Hasta La Gadget!

Though it was all about the iPhones during Apple’s big event yesterday, Apple TV is about to receive an overhaul soon as well, according to AllThingsD. It’ll arrive on September 18th, the same day as iOS 7, according to sources familiar with Apple’s plans. There’s no mention of what changes are in store, although the same source believes that Apple TVs will be able to play other users’ content via AirPlay. You’d think such change would have been mentioned by the company last night, but as with all rumors, we’ll believe it when we see it.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Apple

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Source: AllThingsD

Internet music video provider Vevo launched its linear channel on mobile devices, Xbox 360 and Roku back in March, and according to the Wall Street Journal, it may arrive on the PS3, Apple TV (directly, AirPlay support came last week) and Samsung’s Smart TV soon. After a rumor earlier this month from AdAge, the new report indicates deals with both Samsung and Apple are signed with a launch on the latter possible this week. That most of the people watching the streaming channel do so on TV-connected devices which, along with the desire to sell higher-priced TV ads is apparently behind the new push. The next moves for Vevo? Rolling out new channels that focus on specific genres or live music, renegotiating licenses for content, and off in the distance, perhaps a cable TV channel. For now, we’ll just pencil in a shift to reality TV shows, dramas and other non-music programming for 2019 or so.

Filed under: HD

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Source: Wall Street Journal

If you believe past rumors, Apple has sometimes had difficulty getting the media industry to agree with its vision of the future. Its solution may be to hire from the industry itself — Bloomberg claims that Apple has recruited Hulu’s Senior VP of Marketing and Distribution, Pete Distad, to negotiate future media deals. Neither company is commenting on the rumor, although the executive may not be immediately necessary: Bloomberg also believes that Apple is near an agreement that would bring Time Warner Cable subscribers and services to Apple TV boxes within “a few months.” Whether or not that deal happens, we suspect that Distad could at least help realize Tim Cook’s grand vision for TV.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD, Apple

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Source: Bloomberg

Apple today announced that two more entertainment options will be hitting its set-top offering. HBO Go and WatchESPN have been added to the Apple TV lineup, along with Sky News, Crunchyroll and Qello, joining the ranks of Hulu Plus, Netflix and sports from the MLB, NBA and NHL. Apple also used the opportunity to talk up some download numbers, revealing that iTunes users have downloaded one billion TV episodes and 380 million movies. At present, more than 800,000 episodes and 350,000 movies are purchased per day.

Update: As All Things D points out, the new offerings might not be so rosy for Dish and DirecTV subscribers.

Filed under: HD, Apple

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The team behind the Plex media playback package seems to rarely rest, and has most recently pushed an update to the server end of the software. Now up to version 0.9.8 and nearing the lofty 1.0 tag, Plex Media Server is finally offering proper multiuser support, giving each user their own view state. That means your kids can have their own account, for example, with access to only certain silos of content. Even better, the Web, iOS, Android and Roku clients are already prepared for this, and the others are getting updates soon, although it’s currently only enabled for PlexPass subscribers. Also new is a “now playing” status which carries more importance thanks to the previously mentioned multiuser feature, all viewable through Plex/Web or accessible via the API. The last major change is that it can create video index file that drops in thumbnails for each section of a video. That enables image previews while navigating on the Roku, and thumbnails of progress in that new now playing feature.

On the client end, the Plex blog highlighted an interesting project called PlexConnect which runs on the Apple TV. While that’s not new by itself, the twist here is that it works on Apple TV second and even third generation boxes without the need for a jailbreak. This bit of magic is apparently achieved by spoofing Apple’s Trailer app, which means it requires firmware 5.0 or higher to work. It doesn’t have all the features of other clients (yet) and it will require a bit of Terminal know-how to get running, but there’s plenty of information in the wiki to get you started.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Source: Plex Media Server, PlexConnect