Apple TV sales up threefold, will see continued investment

Purportedly left for dead and mocked by pundits, Apple TV has actually turned into a productive hobby for Apple that will see continued development in the future, with sales rising threefold over the past year, according to acting chief executive Tim Cook.

Speaking in the company's financial results conference call, Cook said, "there was a tremendous tickup year over year [for Apple TV]. In fact unit sales were up over 3 times vs the year-ago quarter. Â However let me be clear, we still consider this a hobby."

Cook explained, "It Is clear the movie rental business is working and there are more customers who want to try it. Â We will continue to invest there, because we believe there is something there for us in the future."

When asked about the "digital living room opportunity and how it relates to Apple TV" during the last quarterly conference call in October, Steve Jobs replied, "well again I think the whole category is still a hobby right now. I don't think anybody has succeeded at it. And actually the experimentation has slowed down. A lot of the early companies that were trying things have faded away."

"So I have to say that given the economic conditions, given the venture capital outlook and stuff, I continue to believe that it will be a hobby in 2009."

Apple released its Take Two software update for Apple TV a year ago, and has since released additional three free updates for users.

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78 Comments

postulant 1268 comments · 16 Years

About 15 years ago

I love the convenience of my AppleTV:

Call my gf over
Order up a pizza
Hop in the shower
Cuddle up
Rent

eai 407 comments · 19 Years

Frankly, it'll continue to be a hobby till they improve the software and take on board what their customers (and more importantly, potential customers) want. For example, I want to be able to watch things I download from the internet (not via iTunes). I also want to be able to watch the BBC iPlayer (a UK specific hulu-like service from the BBC). Neither of those two things are possible with Apple TV, but both are possible with a number of competitors (e.g. Boxee). So, I'll probably buy a Mac Mini instead, and do it that way (if they ever update it)...

They're really missing so many opportunities here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Postulant

I love the convenience of my AppleTV:

Call my gf over
Order up a pizza
Hop in the shower
Cuddle up
Rent

At what point does your gf join you in this?

webfrasse 147 comments · 16 Years

Originally Posted by eAi

Frankly, it'll continue to be a hobby till they improve the software and take on board what their customers (and more importantly, potential customers) want. For example, I want to be able to watch things I download from the internet (not via iTunes). I also want to be able to watch the BBC iPlayer (a UK specific hulu-like service from the BBC). Neither of those two things are possible with Apple TV, but both are possible with a number of competitors (e.g. Boxee). So, I'll probably buy a Mac Mini instead, and do it that way (if they ever update it)...

They're really missing so many opportunities here.

Super easy to hack your ATV and get Boxee and XMBC installed and do what you want. Take a look at ATV Flash. It doesn't break anything on your ATV.

caliminius 941 comments · 18 Years

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Purportedly left for dead and mocked by pundits, Apple TV has actually turned into a productive hobby for Apple, with sales up 300% over the year ago quarter according to company COO Tim Cook.

Speaking in the company's financial results conference call, Cook said, "there was a tremendous tickup year over year [for Apple TV]. In fact unit sales were up over 3 times vs the year-ago quarter. *However let me be clear, we still consider this a hobby.

Could you maybe fix the faulty math in this article? If sales were over 3 times that means sales increased by something over 200% not 300%, otherwise sales would have been 4 times higher.

Also, I'm guessing there weren't any real numbers mentioned. I mean if they only sold 100 last year, tripling that isn't really anything to be proud of. I'm guessing they were higher, but without any solid numbers (and it still being referred to as a hobby) I'm also going to guess sales were still pretty piss poor.