March 21, 2007: Apple launches the Apple TV, a gleaming white set-top field with a distant management, for bringing iTunes media to the lounge.
Sadly, the gadget lacks key options wanted to make it a killer leisure system. It’s one thing of a missed alternative for Apple.
Apple TV builds on a strong basis
A bit like Apple’s transfer into music with the iPod and iTunes Music Retailer, producing a streaming video gadget made excellent sense. Given Apple’s historical past — and Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ Hollywood contacts, courtesy of his place as The Walt Disney Firm’s largest shareholder — the corporate appeared completely poised to straddle the high-tech and leisure worlds.
Even within the years that Jobs labored outdoors Apple, Cupertino innovated on this space. Within the Nineteen Eighties and early Nineteen Nineties, Apple pioneered software program for enjoying video on a private pc. Within the mid-Nineteen Nineties, the corporate launched the bold-but-unsuccessful Macintosh TV. That bizarre hybrid machine melded a Performa 520 Mac and a 14-inch Sony Trinitron CRT tv.
After Jobs’ return, Apple launched its enormously profitable film trailer web site, which grew to become the place to obtain high-quality teasers for motion pictures like Star Wars Episode II: Assault of the Clones, The Lord of the Rings and Spider-Man. Following this, Apple began promoting TV reveals via iTunes.
With that success within the rearview mirror, a standalone Apple TV appeared primed to take the world’s residing rooms by storm.
First have a look at Apple TV
Proper from Apple TV launch, nonetheless, it grew to become clear that the gadget wasn’t Apple’s major focus. Regardless of the corporate’s well-deserved fame for secrecy and never releasing merchandise till completely prepared, Cupertino confirmed off Apple TV as a piece in progress at a particular occasion on September 12, 2006. (The corporate initially referred to the gadget because the “iTV,” however modified the title later after authorized threats from the British broadcaster of the identical title.)
Apple didn’t begin delivery Apple TV items till March 21 the next 12 months, nonetheless. By that point, any pleasure had been eclipsed by a bit of gadget known as the iPhone.
In contrast, the first-gen Apple TV wasn’t a revolutionary product a lot as a Mac accent for slinging downloaded content material to your TV. Initially, house owners couldn’t order a film for Apple TV immediately via their TV units, regardless of the gadget’s web connectivity. As a substitute, customers needed to obtain motion pictures to their Macs, then ship them to their Apple TVs.
Worse, regardless of insisting that you just personal an HDTV to make use of it, the video performed by Apple TV was, within the phrases of Fortune‘s evaluation, “so low-res that it appears to be like as fuzzy as plain outdated broadcast TV.”
Apple works to enhance its set-top field
Apple rapidly improved the Apple TV interface. On January 15, 2008, a serious software program replace reworked the gadget right into a stand-alone gadget. Lastly, Apple TV house owners not wanted a pc working iTunes to stream and sync content material to it.
A later replace let clients use their iPhones, iPods and iPads as distant controls for Apple TV. And subsequent variations of the set-top field continued to move in the appropriate route.
For essentially the most half, although, observers initially known as the Apple TV launch a uncommon “miss” for Apple. Throughout the gadget’s first six months, Apple offered solely 250,000 Apple TV items. Even Jobs admitted the product was extra “a passion” than a critical endeavor.
By late 2008, Forbes known as it a notable misstep — and labeled it “The iFlop.”
Later variations of Apple TV
A second-generation Apple TV, launched in September 2010, sported a a lot smaller black enclosure and supported video as much as 720p decision. The third-gen mannequin, which arrived in March 2012, regarded the identical as its predecessor however bumped up video decision to 1080p (and added HomeKit assist for house automation).
The fourth-gen Apple TV added key options in 2015, together with an App Retailer and Siri voice instructions. Plus, it ran on a brand new working system, dubbed tvOS, which was primarily based on iOS.
It additionally got here with a glossy, touch-sensitive distant management that regarded nice however infuriated many customers. Two years later, the Apple TV 4K boosted the gadget’s video capabilities and made the distant barely extra user-friendly.
With the launch of the Apple TV+ streaming service in late 2019, Cupertino lastly could have cracked the tv system. And in 2021, the sixth-gen Apple TV 4K arrived, upgraded with a speedier A14 chip and a redesigned Siri Distant.
