The pace picks up – here come movies and iOS
hough sales in the Apple TV’s initial period were reasonable, it took less than a year for Apple to rethink the whole concept. Apple TV Software 2.0 – cunningly subtitled ‘Take Two’ – was revealed by an uncharacteristically humble Steve Jobs during the company’s keynote at the 2008 Macworld Expo. “We’ve all tried to figure out how to do movies,” he said. “And you know what? We’ve all missed. No one has succeeded yet. We tried with Apple TV. Apple TV was designed to be an accessory for iTunes and your computer. It’s not what people wanted. We learned what people really wanted was movies… And we weren’t delivering that.
So we’re back with Apple TV take two.”
The new software ditched the Front Row-esque interface, replacing it with a more bespoke look, and removed the requirement for a separate computer; iTunes content could be downloaded (and, indeed, rented or purchased) in newlylaunched HD format directly on the device, direct access was available to YouTube, and functionality was added for podcasts and Flickr photo downloads. Sales tripled year-on-year, and tripled again by the launch of the 3.0 software in October 2009; a reshuffled, content-forward home screen aped the design language of iOS. Less than a year later, with home broadband speeds rising, high-speed Wi-Fi more common, and the widespread rollout of HDTV almost complete, Apple TV took the next step. Sort of.
The second-generation Apple TV ditched its reskinned Mac OS X for a near-identical interface built on top of iOS 4.1, and swapped its Intel CPU for a far less power-hungry Apple A4 ARM processor. It threw away the internal hard drive, which had been made redundant by the changed focus on streaming media, replacing it with 8GB
flash. The archaic analogue outputs were gone, in favour of a streamlined all-digital interface, and the plastic Apple remote of the first gen was switched out for a far sleeker aluminium version.
Sales soared, with the more modern take on the Apple TV far more satisfying than its predecessor, now supporting services like Netflix (and features like AirPlay which, in context, look like something of a throwback) for the first time. Yes, it was certainly simpler than that original idea, but it was beginning to define what the Apple TV would become. There were downsides, though: the second-generation Apple TV was locked to 720p playback, for example. While the interface could display in 1080i or 1080p, its content could not.
The third generation, gifted an upgraded A5 chip, launched alongside iTunes’ upgrade to 1080p content in 2012, and brought Full HD to the Apple TV – though it allowed you the option to scale back the streaming resolution if broadband connections wouldn’t allow. A interface update, incorporating iOS-style icons and a Cover Flow-esque view dropped with it. And despite being one of the most significant upgrades the Apple TV had ever had, it was very much an ‘oh, yeah’ moment dropped in by now-CEO Tim Cook at a March special event keynote.
The Apple TV worked better than ever, it was driving iTunes sales – but given that the newlyRetina iPad, the by-now-ubiquitous iPhone, and a string of new Macs were swallowing up the headlines, the Apple TV remained that hobby product, a fourth-stringer treated almost as an afterthought. But its star was rising almost as fast as its sales, and the next iteration would see Apple TV finding its groove.