Apple TV is on its way to buyers
Apple Inc., which changed how people listen to music with its iPod, on Wednesday launched a set-top box that it hopes will transform how people watch videos in their homes.
Apple TV enables users to wirelessly stream video and music from computers to televisions. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company said it began shipping the $299 product to customers who had pre-ordered it. The device is expected in Apple stores this week.
Apple had announced the product in September and planned to release it last month, but it delayed the launch for reasons the company would not disclose.
In trying to gain a stronger footing in the home digital entertainment market, Apple is taking on several competitors: DVD makers, cable companies and computer makers such as Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs in January called Apple TV the “DVD player for the 21st century.”
Operated by a remote control, the device lets users move movies and songs purchased at Apple’s iTunes store, as well as digital photos, to their TVs. It has a 40-gigabyte hard drive.
Some analysts were skeptical that Apple would upend the home entertainment market the same way it has dominated the digital music industry.
Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass., said it was unclear that consumers wanted to tie their computers to the television.
“I’ve never seen such a large number of products chasing such a tenuous benefit,” he said.
Others lauded the new product. “They are going to do to DVD players what they did to portable disc players,” said Tom Cullen, a co-founder and vice president of Sonos, a Santa Barbara company that sells a high-end digital music player for the home.
“Apple is going to change this world,” Cullen said. “They will deliver a complete product for the digital home.”
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