.
As far as marketing, Apple is leveraging the iPod and iTunes installed base of 100 million to try and make the Apple TV the easy-to-use choice for living room viewing. Six buttons on the remote, not 40. Music, Photos, Movies, TV Shows, Trailers, not a huge confusing selection of different video types. No menu items or buttons for little-used or geek-only functions cluttering up the works. Same Front Row interface already used on all Intel Macs except the Mac Pro.
Simplicity of the interface is what made the iPod the overwhelming success that it is. They are trying to leverage that. They know that the competitors already have, or are going to be coming out with similar items. They are relying on word of mouth to make the Apple TV the product of choice due to ease-of-use. Note that the voice recorder, FM radio, etc. did nothing to help other mp3 players beat the iPod. It's because their interfaces still sucked. |
