Line of Business
Turning on Apple
Apple TV is selling well, but until more content is available only a small number of dealers can carry the box4/25/2007 11:52:00 AM By: Kathleen Sibley
Canadian consumers can't buy TV shows and movies through iTunes yet. But that's no reason Apple dealers shouldn't be enthusiastic about offering Apple TV to their customers, according to a member of the Apple Independent Retailers Council.Ron Paley, also president of authorized Apple reseller Carbon Computing in Toronto, said the $349 device has been flying off the shelves.
“We're selling them as fast as we get them and it will keep growing in popularity,” says Paley.
Apple TV, a 20x20-centimetrebox, works by wirelessly syncing to an iTunes library and connects to a widescreen TV via an HDMI port or component video and audio parts. It also comes with a built-in 40 GB hard drive, allowing you to stream and store any content from an iTunes library, including music and podcasts along with TV shows, video clips and movies.
The fact that Canadians can't buy iTunes content for TV yet is irrelevant, says Paley.
“A lot of people have content on their Macs and PCs to begin with and you can put other content into iTunes,” says Paley. “Is it as useful as it will be in a month's time? No, but it will be.”
Its potential impact on Apple dealers is hard to say, though, he adds.
“It's early. Is it lucrative? I think the truth is we don't know,” he says. “When the iPod was first introduced we had no idea (it would become so popular). It's clear Apple is innovating and innovating well. There is a need to get content from your computer onto your TV and there has been no easy way to do it. Now there is.”
Future versions, he says, will no doubt resolve any current issues or questions about the device, such as whether the resolution is high enough, but Paley sees it as a “tremendous sales tool” for Apple. It's small, simple, and does what it's supposed to do well, he says.
“It will absolutely double Apple's market share,” he says. “It just gets people to think about the architecture of the things they use.”
Mary Percat, national sales manager for Apple Canada, says at the moment, only a subset of authorized Canadian Apple dealers are allowed to carry the product until more content is available for Canadians through iTunes. The subset, she says, is limited to those with a retail store front who can adequately demonstrate the product.
Percat couldn't give an exact figure, but said there are a “good number” of dealers carrying Apple TV.
Although Apple sees the device initially as a consumer product, it has potential beyond the living room, she says.
“I have heard some dealers looking at some interesting applications,” says Percat. “One was in the context of specialized content in, say, a dental or medical office, where you would see specialized content as a patient.”
William Powell, strategic development manager at Apple Canada, added the product has huge potential among its educational customers.
“There is lots of content around science experiments in physics and chemistry labs and there is all sorts of video available for education,” he says.
Apple TV is another piece of Apple's digital hub strategy, which sees the Mac OS as the command centre managing a user's photos, music, movies and videos. “It's one of the missing pieces because you can watch (content) and listen (to music) on your computer and on your iPod, and now for the first time you can watch and listen on your home theatre. And that's a great thing for us because a lot of people have a lot of content in their iTunes library and photo library,” says Powell. “And now that podcasts are becoming very popular there is a lot of content in podcast directories. The Apple TV is the only device on the market able to send all those to your widescreen TV.”
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