Not a Hobby Anymore: New Apple TV Sales Hit One Million

Apple says sales of its new, cheaper Apple TVs will hit one million this week, less than four months after Steve Jobs introduced the new version.

I don’t think that qualifies as a surprise, given that Apple knocked the price of the gadget down to $99. And it seems that Apple’s foray into your living room has gotten further than Google’s, given the latter’s disappointing reviews and pre-CES pullback.

But I’m not sure it’s a runaway success, either. Some context: Apple sold nine million iPods during the third quarter of this year. And it took the company just 28 days to sell a million iPads after its April launch. On the other hand, it took Apple nearly two years to sell its first million iPods, way back in 2003.

Apple also says its customers are now renting 400,000 TV shows and more than 150,000 movies per day from iTunes. Bear in mind that those are being watched on all of Apple’s devices, not just Apple TV. But if you’re a studio with product to push, that shouldn’t matter–a sale is a sale.

Or at least that’s Apple’s argument to the studios, which have yet to give it all the product it wants, and the prices it wants. So far only Disney and News Corp.’s Fox (News Corp. also owns this Web site) have agreed to let Apple rent TV shows for 99 cents.

http://www.marketingtactics.com/ davebarnes

Hobby. Still.
1M/Q for TV.
10M/Q for iPhone.
12M/Q for iPad.
4M/Q for Mac.
Anonymous

I have one, it’s a nice device, but has room for improvement. No support for 1080p is just bizarre in this day and age. Just for viewing photos alone would be something everyone could enjoy.

I do wonder why Apple isn’t working to embed this technology into TVs as Google is doing. Many new TVs now have these web apps for handling things like Netflix, etc. AppleTV does it better, but doesn’t do things like Facebook, etc. Airplay is the feature that sets this above the competition. There is nothing worse than watching someone trying to navigate something like YouTube on their small remote.
Anonymous

I have already used Airplay to sling 1080p content from iTunes to my AppleTV with no problem. If Apple was downscaling it somewhere in the chain, I couldn’t tell. There was nothing technically or visually that gave me an indication that that was happening.

And my >1080p resolution photo library certainly looks phenomenal as well.
Anonymous

The one million units sold is great but the rental of over 400,000 TV shows and more than 150,000 movies PER DAY from iTunes is stunning to me.

Besides Netflix, is anybody else even close to those numbers on digital rentals?
http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/ PKafka

Good question. Can’t think of any paid service that would rival that besides NFLX. Anyone else want to chime in?

Not a Hobby Anymore: New Apple TV Sales Hit One Million

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