More Apple TV rumors: price could be as high as $200!
First of all the date of the Apple event is now confirmed; it'll be next week, on Wednesday the 9th. This time out it's at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco; a venue that I'm told holds 7,000 people, so expect this event to be kind of a big deal. Also, for the first time Windows users will be able to stream the event. Specifically, Windows 10 users will be able to stream it in Microsoft Edge. A post at The Verge explains that the limitation is due to Apple's use of HTTP Live Streaming technology (HLS) that is supported by Edge (and Safari of course) but not Chrome, Firefox or IE. And all these years I attributed locking out Windows users to Apple snobbery!
So back to the Apple TV rumors. If, like me, you were expecting a $99 (or less!) price tag, prepare to be disappointed. It'll be either $149 or $199, with Apple still in the midst of deciding how to price it. 9to5 Mac has the story, including the news that the old Apple TV will stay around at its current $69 price.
In a second post, 9to5 Mac also says the new Apple TV will support Bluetooth game controllers similar to the ones we use with our Xboxes and Playstations. Hopefully controller support will work out better for Apple than it has for Amazon and the Fire TV.
The rest of the rumored feature list we mentioned earlier — Siri support, new larger remote and a dedicated app store — seem to be holding up to scrutiny so far.
I was onboard for a new Apple TV at $100 but it's going to take some convincing to get me to spent $200 just to stream iTunes content (pretty much everything else on the Apple TV I can stream on other boxes). $150 will even be something of a hard sell, but I really hope Apple goes with this lower price. $200 is way too much for a streaming box in this day and age.