Correct me if I’m wrong, but every Apple product I’ve ever seen can be turned OFF (except for the iPod shuffle). In the storied annals of consumer electronics, I am betting there’s generally a good reason for this. In my naive experience, things that are OFF can rarely experience problems when in that mode.
Now, I was an early adopter of the Apple TV. Since then I have had a love/hate relationship with the device, which I think is rather something Steve wishes he had not hit the launch button for.
There is an obscure feature (Steve has an aversion to buttons) wherein if you hold down the “PLAY” button for five seconds, the Apple TV appears to turn off. But here’s the rub: It doesn’t, really. To perform its magic, the AppleTV needs to be able to sync with or stream from a remote PC/Mac. However, this doesn’t mean it needs to be on all the time. But it is.  Â
Strangely, Apple TVs cannot, under any circumstance, be turned off. This is kind of a pain when you sleep in the same room as an Apple TV, or when it’s summertime. Or worse: both. The tiny little fan desperately struggling to keep your Apple TV’s processor, hard drive and logic board from melting works pretty hard. As a result, it spins .. well .. all the time. The only way to give your Apple TV a break is to unplug it.
An OFF function that actually turns the Apple TV OFF (from a user’s perspective .. this would probably actually hibernate) would be a novel and downright sensible function, don’t you think Steve?
In the Apple TV’s world, the “standby” functions merely disable video output. Otherwise the Apple TV functions as normal — chewing up power, creating heat, and making noise. Most of this time it’s doing nothing … just waiting to sync. How boring life as an Apple TV must be!
Myriad problems are created by Apple’s aversion to this simple function:
- Frequent overheating of the device (this past August you could cook with it)
- Unwelcome fan/drive noise (my ATV is in the bedroom) … which leads to
- Media corruptions when users shut off the ATV the only way they can, by unplugging it or kicking the OFF button on a power bar
I admit that last problem afflicts me frequently, and I am on my second hard drive.. with such small hard drives (40GB or 160GB? come ON) syncing a large library fills up the drive on the ATV pretty fast, and leads inevitably to various corruptions.. all made worse when power is roughly disconnected by sleepless owners like me.
There is nothing whatsoever to prevent the Apple TV from implementing a soft-power-off and waking the device sporadically to see if there’s new content on the iTunes library or store and then deep-sleeping again after a sync is done. Nothing to inhibit a simple click of the all-powerful PLAY button on the remote from waking the Apple TV from its slumber within a few seconds, rising to the challenge of trying to render HD video — as it so often struggles to do.
The frustrating thing about the Apple TV is that it’s so very close to being the best product in the category — but inattention to detail and downright boneheadedness in its software implementation, combined with very poor hardware performance, make it almost useless as a mainstream consumer device.
I have hundreds of consumer electronics products in my home. The only other device that doesn’t turn OFF is my fridge. Get with the program, guys. Now that Apple is trying to “go green” and appease board member Al Gore, among others, the always-on AppleTV is a black eye.
You’ll notice the Apple TV is conspicuously lacking an EnergySTAR compliance logo. Wonder why?
I am shocked considering one of Apple’s major marketing push is how it is going green.
OK, this won’t help you switch it off, but…
with mine, I found the best thing was to rig up a few PC fans with a 12v converter and have this running 24/7 aimed at the back of the ATV unit. These fans are good quality and run silently. They keep the ATV cool enough that it doesn’t need to use its own, internal fan.
Probably uses about the same amount of power though 🙁
Matt- did you read the article? I did and I am simply reiterating what the author has said; but emphasizing the point: don’t make it a big deal, just turn off the power strip or unplug the thing.
Oh Matt, you didn’t understand: DON”T MAKE IT A BIG DEAL, JUST TURN OFF THE POWER STRIP OR UNPLUG THE TING.h
I think the article states fairly plainly why that isn’t a good idea. Generally speaking the Apple TV has to do a complete rebuild after you interrupt its power source.
The biggest misperception about AppleTV has always been very simple… people want it to be a Mac, when it is simply an iPod.
It is an iPod for streaming video, and not much else. The terribly small capacity reflects its origins as a growth from the iPod model of function, and remember (and any update to the device should have this) It was probably considered a possible docking station for a portable iPod as well (hidden under the hood of the first models, until it was realized, iTunes store bloat would overwhelm it.
Now, would you say, other than capacity, that the typical iPod Touch or iPhone now offers -more- than the AppleTV, which has not shifted much? Probably. It is a place holder until the HDTV transition gets its act in gear, regarding tuning standards. Would a MacMini work better, doubling, with some effort, as a Tivo like DVR/DVD with blueray perhaps in the future? Yes, but it wouldn’t meet the price point. The idea is, you have a cheap box you can attach to your TV(s), and not worry about much else, as long as viewing your media is involved. Media you conveniently got from the iTunes Store, so Hollywood et al would not get up tight. AppleTV is a probe, a toe into the water, that will safely go ignored while one sizes up the pool.
Spoken like a true person that has never used an AppleTV. It’s a streaming video, audio, photo, podcast, etc… device… so its capacity is unlimited since the ATV uses the internet as one big hard drive. I’ve used my ATV hard for almost 3 years and the 40GB drive only has about 6GB used. So you fundamentally don’t understand how it operates.
The interface runs circles around a Mac mini running FrontRow so except for yes, it not having a sleep mode, it’s Apple’s best value in their entire product line.
Buy a clue! Your Mac is never really off either. That’s why they can have the “on/off” switch on the keyboard, and why Mac’s can be “powered on” remotely via ADB (Apple Desktop Bus), ethernet or USB. This has been the case since the mid 1980s when Apple specifically recommended NOT turning off the power strip that fed your Mac. This was contrary to the IBM PC (and it’s clones). Their on/off switches were built into the power supply, on the AC side of the converter.
Apple Printers could be “turned on and off” by the Mac. Ditto Apple Displays.
Steve, why buy clues when I can get them for free? Here‘s info on the range of Linux suspend options, as an example:
My MacBook Pro can sleep, my Mac Pro can sleep. My Apple TV should too.
And BTW, Wake-on-LAN is a feature that every computer has, regardless of OS or type of fruit used as logo.
@ steve w
but the AppleTV simply never powers down, there is NO sleep mode like a Mac, Printers, Monitors, Hard Drives, etc. Plus there is NO power switch, you have to pull the plug. That’s what this article is discussing.
Try reading the article, Alan, for an explanation of why your suggestion doesn’t work.
“There is nothing whatsoever to prevent the Apple TV from implementing a soft-power-off and waking the device sporadically to see if there’s new content on the iTunes library or store and then deep-sleeping again after a sync is done.”
Actually, there is. The power supply is always on, there is no CPU control over it. Even under Linux, there is no way to “sleep” the system as once in sleep, there’s no method to wake it. These things don’t happen by magic, the hardware/firmware/operating system must all support the ability to sleep the CPU/hardware. The current AppleTV design does not support any form of sleeping.
Its easy.
Solution one. Buy a surge protector. Plug in the Apple TV to the protector. Turn the protector off at night.
Solution two. Unplug the thing.
nah, that’s no solution since it restarts the entire AppleTV which is no fun if you want to use it like a TV. There is a name for the component it is missing. RVCH or some such. The upcoming AppleTV will surely have it, or it could entirely be a Steve thing since he knows it’s going to be a torrent like server in the next rev, so always needs to be on. Hum.