Hasta La Gadget!

When we’re constantly barraged with new computers, smartphones and tablets, it’s hard to take the time to appreciate small details that have a lot of significance. Take AirPlay, for example: a feature integrated into Apple’s iOS devices to wirelessly stream content to the new Apple TV.

That feature has the potential to be killer, even at its most practical level, my friend Arnold Kim of MacRumors.com points out in today’s Tweet of the Day: “didn’t really occur to me before, but instantly streaming iphone 4 captured vids to appletv via AirPlay is a pretty killer feature.”

Think about it: You shoot some video of your kids running around in Disneyland, and when relatives or friends visit, you whip out your iPhone, tap “AirPlay” and boom — that video is streaming to your Apple TV and playing on the big screen.  (You can do the same with a photo slideshow or music stored on your iOS device.)

Sharing personal media isn’t normally so seamless: You usually have to plug in a cord and copy files onto a drive, or upload media to a website and wait for it to process. Streaming, on the other hand, is instant.

Here at Wired.com we’ve pondered about the big-picture potential for the Apple TV to be a real game changer thanks to iOS and AirPlay. If third-party apps such as Hulu, Netflix or ABC Player are able to incorporate AirPlay to wirelessly stream online video content to a TV without requiring a mess of cords or extra accessories, then Apple TV might finally be a smashing hit. Turning the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad into a multimedia remote was a clever move that effectively turned Apple TV into a media ecosystem built around iOS mobile devices; Wired.com chief Evan Hansen thinks this strategy will disrupt the cable industry.

But as marvelous as that all sounds, building up a major alternative to the traditional cable TV subscription is going to take a great deal of time, even for Apple. In the nearer future, when the Apple TV ships in the next week or two, the hassle-free convenience of being able to share your personal media with a tap of a button should be extremely compelling for gadget lovers.

See Also:

• Why iOS Could Make Apple TV Succeed
• Apple Redefines Remote Control — Now, It’s Your Cellphone
• Hands-On With New $100 Apple TV
• Apple Takes Aim at Cable With Tiny New Apple TV

Apple TV image from Apple.com

There have been two mysteries about the new Apple TV. 1) Was it still running the old Apple TV’s “Back Row” version of OS X? 2) Just how small is its new pared-down hard drive? Mystery #1 has been solved: just like the iPhone and iPad, Apple TV is now running iOS 4.

This is important for two reasons:

1. Right now, there are no apps (and no app marketplace) for Apple TV. Now we know there could be — and not on some imagined next-generation device, but this one, in the not-too-distant future.
2. The new Apple TV could be amenable to the same jailbreaking techniques that have worked on the iPhone and iPad — so even if Apple doesn’t start a TV app store, someone could start their own if they’re willing to live on the wild side.

Both of these consequences, though, are still a teensy bit dependent on the answer to that other mystery. Until we get a teardown, nobody’s sure exactly how much storage the new Apple TV is packing. There might not be room enough to store a whole bunch of apps, even if you could sideload them through that teensy micro-USB port.

I’ll let Chris Foresman at Ars Technica explain how we know Apple TV is running iOS:

Apple stores configuration information about how various iOS devices can communicate with other devices over its dock connector in a file called USBDeviceConfiguration.plist. Entries in this file have revealed early evidence of new iPhone and iPod models, and an entry labelled “iProd” later turned out to be the first iPad.

An entry in iOS 3.2 was referred to as iProd2,1, and we suspected that it was likely an early prototype of a next-gen iPad. However, an updated configuration file in iOS 4.2b1 reveals the same numeric product ID is attached to an entry for AppleTV2,1, referring to the second major hardware revision of the Apple TV. This presents solid evidence that the new Apple TV is running iOS proper, instead of the other customized version of Mac OS X used for the previous one—that should save Apple from duplicated development effort.

So if Apple TV is running iOS now, why not announce it and invite people to start making apps for it? Wouldn’t that get everyone more excited about the relaunch of Apple TV? I could think of two reasons why they wouldn’t:

1. There’s no natural interface to run existing iOS apps on Apple TV: no touchscreens TVs, definitely no multitouch, no accelerometers, no camera, etc. Until one or more of those things change, or somebody writes some nifty code to make a remote control do the same thing, you can’t port apps over. If that changes, it’s off to the races.
2. The App Store is already fragmented; not all apps work on every device, or even the same device running different versions of iOS. Throwing Apple TV in the mix, with a bunch of TV-specific applications that might or might not work terribly well on the iPad or iPhone, just makes the store more confusing. And Apple’s trying to make its TV products, especially, as simple as possible.

Confirmed: ‘iProd 2′ is the new Apple TV (TUAW)

See Also:

• Hands-On With New $100 Apple TV
• 5 Reasons Why Apple TV Is (Still) Boring
• Why iOS Could Make Apple TV Succeed
• Rumor Repeat: Apple TV to Gain iOS-Based Overhaul
• Apple Takes Aim at Cable With Tiny New Apple TV
• Gadget Lab Podcast: iPods, Apple TV and Samsung's Galaxy Tab …

The streaming media player bubble isn’t over. A new contender called Veebeam hopes to make customers reconsider how they want to get their daily fix of web video.

Veebeam wirelessly hooks up your PC to your TV so you can watch The Daily Show, Hulu, Netflix movies and The Big Bang Theory on a giant screen rather than a 22-inch monitor. The Veebeam player streams media in high-definition–780p or 1080p resolution–at speeds that can be up to four times faster than Wi-Fi.

Veebeam is competitively priced against Apple TV and the Roku box. A SD version of Veebeam costs $100, a HD version comes for $140. But for that price, Veebeam can do more than many of its peers, says Patrick Cosson, vice-president of marketing for Veebeam. Veebeam showed its product at the DEMO Fall 2010 conference Tuesday.

“Apple TV is a walled garden,” he says. “Most people’s basket of entertainment media consumption is broader so they need a platform that gives them that,” says Cosson.

It’s not a new pitch. Companies such as Google, Boxee and Netgear have been trying to tap into the growing pool of users who are now turning to web video for their entertainment.  In May, Google launched Google TV, a new set-top-box platform based on Google’s Android operating system that will have access to Flickr, gaming sites such as Club Penguin, music sites such as Pandora and traditional cable programming.

Other companies such as Roku and Boxee have been slightly less ambitious, promising just an easy way to stream web content from the PC to the TV. Boxee, though, is available only as a software program but the company has said it’s partnership with D-Link will result in a Boxee box this year.

And there’s Apple TV. Though long characterized as a “hobby” by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Apple launched a new version of the device earlier this month. Apple TV now integrates Flickr photos, allows rental of TV shows from ABC and Fox and lets users stream media from their iTunes library.

“Apple TV is a 720p solution,” says Cosson, “while we can stream at 1080p so you can advantage of that HD TV.”

Veebeam uses wireless USB to stream content from the PC to the TV. Wireless USB is more powerful for point-to-point connectivity than traditional Wi-Fi because it offers more bandwidth and less interference, says the company. Veebeam estimates 420 Mbps speeds for wireless USB.

Customers have to plug the Veebeam box to their TV and attach the USB antenna that comes with the device to their laptop.  Users can switch between the ’screencasting’ mode for sharing websites or photos and the ‘play-to’ mode for video.

Though services such as Boxee have had problems with Hulu–Hulu blocked Boxee at least thrice over two years–Veebeam is confident it can fly under the radar.

“It’s impossible for Hulu to block us,” says Cosson. “We take a series of little pictures of your computer and project it out to your TV so Hulu doesn’t know that the content is on the TV. They think its on the browser.”

That in a nutshell explains Veebeam. It’s a wireless USB hub in a pretty chassis. It doesn’t connect directly to the internet –it just streams what is on your laptop. Still, at its price it could be a cheap and painless way to get video from your notebook to your TV screen.

See Also:

• 7 Ways to Watch Web Video Without Google TV
• Boxee’s Software Gets a Box … Sorta
• 5 Ways the Cellphone Will Change How You Listen to Music
• Netgear Set to Take on Apple TV with Updated Media Player

Photos: Dylan Tweney/Wired.com

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