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Thursday, October 25, 2012, 06:03 pm
Apple upgrades Apple TV to 'beloved hobby' as sales doubled to over 5M in fiscal 2012
During its conference call for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2012, Apple announced that Apple TV sales hit five million units by the end of the fiscal year, prompting CEO Tim Cook to call the product a "beloved hobby."
The increase in sales represents a near doubling of the 2.8 million Apple TVs sold over the course of 2011, and growth is looking fairly stable going into the holiday shopping season.
For its fourth fiscal quarter of 2012, Apple announced that it sold 1.3 million Apple TVs, a 100 percent increase from the year-ago quarter. The number is identical to the device's performance in the June quarter, which also saw 1.3 million unit sales, representing a 170 percent increase from the same period in 2011.
After a hardware refresh in March, the $99 media streamer gained the ability to output 1080p video, making the small device an enticing option for customers who didn't already own a legacy version.
While the so-called "hobby" is reaching new heights with an ever-expanding audience, Apple is rumored to be working on a derivation of the Apple TV which may come in the form of a set-top cable box with cloud-based content storage, or an advanced universal remote. The purported device is not expected to debut anytime soon, however, as analysts speculate a 2013 launch.
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Previous Comments View All
Apple TV is good enough to be a major reason I stay in the Apple ecosystem, I have it and a Roku hooked up to my home theater projector.
The remote app for iOS devices is genius, Airplay and mirroring from iOS & OSX PC's is flipping awesome.
The Roku is great, but it requires a reboot every day or so after it freezes up.
Just picked up a 2nd one for the bedroom.
Airplay from any Mac and iOS device makes it almost perfect.
I love using AirPlay and home sharing with my apple tv I also have an air port express hooked up for audio with out the tv on. However home sharing seems to be broken on iOS 6. When I try to load my iMac iTunes library on my 4s it wont load most of my music. It still works for my old 3GS and my iPad I both running ios5. Does everyone have this problem?
Double post sorry:\
Wow..5M!! Pretty darn good for a hobby! <3 my AppleTV. I just wish you could add HBOGo to it.
Adobe TV, BBC, all coming shortly (guessing/hoping). As an avid user, the WSJ videos (apart from the crap repeating adverts and crap motion graphics) is a convenient ondemand news source and hopefully a taste of whats to come. (the live feed of the 23rd event, pixelated often which was a bit disconcerting assuming apple where experimenting)
I checked, no update available for my Apple TVs ... I want mine to be beloved too 
Seriously though, why can't there be an Apple TV app for iPads! I mean literally identical to Apple TV's interface, for when away from home.
I love using AirPlay and home sharing with my apple tv I also have an air port express hooked up for audio with out the tv on. However home sharing seems to be broken on iOS 6. When I try to load my iMac iTunes library on my 4s it wont load most of my music. It still works for my old 3GS and my iPad I both running ios5. Does everyone have this problem?
I use iTunes Match now since iOS 6 on all devices so not sure.
With the myriad of product leaks Apple has experienced lately it's refreshing to know that if this set top box actually exists, that they've been able to keep it secrect.
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Apple TV is the best example of why Apple products are great. It is limited in what it can do, but it does what it does perfectly. You're under no illusions about what you're buying.
I think that's really what makes their design philosophy so strong. Microsoft are keen to have the Surface do everything - it will be a tablet and a PC (if you attach a keyboard to it) and it will do neither especially well. The iPad however is 100% tablet and it does that really well. That it can do some stuff you would normally do on a PC is merely an interesting side effect - Apples aim was to make the tablet be perfect as a tablet.
The Apple TV is the same.
I love my Apple TV.