Second generation of Apple TV to cross million sales mark

BERLIN - Apple’s set-top box TV system Apple TV has long since passed the phase where it’s the domain of hobbyists, according to Apple head Steve Jobs.

That’s because the second generation of the Apple TV system is set to surpass the million sales mark in the next weeks, if it hasn’t done so already.

“Apple had seriously underestimated the possible sales of Apple TV, particularly in Europe,” said Archibald Horlitz, head of Gravis, an Apple vendor in Europe, in an interview with DPA.

He says he could have sold three times the Apple TV sets he had in his stores. Unfortunately, more have not arrived.

Unlike the first generation of Apple TV, the newer version has no built-in hard drive. Instead, it streams contents from the internet onto a hard drive or a local network.

The service allows videos from services like iTunes, YouTube or Netflix to be transferred from Apple TV to a television. Photos and videos from services like Flickr and MobileMe can also be transferred.

“Currently, iTunes customers rent and buy more than 400,000 TV episodes and more than 150,000 films a day.”

Horlitz said the company did not factor in how popular such a device might be in Germany.

“People just spontaneously pick up a device that costs 120 euros ($158), even if there aren’t as many services available in Europe as in the US.”

Jobs has routinely referred to Apple TV as his hobby because sales of the set-top boxes, until now, have been sluggish.