Editorial

Editorial - Apple TV Descending from Hobby to Fixit Project

Friday, September 12th, 2008 at 4:50 PM - by

One of the Apple TV's strengths is that it's based on Mac OS X. However, that's also proving to be a weakness as well. Consumer electronics boxes in the living room must live up to a higher quality standard than a Macintosh computer.

After I installed iTunes 8, I noticed that the two TV shows I purchased on the Apple TV no longer synced back to my iTunes library. Worse, the "Summary" page in iTunes for the Apple TV was mostly blank and the tabs for Movies, TV Shows, Music and Podcasts were gone. Only Photos remained.


I spent some time trying to get things right again and recover the ability to sync back, but it was clear something was very wrong. I ended up restoring the Apple TV to its factory defaults and updating to version 2.1 of the OS.

After that, the Apple TV page in iTunes looked normal, and I once again had options for Automatic or Custom sync, etc.

Over the last few months, as I've tracked the stories about the Apple TV, it's clear that the typical remedy by Apple, when problems occur, is to refer customers to the support pages, manuals, and discussion forums. Of course, the discussion forums, more often than not, provide a cavalcade of angry customers rather than solutions.

And just today, there appears to be an issue with downloading HD TV shows. The lack of quality assurance testing for HD downloads reminded me of an old Windows Daylight Saving Time bug.

  • Is it 2:00 AM?
  • If yes, turn back the clock an hour.
  • Done.

Of course, when 2 AM rolled around again an hour later, guess what happened?

I recently attended CEDIA where I was reminded that customers in their living rooms don't want to fuss with geeky sounding check boxes with no explanations, forums, debugging, and Apple's problematic code. They just want to hit a few buttons and watch a TV show or a movie. And when something does go wrong, they want to have handy, concrete steps to fix a problem. All the sync problems I've had, and those of other users, suggests to me that the Apple TV needs to be rethought. Version 3.0 should work like a consumer electronics box and have iron clad hardware that achieves specific and modest design functions without fail.

As good as Xcode and Cocoa are, errors and time pressures will continue to seep in so long as the Apple TV is treated as a Macintosh for customers to tinker with, endlessly update and support issues are treated with, "Did you try this? Did you try that?"

Apple never says it, and their pride in customer service won't allow it, but all too often, the end message to the user seems to be: "Good night and good luck."

All my stereo components over the years have had lots of buttons, which is actually okay, and lots of design expertise folded in. The A/V receiver, the Blu-ray player, the HD TV just continue to sit there and perform. But that little white box in the middle continues to need spoon feeding.

My concern is that if Apple doesn't attend to the kinds of problems users are having with the Apple TV, other consumer electronics companies with a lot more consumer electronics design experience will pass Apple by. At CEDIA, I saw Sony, VuDu, LG and others trying to do just that and making progress.

Meanwhile, we're all just Apple TV hobbyists. Sometimes, fixup artists.

21 comments from the community.

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A guest said: (hide)

Fri Sep 12, 2008 6:01 pm

What features/benefits did you see from Sony, VuDu, LG and the others that you feel Apple needs to incorporate into their box? You did not say.

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marcsten said:

member since 01 Jun 2004 with 17 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Sep 12, 2008 7:14 pm

The reality is that you are expecting bleeding edge technology to be as reliable as much more mature technologies. Come on - you can't compare it to a stereo receiver. 99% of the tech in that thing is decades old. And as for Blu-Ray, which I love and use daily, how often are you called upon to download a firmware update just so you can watch a movie? Once a month or so?

Its the price you pay to be out front. If you think the companies you name will be able to put out products that require less, I'll bet you are wrong.

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Intruder said:

member since 07 Jul 2004 with 3143 posts, TMO Mac Specialist, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Sep 12, 2008 7:52 pm

marcsten wrote:
Come on - you can't compare it to a stereo receiver. 99% of the tech in that thing is decades old.

Or older

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j.martellaro said:

member since 07 Dec 2006 with 96 posts, TMO Staff, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Sep 12, 2008 8:06 pm

It's simply not true that a modern Denon A/V receiver uses technology that is decades old. It has HDMI (1.3) in/out. It has chips to handle advanced sound formats like Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD. It as a Faroudja video processing and scaling chip. It has an iPod port. It has Ethernet and Internet radio The list goes on and on.

-J.M.

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A guest said: (hide)

Fri Sep 12, 2008 9:57 pm

Strange. I had none of the problems you mention. I wonder what percentage of users saw your issues?

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deasys said:

member since 08 Apr 2003 with 294 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Sat Sep 13, 2008 12:58 am

No problems here after the update either.

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A guest said: (hide)

Sat Sep 13, 2008 9:41 am

No problems here!!

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A guest said: (hide)

Sat Sep 13, 2008 10:01 am

My Apple TV just works. I love it. HD downloads take a little longer, but look GREAT!

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A guest said: (hide)

Sat Sep 13, 2008 10:23 am

JM said:

"One of the Apple TV's strengths is that it's based on Mac OS X. However, that's also proving to be a weakness as well. Consumer electronics boxes in the living room must live up to a higher quality standard than a Macintosh computer."

Funny, but I've had more problems with my A/V gear than with any piece of OSX hardware - including Apple TV. It's been working fine since day one, more than a year ago. Not a weakness in my mind.

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A guest said: (hide)

Sat Sep 13, 2008 10:36 am

I tried to down load my first movie (which happened to be HD) it chashed after only 2% download, tried several things, even got Apple tech support to help...no luck, I thought it may have been that I tried to down load during the day when the family was active on the internet etc. so I tried redownloading at 10PM last nite..I just checked now at 7:30 AM the next day and it says only 14% has down loaded! We have the fastest Charter cable package offered in our area. I am continuing our Netflex by mail, it's a three day turn around by you can also watch the "behind the scenes. I'l wait for you guys to get the bugs out.

Guest wrote:
Strange. I had none of the problems you mention. I wonder what percentage of users saw your issues?

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A guest said: (hide)

Sat Sep 13, 2008 4:16 pm

"The lack of quality assurance testing for HD downloads reminded me of an old Windows Daylight Saving Time bug. Is it 2:00 AM? If yes, turn back the clock an hour. Done. Of course, when midnight rolled around again an hour later, guess what happened?"

Must have been a hardware bug if 2:00 AM - 1 hour = 11 PM.

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fartheststar said:

member since 04 Jan 2004 with 222 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Sat Sep 13, 2008 10:37 pm

I want to jump in and get an Apple TV, but I think I'll wait until 3.0 in case the hardware is upgraded for that release.

I have set myself a timeline - end of January at the latest - I will get an Apple TV (So I hope they come out with an update by then), due to the next season of Lost starting. Due to the switch from Analog to Digital in the USA I'm betting they'll have an update before I need to buy the device.

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A guest said: (hide)

Sun Sep 14, 2008 8:50 am

While it is true that most people don't want to deal with something like this with a consumer device, this kind of stuff is unfortunately a reality as devices become more complex.

Last week I had to install a firmware update to my Phillips LCD TV. This entailed getting the update online, putting it on a USB flash drive, and installing via the USB port on the TV. The only reason I was even aware of this is because I am a tech geek and I know that this may need to be done, and went looking for an update on the Phillips website. It would absolutely never occur to a consumer that a TV set would need a software update.

At lease AppleTV can be auto updated to push out updates as needed.

Having said that, Apple should work on the quality of recent software. Apple gets a premium for their products because they "just work".

They can't afford to spoil their reputation because of poor quality control.

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A guest said: (hide)

Sun Sep 14, 2008 1:29 pm

I have an Apple TV, and while I agree that Apple could do more with the thing, I find it quite useful. Unlike my old DVD player that won't play anything HD (forcing me to buy yet another new box) or my receiver that has HDMI 1 but not 1.2 or 1.3, or my friend's HD-DVD player that is a boat anchor, the Apple TV is upgradable -- it is dynamic. The features expand, and, although I have to tinker a bit (not much, either), I haven't spent any more money since I bought the thing (other than on downloaded movies). This is the wave of the future. I'm tired of buying stuff that is obsolete immediately. Is the Apple TV perfect? No. But it's quite good. A recent review in Stereophile (or maybe Absolute Sound) highly recommended it for a music source. I couldn't agree more. Feed the digital out into a really good DAC, and you have a wonderful music server or disk-based music source that can please even the pickiest of listeners, so long as the music is fed to the device lossless or uncompressed.

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algr said:

member since 07 Aug 2003 with 296 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Sun Sep 14, 2008 2:17 pm

"It's simply not true that a modern Denon A/V receiver uses technology that is decades old. It has HDMI (1.3) in/out. "

Be careful! I am aware of several stereos that have HDMI ports, but are unable to play the audio within the HDMI! All they can do is pass the signal to the TV like an A/B switch! I helped someone set up his stereo and this flaw led to a rats nest of idiotic signal routing and remote control problems. The only workable solution we could find was to connect the 50" flatscreen TV's 1/8" headphone jack backwards into the stereo! So much for digital quality!

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A guest said: (hide)

Sun Sep 14, 2008 3:31 pm

Apple TV is a hobby as described by Jobs himself. Clearly it has become the type of hobby like an old stamp collecting book waaaay in the back of your closet. I own two Apple TVs in my house and I try desperately to use them daily and get fiercely frustrated all the time and have to stop and give up many times. The Apple Tv is truly Apple's worst product. What makes it so totally frustrating is that it has such potential to be a truly useful device.

I have written many notes to Apple, including their executives on how truly bad this product is in its present form. So far no answers. In its preset form, the Apple TV is an embarrassment to a company that usually makes great products. Apple should either KILL it of FIX it. Leaving it in the back of a dirty cluttered closet helps no one. I doubt they sell many. I could not recommend an Apple TV to anyone, even though I own two of them.

Apple should at least fix it so it works well with its present feature set. But month after month no updates. The Apple TV is the red-headed step child at Apple. They seem to care less. Imagine the opportunity Apple is losing with the possible tie ins with iPhone and iPod touch. If they are not interested in developing it further or lack the time and resources how about an SDK to allow outside developers create something from Steve Jobs' hobby.

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A guest said: (hide)

Sun Sep 14, 2008 7:53 pm

I'm curious, what are the Apple TV features don't work as advertised? Regarding iPhone integration, there's already remote.app on the AppStore which is pretty much all you could wish for.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Sep 15, 2008 1:22 am

I have 2 AppleTV's also and they both work like a charm...

I start watching a movie on my train ride home, get home and dock my iPhone, watch the rest of the movie from my AppleTV (no fast forwarding required, the movie starts playing from where my iPhone left off!) I can then pause the movie in the living room, walk down to my bedroom and finish the movie off there! Works flawlessly and even my gf can operate with her eyes basically closed!

And with the recent iPhone Remote app, things have become EVEN better!

I do hope Apple continue to upgrade the AppleTV, maybe allow for a more customisable home screen, would LOVE to have the weather and current news being displayed, but... the AppleTV perfectly serves the task that I purchased it for!

- Tristan

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spudgeek said:

member since 18 Mar 2008 with 6 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Sep 15, 2008 9:19 am

Guest wrote:
...the Apple TV is an embarrassment to a company that usually makes great products. Apple should either KILL it of FIX it. Leaving it in the back of a dirty cluttered closet helps no one. I doubt they sell many. I could not recommend an Apple TV to anyone, even though I own two of them.

You didn't explain what problems you were actually having. I have two Apple TVs also and they are the highlight of our entertainment technology for every visitor. I have an occasional problem now and then like a rare system crash for example but it has always recovered. I'd like to be able to put movies into folders or playlists or tag them somehow so I could filter my large movie collection (same for TV Shows), otherwise the device is a marvel.

I have a young family, and we don't have a DVD player. We burn our DVDs to iTunes so the kids (2 & 4) choose what they want to play without grubbing up or scratching discs. My 4 year old has complete control of navigating through the movies and TV Shows and does so on the Apple TVs and our iMac using Front Row). The Apple Remotes are simple and easy to use for those small hands.

We buy and rent movies occasionally and the Apple HD quality is superb, surpassing Comcast HD and regular DVD. We have our complete music collection (4000 songs) and photo collection (10,000) on an iMac synched to both Apple TVs. When we listen to music on the Apple TVs, our photos float by at random selection so we see photos that we would otherwise never look at (a personal favorite yet unadvertised feature). Sharing photos with family and friends on a 50" plasma with background music on the Apple TV is second to none. The YouTube interface is also a big plus with the Apple TV.

I bought my first Apple TV before YouTube, Movie Rentals, and direct purchase from iTunes were features - these came as free upgrades... I've never had that on a regular consumer device before!

For the price, the Apple TV is rich with features, the alternatives are lacking with like-features, quality, and ease of use. There are a growing list of alternatives but they do not replace all Apple TV features. The Apple TV has a present market with plenty of opportunity for the future. I hope the Apple TV matures to include DVR functionality and subscription-based licensing through iTunes for Movies and TV shows.

Keep up the good work Apple... hope to see revisions soon

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stens said:

member since 20 Jan 2005 with 13 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Sep 15, 2008 11:38 am

I've had no issues with my Apple TV (coincidentally, also playing via a Denon receiver -- which is a sophisticated bit of tech itself), since upgrading to iTunes 8.

I can understand frustration when these devices don't work, as I do agree that these things should just work.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Sep 15, 2008 1:27 pm

All that happened here was that somehow the identity of his iTunes got botched. This happened to my father-in-law even in itunes 7.

The reason the shows wouldn't sync back to his computer and his itunes only showed the Photo tab is because the AppleTV no longer saw his computer as the Main Sync itunes but as one of the 5 extra Stream Only itunes libraries. All he had to do is to go to the AppleTV's "computer" menu and unlink his Main Sync computer and then redo the Main Sync setup. True it would then have to re-copy all his data over but that is much easier than completely restoring the AppleTV.

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