Apple wants a chunk of your living room

THE LIVING ROOM is the technology battleground of the future, and has been for a few years now.

It is the heart of many homes, at least in the sense of it's where people plonk their behinds on a couch and veg out to music, TV or movies for much longer periods of time than is medically advised. It's where most people keep their entertainment devices: TVs, VCRs (yes, there are still plenty in use), DVD players, hi-Fis, DVRs, games consoles and, lest I forget, a drawer full of remote controls, many of which don't work anymore.

Like the World Strippers Convention, everyone wants in, but aren't exactly sure how to bypass 47 Neanderthal bouncers and scale walls. The PC has tried and tried again to breach the force-field enveloping the living room - often generated by members of the fairer sex - but with little success. Historically, it's easy to see why. It was ugly, big and noisy, not to mention far too complex a device for most people to integrate with the stuff they already had. After all, if it requires more than three button clicks after the power is on to make it work, Joe Average falls asleep due to the mental strain.

Then came Media Center PCs which, despite lots of Intel/Microsoft funding, have only partially succeeded in penetrating the living room sanctum. Sure, they are more consumer friendly but not exactly idiot-proof. The PC camp are still working on that ‘killer app'. DVRs are doing very well though because the people that make DVD players and VCRs figured how to make a new recording device, using blank discs or big hard drives, easy(ish) for most people to use. TV broadcasters like Sky have managed to dominate the set-top box market in the UK, not to mention steal a big chunk of the HDD recorder market. Let's not forget all that broadband knocking about and the start of valid, downloadable TV content. Everyone wants in because people spend more money on gadgets for the living than anywhere else. Well, almost everyone wants in.

Apple has been noticeably absent from the living room space. However, unlike the nerd overlooked for the jock party, it's less to do with being a social leper and more because Apple has had nothing on offer. Sure the iPod might control a pocket on the inside of your jacket and the forthcoming iPhone may hold a place close to your, er - anyway - but Apple's relationship with consumers is a personal one, with products designed to offer buyers some form of individuality from the consumer pack. The company though is hoping to change this in a few weeks with Apple TV. Earlier this week, it was delayed, while some last minute checks were sorted but, pretty soon £200 will buy you Apple's first true, living room device. The question is, whether it can rocket Apple into this traditionally, IT-unfriendly market space?

In short, Apple TV is a wee little box that hooks up to your TV via HDMI or component, and to your Internet broadband connection. It is then ready to stream content - wirelessly or via Ethernet - from iTunes on your PC/Mac to the TV. This can include downloaded TV shows and some high-def content, at least up to 720p. It has a 40GB drive, which is a bit wimpy, but which Apple says is good enough to store 50 hours of video at 640 x 480. It uses the faster 802.11n protocol which should make streaming video smoother. It's good if you have a newer Mac or AirPort Extreme but it's unclear how well it will work with devices using the older 802.11g protocol. There will also be some facility - albeit limited - for downloading a small amount of content directly from iTunes to the Apple TV device, bypassing the computer altogether.

This is not a virgin market though. There are a lot of network media streaming devices out there, many of which are cheaper and far better specified than Apple TV. For the more technically minded, these are already in use in certain homes but for the vast majority of normal people, streaming anything anywhere is anything but simple.

Apple TV just might have shot, thanks largely to the runaway success of the iPod and it's Siamese twin, iTunes. There are so many users out there that Apple TV is going to be snapped up by a large number of people by default. Apple will be hoping that PC owners will flock to this too. Ironically, owners of MacBooks will see little point in Apple TV since they can do much of what is being offered already. This is going to appeal to iPod owners that have, and will buy, video content from iTunes. And that's my issue with it, or, at least one of the reasons I won't be getting one. Video codec support is lousy. It will support mainly iTunes supported video formats, like H.264 and protected H.264 and MPEG-4. Where's the support for DivX, Xvid, WMA, MPEG-2 and all the rest of those hugely popular video formats?

Again, Apple seems determined to keep its customers really close or, as some would maintain, locked into iTunes. It's easy to say that Apple is missing a great opportunity, and maybe it is, but it has such a massive iPod/iTunes base to play with already that Apple TV, for all its faults, will probably fly off the shelves.

It's a pity though that despite its cleverness, it's really only a tool to help iTunes to break into a new, potential goldmine: downloadable video. To all INQ readers, would you buy one of these and if so, why? If not, why not? Let's see where the tech-savvy stand on this one. µ