Apple TVApril 18, 2013

My Apple TV Wish List

Ian Garstang

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As my 2 year old daughter Lucy piroets around the living room with pink umbrella in hand, singing along with Gene Kelly in ‘Singing in the rain’, I can’t help but think how Apple TV is fast becoming a part of my everyday life.

What started as a video rental service is now a family photo album through Flickr, an on demand TV channel through Netflix, music radio and purveyor of lots of distraction material (YouTube).

More and more, my family reach for the mini brushed metal remote more frequently than they do the Sky or Xbox remotes. The battle of the remotes is slowy being won by the Apple TV and if I was to offer suggestions on how to win this digital war I would suggest the following:

Longer rental times

This one is an easy one. Short rental times were for the old fashioned video shop model as they needed to rent out the same video/DVD in order to get the return on investment. Ultimately it led to places like Blockbuster having shelves and shelves of the same DVD and little else. In the digital world, the Apple Store doesn’t need the film back in order to re-rent it. I have two small children and so I sometimes need more than 48 hours to watch a movie. As I am paying £3.50/£4 per rental (which is one third or even half of the cost to purchase the movie) it would be great to have it for 5 days so I do not panic everytime I want to rent a film. I am sure that an extension to this timeframe would make it easier for people like me to make the descision to rent.

WiFi that transmits signal to other TVs

The Apple TV already has WiFi as it connects to my iPad and iPhone but the content can only go one way. It would be great to watch my Apple TV in my kitchen and so if the content could be transmitted to another recieveer than this would be awesome.

Hard drive for storage

I have lots of Films and TV programmes that I would love to bring together in one place. If I turn on my latop and connect that I can do ‘some’ things but ultimately it would be great to send over my film (both personal and commercial) and have my entertainment in one digital hub.

Other files options for text doc, presentation, pdfs

This request is similar to above but with other file types. If people could view other files types then people could use it for showing presentations, reading brochures or reading documents.

Gaming and Bluetooth connectivity (for controllers)

With rumours buzzing around about Apple setting their sights on the games market it makes sense that the Apple TV has the ability to play the multitude of games available on the iPad. Obviously this would require a full technical rebuild and the addition of an A5 chip, bluetooth connectivity and not to mention changes to the games themselves. This would then impact the price, as well as mean that all those who have the previous versions would have to re-buy another Apple TV. But if OUYA does well it would not supprise me if App are added to the Apple TV future specification.