Apple TV - Part 2: Apple Enters the Digital Home
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 26, 2007 1:22 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Gather 'round, let's watch movie trailers
The Apple TV is a purely passive machine; you can view all the content you want on it, but you cannot under any circumstances acquire new content. Sure you can sync to other computers, but you cannot purchase new content from the iTunes Store from the comfort of your couch. While this is great for preventing impulse buys, it also weakens the experience.
In the early days, the point of a digital media extender was to simply get content off of your PC and access it in some other room. These days, the requirements are far greater. We don't just want a device that can stream (or in this case, copy) data from your computer, we want a device that can extend some of the functionality of your PC as well.
The Apple TV does a great job giving you access to all of the movie trailers available on its website, but where's the integration with Rotten Tomatoes or Google Movie Listings? Apple TV lets you gather all of your friends around and get excited about an upcoming movie, but then you still have to go back to your Mac or PC to do the obvious next step in your quest for entertainment. We're not asking for a full fledged web browser as that's counterproductive, but what we are asking is for something a little more capable than what we've been given.
The analogy extends far beyond just watching movie trailers; if the Apple TV is designed for the user who has a lot of content purchased from the iTunes Store, it sure does a terrible job of encouraging its users to purchase from the store. The Apple TV interface allows you to get previews of the top 10 movies, music, and TV shows currently available on the iTunes Store but if you decide you want any of them you have to head back to your computer to actually buy them.
We understand that it's far easier from a security standpoint to only allow a transaction at one point on the network, but we can't help but list the inability to purchase content on the Apple TV as a flaw.
For what it's worth, the actual inclusion of the top 10 most popular content on the iTunes Store is a nice addition. It does give you a great way to preview things you may like, even if it requires a trip back to the desk to purchase/pirate it.
Easy access to movie trailers is something Apple has always done well and the Apple TV handles it no differently. It's far easier getting access to the latest movie trailers on the Apple TV than on the Xbox 360 for example; the very fast and simple interface is mostly to thank for that. Content streams incredibly fast from Apple's servers to the Apple TV, so quickly in fact that we believe the actual trailers are 480p and simply upscaled if you have a higher resolution display.
Despite having a quicker interface than the Xbox 360, Microsoft did do one thing better than Apple with regards to getting access to previews of content. On the Apple TV, you have no way of knowing what's new. You can get a list of all of the movie trailers you can download, but there's currently no support for showing you what's been added since the last time you checked. It's probably a trivial thing to add later on through an update, but it's the type of functionality that you'd honestly expect out of the box.
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Hulk - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
Great review by Anand as usual but a very disappointing product.No native 1080p and not H.264 at higher resolutions and bitrates makes it useless for me to even consider.
No thanks I'll just build a HTPC that actually plays back high quality, high resolution video and has loads of storage.
sprockkets - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
But a mini itx with a AM2 or new via processor with a tuner card is almost as small and more useful. And much more expensive.Phynaz - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
DivX support was hacked in last week.BladeVenom - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
Coming out with a device that doesn't play 99.99% of the videos available just doesn't make any sense to me. If you want to hook a TV to your computer get a $30 cable, not a $300 box that doesn't even play the most common formats.rrsurfer1 - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
Well I have an old xbox, not 360, the first version, that does better as a media extender than this. Of course it has a modchip, but still, it has basically none of the flaws discussed here and it costs a hell of a lot less. I've had almost no issues with it, and it plays everything I want it to.BoberFett - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
With the ease of soft mods these days, the Xbox with XBMC is still the best thing going. Under $100 for a used Xbox, and the only thing it lacks that I can see is hi def. And since it sounds like the Apple TV only supports HD somewhat (limited bitrates, no 1080p) it isn't as good as the Xbox, especially when you consider all the extra functionality the Xbox has as a game machine, DVD player, emulation box, etc. The Xbox also isn't limited to streaming from a host machine using iTunes or Windows MCE. Perhaps someday the PS3 or 360 will be properly cracked and step into that role, but for now I'm sticking with XBMC on the original Xbox.dugbug - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
Why are folks holding their punches with this product? Anand, you should not be gentle with products just to appease the applenauts. This thing is $300 and offers hardly any value.Media center and tivo both destroy the thing so utterly. I am more than shocked as well with how well the xbox 360 works as an extender.
-d
Chadder007 - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
Add 1080p supportAdd a way for users to somehow remote control their MAC from the Apple TV
Add support for more media types
somegeek - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
Anand Shimpi CES '07: "Convergence Happened."No it didn't, and it never will.
"Convergence" is one of those horrible, ambiguous, buzz-words that are used by people who have no real ideas. "Convergent" devices will all fail because they're too expensive, too limited, too hard to use, too hard to make, and specialized devices are a lot more profitable and easier to sell. Set-top boxes and HTPCs have consistently been ignored by the mainstream and the AppleTV won't be any different. When new, divergent technology becomes mainstream, all the annoying "convergence" people will claim that's what they meant all along.
creathir - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
Anand,You should also review the 360 with the Media Center in Vista. This setup is really quite simple, elegant, and addresses many of the issues you have with the AppleTV product. There are a few issues with codecs, as some of the more... questionable ones are not "natively" supported, but independent software developers out there have addressed these issues with transcoding add-ins that transcode on the fly. You really should check it out.
- Creathir