Over the weekend, Apple Stores completed installation of new demonstration areas for Apple TV, the company’s new media players for widescreen TVs. Heralded by window displays showing a silhouetted family with an Apple Remote controlling a live television set with Apple TV demo content, the demo areas include multiple television sets and Apple TV units preloaded with music, photo, podcast, TV show, and movie content.
Visitors can test Apple TV for themselves with tethered remote controls, or watch the window demo cycle through. Low-end Sony Bravia television sets are used for the window and in-store displays, rather than the higher-end and more attractive XBR-series Bravia units that were used in prior public demonstrations.
Absent such a demonstration area, the Stores’ promotion of the new device was more limited. One Apple Store we visited previously had two units inconspicuously placed on a low shelf near AirPort Express wireless routers, placement that persisted after the window and demonstration displays were set up.