What Is Apple Tv and How Does It Work

What Is Apple Tv and How Does It Work

Too Embarrassed to Inquire is a new Re/code feature in which our reviewers answer any and all of your called-for tech questions — including the ones you might be too embarrassed to ask your tech-savvy friends. Today, managing editor Lauren Goode answers a question tweeted past Re/lawmaking reader @Wmui1 .

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What is Apple TV and do I need an iPhone to utilise it?

You're a dauntless soul, @Wmui1. Correct now, a bunch of Apple fanboys are camping ground out in front of an Apple Store somewhere, already waiting for the Apple Picket, reading this post on their iDevices and snickering at your question.

Ignore them, I say! Your question isn't light-headed. Fifty-fifty the tech media is seemingly dislocated past Apple tree TV sometimes — does "Apple tree Television set" refer to the hardware that exists today, the cable-killing video service that Apple is trying to create or a theoretical Apple-branded goggle box?

Brusk answer: Apple tree Goggle box is non a TV.

Apple Tv set is a $69, palm-sized black plastic box that connects to your boob tube set via an HDMI cable. And then it connects to your habitation wireless network and brings the magic of Internet video to your Television set. It comes with a simple three-button remote.

It was initially described every bit a "hobby" for Apple. Which, in retrospect, is sort of similar Apple saying, "Hey man, I'm just shooting hoops in the backyard," when actually it's gunning for a spot in the NBA. Since the product's launch in 2007, Apple has sold 25 million of these niggling boxes.

Let me support a bit showtime. There are "dumb" TVs, and there are "smart" TVs. Smart TVs tin connect to the Cyberspace and run Web apps somewhere within the interface of the television set — click effectually with the remote, and yous can find things similar Netflix, YouTube and Facebook. "Dumb" TVs don't.

A box like Apple tree Tv set — also known as a set-top box — bridges the gap. You connect Apple tree Telly to your TV via HDMI, switch inputs to Apple tree Goggle box and voila, you are accessing Web video apps on your nice large TV screen.

The funny thing is, fifty-fifty some people with smart TVs however use Apple tree Telly. This might be because they've canceled their cablevision subscription and employ Apple Boob tube to admission video content on their TV, or because the Apple tree TV interface is only so much easier to navigate. (I am in the latter camp.)

Yous asked whether you need an iPhone to utilise Apple Idiot box. You lot do not — simply you do need an iTunes business relationship, which you'll use to sign upward, log in and buy stuff like TV shows and movies off of Apple Television set.

So what exactly can you watch on it? Apple Telly has more than 50 "channels," streaming stuff from Netflix, YouTube, HBO Get, Hulu Plus, MLB.tv, ESPN, Disney, ABC News, CNBC and more. In that location's a total list here. That doesn't mean you go all of the same content you would get from cablevision channels; you but get access to the stuff that the content provider has decided to brand available over the Web.

Some hardcore Apple users — like the ones who might be camping out in front of Apple tree Stores right now just because — too love Apple TV for its AirPlay capabilities. This ways you tin brandish whatever y'all're doing on your MacBook, or on your iPhone, on the screen of your Television receiver; provided that all of your devices are connected to the same Wi-Fi network.

But hither's the more than important thing: Apple has been in talks with Goggle box programmers to put together a package of "channels" that normally would merely be accessible through a traditional cable subscription. Case in bespeak: HBO's upcoming streaming service, HBO At present, will exist available only on Apple tree devices (like Apple TV) when it launches next month. See where this is going now? Apple's little-hobby-that-could may cease up disrupting the cable bigs.

Now, @Wmui1, earlier you run out and buy an Apple TV box, I'd advise you to consider a few things. Start, a new Apple Television set box is reportedly going to be unveiled this summer, according to this guy over at BuzzFeed.

As well, in that location are many other means to get your streaming Web video on the TV. If you happen to be a gamer and take a console like the Microsoft Xbox or the Sony PlayStation, you already take access to streaming video apps like Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Instant Video, ESPN and more.

In terms of other set-top boxes, Apple's biggest competitor in this space is the $90 Roku iii. Roku also offers a streaming "stick" that costs just $50 and basically does the aforementioned thing. Roku'due south claim to fame is that it offers more than 2,000 Web video channels, which is pretty remarkable. (Nonetheless, I have yet to meet a Roku owner who really takes advantage of all of these. If you know someone, please introduce me.)

Then there's Google's $35 Chromecast stick, which "casts" or throws the content yous're watching on your iPhone, Android phone or Chrome Web browser onto your Idiot box screen; and Amazon'due south Fire TV stick, which costs $39. Information technology streams a lot of the same pop apps that the others do, but also works with a $30 Amazon remote that lets you search for videos using voice command.

So at that place are enough of options. But if Apple does turn "Apple TV" into an over-the-superlative service for streaming video that would ordinarily simply be accessed through cablevision, that's a huge differentiator for this footling box.

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What Is Apple Tv and How Does It Work

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