Apple TV Blowing Away Expectations

January 24, 2007

Breaking news tonight from a long time personal friend that works in Cupertino directly with members of the elite Apple design group. Sadly, that group will never spill the beans on what they are designing, but earlier this week, one of the members of that group disclosed that Apple TV sales are absolutely through the roof, far beyond what Apple had planned.

Specifically, orders have already exceeded the original 100,000 order that Apple had placed with Inventec, and Apple is preparing to place a second order for twice that number. Apple is now planning to sell over a million Apple TV devices leading up to the 2007 holiday season, and at least that many again during the Thanksgiving - Christmas period this year.

Apple TV is succeeding where Windows XP Media Center has failed due to its simplicity and considerably lower price. It is odd to consider Apple to be in a value market, but strangely, that is exactly what Apple TV has become. You see, its competitor is not the various network vendor products, as they come no where close to the interface and simplicity of the Apple TV; further, they don’t have the iTunes store behind them providing content. Apple TV competes directly with Windows XP Media Center, and comes in at 25% of the price! While Windows XP Media Center has become a replacement for the terrible Windows XP Home, the actual sales of devices destined to be connected to TVs in family rooms, has been very poor. Their high price, along with the mess of patching, securing and maintaining a full Windows PC in the living room is not a very attractive proposition.

Thoughts, comments? Post them below, or send them to applerecon@gmail.com. And as always, don’t forget to Digg Us!!

56 Comments | Apple, News, Rumors | Permalink
Posted by applerecon

Mac Book Mini

January 24, 2007

So, after the record breaking day yesterday, as the expression goes, when you’re on top, you’ve got nowhere to go, but down. Before we get to the recon, wanted to say one more time, THANK YOU for Digging us, posting, writing, and so forth. The more exposure we get, the more tips we get, and the more news and recon we can provide to everyone!

Okay, on to the good stuff…we’re going to focus on the Mac Book, or more specifically, the Mac Book Pro 12″/Mini/Duo/whatever you want to call it. We have gotten an overwhelming number of comments and tips about this un-announced device, and so here’s what we know to be true with the current prototypes floating around the Apple design team (yes, that is where the prototypes go, as design and engineering are done hand in hand at Apple).

Display: Confirmed use LED backlighting (to conserve battery life), and will be a 12″ Widescreen, same resolution as Mac Book, 1280×800. Only possible wrench in this plan is getting enough screens to meet Apple’s demands, but all indications as of today’s prototypes is that this is the plan going forward.

CPU: 2GHz Core 2 Duo, sorry to say it won’t be faster, but to be small, you gotta use less watts and generate less heat…especially with the graphics card that this beast has been spotted with. Still, considering that the top end will be 2.33 - 2.5 GHz, that’s really not that bad.

RAM: 1GB standard, 3GB BTO.

Storage, Video and LOTS more after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »

115 Comments | Apple, Rumors | Permalink
Posted by applerecon