AppleTV

PaidContent.org has story today about a Forbes story about how AppleTV hasn't done so well. I'm not surprised at AppleTV's lack of success. Here's the comment I left (under my alter-alter ego, EdJones):

I was surprised when Apple announced they would be entering the Digital Media Adapter (DMA) market, but I’m not surprised to see that they are now struggling. DMAs have been around for years. When broadband, home networking and wi-fi were taking off in 2002/3, D-Link, Linksys, HP and others rushed to market with standalone devices that allowed consumers to stream their music, photos and videos from their PCs to their TVs and stereos. Market research firms breathlessly predicted sales into the 10s of millions of units anually by the end of the decade. While these devices provide a cool way to move media from the PC to the optimal environment for viewing and listening, complexity of setup and poor user interface made them difficult to use. But perhaps the biggest problem is the requirement for the consumer to purchase a completely new box to make this work. In it’s current form, the DMA, including AppleTV, is a niche product that appeals mostly to media and technology buffs. The story may have been quite different had Apple chosen to make AppleTV more closely resemble a DVR as Forbes suggests, or better, forget the hardware and integrate it’s software into an existing set top box.